the earth itself. There is nothing, indeed, in any of the
kingdoms of Nature that may not be included in it, since the formation
of all material bodies, organic or inorganic, is supposed to be
sufficiently accounted for by the sole action of Chemical or Mechanical
laws. The wide range of this theory is strikingly illustrated by the
words of one whose powers of observation have added some interesting
discoveries to Natural History, but whose speculations on the origin of
Nature resemble the distempered ravings of lunacy, rather than the
mature results of philosophic thought "Physio-philosophy has to show,"
says Dr. Oken, "how, and in accordance indeed with what laws, the
Material took its origin, and, therefore, how something took its
existence from nothing. It has to portray the first periods of _the
world's development from nothing_; how the elements and heavenly bodies
originated; in what method, _by self-evolution_ into higher and manifold
forms, they separated into minerals, became finally organic, and, in
man, attained self-consciousness.... Physio-philosophy is, therefore,
_the generative history of the world_; or, in general terms, the history
of Creation, a name under which it was taught by the most ancient
philosophers, namely, as Cosmogony. From its embracing the Universe, it
is plainly the Genesis of Moses!"[37]

It will be observed that this strange speculation goes far beyond the
comparatively modest conjecture of La Place. It postulates _nothing_,
and undertakes to account for _everything_. In flagrant opposition to
the old atheistic maxim, "Ex nihilo, nihil," it boldly affirms, "Ex
nihilo, omnia." It speaks, indeed, of "laws in accordance with which the
world took its origin;" but these laws must be as abstract as those of
Mathematics, since they existed before matter itself; nay, more
abstract, or, rather, more inconceivable still, since they existed, it
would seem, even before Mind! Dr. Oken attempts to explain the
production of the world from nothing by comparing it to the evolution of
Arithmetical and Mathematical Science, out of the fundamental conception
of _zero_! But, waiving this, we shall direct our attention to the only
points in this theory which, in the existing state of speculative
thought, can be held to have any practical interest in connection with
our great theme.

That theory attempts to account for the production both of the FLORA and
the FAUNA of the natural world by _the process of