tment of Nature serve only to establish the two
great maxims of Natural History,--that _organic life can spring only
from organic life_, and that _like produces like, both in the vegetable
and animal world_.

If we have succeeded in disposing of _the facts of the case_, we shall
have little difficulty in exposing _the fallacy of the principles_ which
are involved in the author's speculations on this subject. It is of
fundamental importance, in this inquiry, to form a clear and correct
conception of the precise point at issue, and of the two alternatives
between which we are called to make our choice. It has been well said
that "the great antagonist points in the array of the opposite lines are
simply the LAW of Development _versus_ the MIRACLE of Creation."[51] And
the author of "The Vestiges" virtually acknowledges this to be the real
state of the question, when he says that "if we can see no _natural_
origin for species, a _miraculous_ one must be admitted."[52] Now, the
grand alternative being Creation by Miracle or Creation by Law, that is,
Creation by a Natural or by a Supernatural cause, we affirm that it is
utterly presumptuous and unphilosophical to represent the one as less
worthy of God, or more derogatory to His infinite perfections, than the
other. Yet the author does not hesitate to say that the _natural_ ought
to be preferred to the _miraculous_ method of accounting for the origin
both of planets and of their inhabitants, for this among other reasons,
that the latter would be derogatory to the wisdom and power of the Most
High. His words are remarkable: "The Eternal Sovereign arranges a solar
or an astral system by dispositions imparted primordially to matter; He
causes, by the same majestic means, vast oceans to form and continents
to rise, and all the grand meteoric agencies to proceed in ceaseless
alternation, so as to fit the earth for a residence of organic beings.
But when, in the course of these operations, fuci and corals are to be
for the first time placed in those oceans, a particular interference of
the Divine power is required; and this special attention is needed
whenever a new family of organisms is to be introduced,--a new fiat for
fishes, another for reptiles, a third for birds; nay, taking up the
present views of Geologists as to species, such an event as the
commencement of a certain cephalopod, one with a few new nodulosites and
corrugations upon its shell, would, on this theory, require