existence is enough to silence
all our presumptive reasonings. And surely it is not less--it is much
more--presumptuous to affirm that, existing as they do, they could not
have been brought into being, without disparagement to Divine wisdom,
otherwise than by the action of established laws, or by a process of
natural development; as if it were unworthy of God to _produce_ that for
whose production He confessedly did make _provision_.

But, further, we see here very strikingly exemplified the tendency of
such speculations to _exclude God from all real, active, and direct
connection with His works_. The dominion of Natural Law, which, as we
shall afterwards see, is held by M. Comte and Mr. Combe to exclude the
doctrine of a special Providence and the efficacy of prayer, is here
extended, by the author of "The Vestiges," so as to be exclusive also of
any direct Divine interposition in the work of Creation itself, other
than what may have been implied in the aboriginal production of matter
and its laws, or in the subsequent concurrence of His will with the
action of these laws in the established order of Nature.

We have said that the Theory of Development, as expounded in "The
Vestiges," is not necessarily atheistic, partly because the author
professedly disclaims Atheism, and partly also because, in strict logic,
it might still be possible, even on the basis of that theory, considered
simply in itself and apart from the speculations with which it has been
associated, to construct, from the actual phenomena of Nature, a valid
proof for the being and attributes of God. And yet we have thought it
necessary to advert to it as one of the recent speculations of science,
because, whatever may be its _professed aim_, its _practical tendency_
is unquestionably hostile to the influence of religious truth. It will
be found, in the great majority of cases, and especially in the case of
ardent youthful minds, that this theory, when it is embraced as an
article of their philosophic creed, is, to all practical purposes,
tantamount to Atheism. For not to insist on the consideration, so
forcibly stated by others,[55] that the natural argument for the
Immortality of Man, or for the doctrine of a Future Life, as implying
distinct individuality and continued self-consciousness, must be
materially weakened, if not entirely neutralized, by a theory of
development which traces the human lineage up through the monkeys and
fishes to albumen imp