e production of the human
race, by showing that the existing types may have sprung, by a process
of gradual development, from inferior races previously existing, and
that these again may have been produced by the action of chemical agents
in certain favorable conditions. It has been applied, thirdly, to
explain all the most important phenomena of Human History, and to
illustrate the law which is supposed to determine and regulate the
progressive course of civilization, so as to account, on natural
principles, for the origin and prevalence of the various forms of
Religion, and even for the introduction, in its appointed season, of
Christianity itself, without having recourse to anything so utterly
unphilosophical as the idea of a Divine Revelation, or the supposition
of supernatural agency. And it has been applied, fourthly, to explain
the order, and to vindicate the use, of those additions both to the
doctrines and rites of primitive Christianity, which Protestants have
denounced as _corruptions_, but which Popish and Tractarian writers
defend as _developments_, of the system that was originally deposited,
like a prolific germ or seed, in the bosom of the Catholic Church.

It is the more necessary to examine the various forms of this theory,
because unquestionably it can appeal to not a few _natural analogies_,
which may serve, on a superficial view, to give it the aspect of
verisimilitude. For many of the most signal works of God have been
manifestly framed on the principle of gradual growth, and matured by a
process of progressive development. We see in the natural world a small
seed deposited in the earth, which, under the agency of certain suitable
influences, germinates and springs up, producing first a tender shoot,
then a stem, and branches, and leaves, and blossoms, and fruit; and
every herb or tree, "having seed in itself," makes provision for the
repetition of the same process, and the perpetuation and indefinite
increase of its kind. The same law is observed in the animal kingdom,
where a continuous race is produced from a single pair. And even in the
supernatural scheme of Revelation itself, the truth was gradually
unfolded in a series of successive dispensations; the First Promise
being the germ, which expanded as the Church advanced, until it reached
its full development in the Scriptures of the New Testament. These and
similar instances may suffice to show that, both in the natural and
supernatural Provid