ecies of superstition which causes people
to take upon credit whatever assumes the name of science, and is opposed
to the old superstition of faith in witches and ghosts." With this
speculation before us, seemingly plausible, yet false, being fraught
with error, we are reminded of the fact that it has been eagerly
embraced by many who seem to think that it has a firm foundation in the
science of Geology, which they regard as presenting the order in which
created beings appeared. The author of the "Vestiges" claims that the
first step in the creation of life upon our earth was a
_chemico-electric_ operation, forming simple germinal vesicles. Page
155.

This is an item wholly unknown in the geological record and lies before
the beginning of any kind of similitude alluded to in this article. "The
idea which I form of the progress of organic life upon our earth," says
the author of the Vestiges, "is that the simplest and most primitive
type gave birth to the type next above it, and this again produced the
next higher, and so on to the very highest." Page 170.

On account of the mere similitude existing between the doctrine of
progressive creation, as it is set forth in the geological record, and
the idea of progressive evolutions, as claimed by the advocates of the
speculation, we deem it our duty to scrutinize severely the teachings of
geology. But in doing this we do not concede that there is no other
ground upon which such authors may be successfully met. There is no one
point in their system which is not hypothetical. It is a system of
_ifs_. There is no proof, in any single instance, that a higher has been
developed from a lower species; but the question, in proper shape, is
this: Has there been a succession of improvements from one geological
period to another in the several divisions of the animal and vegetable
kingdoms amounting to a change of species? Species are very similar in
structure and capable of some improvement, but this is no evidence of
the higher being developed from the lower. It is well known that the
lowest forms are those found lowest in the geological series. Commencing
at the bottom and running up we find, first, mollusks, then fishes,
reptiles, birds, quadrupeds, monkeys, and at last man. But this does
not, by any means, settle the issue. The question naturally arises
whether one of those divisions, on its first appearance, was of the
lowest organization of its class and reached the highest by a