The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Theory of Creation: A Review of 'Vestiges
of the Natural History of Creation', by Francis Bowen

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Title: A Theory of Creation: A Review of 'Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation'

Author: Francis Bowen

Release Date: February 19, 2008 [EBook #24648]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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A THEORY OF CREATION.

A

REVIEW

OF

"VESTIGES OF THE NATURAL HISTORY OF

CREATION."

FROM THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW FOR APRIL, 1845.

BOSTON:
OTIS, BROADERS, AND COMPANY,
120 WASHINGTON STREET.
1845.

CAMBRIDGE:
METCALF AND COMPANY,
PRINTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY.

A

THEORY OF CREATION.

_Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation._ New York: Wiley &
Putnam. 1845. 12mo. pp. 291.

This is one of the most striking and ingenious scientific romances that
we have ever read. The writer of it is a bold man; he has undertaken to
give a hypothetical history of creation, beginning, as the title-pages
say, at the earliest period, and coming down to the present day. It is
not quite so authentic as that of Moses, nor is it written with such an
air of simplicity and confidence as the narrative of the Jewish
historian; but it is much longer, and goes into a far greater variety of
interesting particulars. It contradicts the Jewish cosmogony in a few
particulars, and is at variance with probability and the ordinary laws
of human reasoning in many others. But the rather liberal rules of
interpretation, which it is now the fashion to apply to the first
chapter of Genesis, will relieve the reader from any scruples on the
former account; and as to the latter, in these days of scientific
quackery, it would be quite too harsh to make any great complaint about
such peccadilloes. The writer has taken up almost every questionable
fact and startling hypothesis, that have been promulgated by proficients
or pretenders