getable kingdoms, so that all the races may be
arranged, not indeed in a linear series, but in families or groups,
bearing analogous relations to each other, and showing a general
progress from the more simple to the more complex forms. Surely, these
facts, so clearly explained by our author, instead of sustaining the
corpuscular philosophy, directly militate with it, and afford the most
satisfactory proof of the doctrine of the theist, and the theory of
continuous divine agency. We have hardly ever met with a book that
furnished more complete materials for its own refutation.

After all, the question is a very simple one. We have only to decide
whether it is more likely, that the complex system of things in the
midst of which we live,--the beautiful harmonies between the organic and
inorganic world, the nice arrangements and curious adaptations that
obtain in each, the simplicity and uniformity of the general plan to
which the vast multitude of details may be reduced,--was built up, and
is now sustained, by one all-wise and all-powerful Being, or by
particles of brute matter, acting of themselves, without direction,
interference, or control. We cannot now say, that possibly the system
never had a beginning, but has always existed under the form in which it
now appears to us; geology has disproved _that_ supposition most
effectually. Choose ye, then, between mind and matter, between an
intelligent being and a stone, for the parentage and support of this
wonderful system. For our own part, we will adopt the conclusion of one
of the most eloquent of those old pagan philosophers, on whose eyes the
light of immediate revelation never dawned:--"_Hic ego non mirer esse
quemquam, qui sibi persuadeat, corpora quaedam solida atque individua vi
et gravitate ferri, mundumque effici ornatissimum et pulcherrimum ex
corum corporum concursione fortuita? Quod si mundum efficere potest
concursus atomorum, cur porticum, cur templum, cur domum, cur urbem non
potest, quae sunt minus operosa, et multo quidem faciliora? Certe ita
temere de mundo effutiunt, ut mihi quidem nunquam hunc admirabilem
coeli ornatum, qui locus est proximus, suspexisse videantur._"

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: _N. A. Review_, Vol. LVI., pp. 339-351.]

[Footnote 2: "It is inconceivable, that inanimate brute matter should,
without the mediation of something else, which is not material, operate
upon and affect other matter without mutual contact, as it must, if
grav