to develope himself. This individual element according to our hypothesis, is at first simply reproduced; then after some considerable time its descendants will, little by little, in their own sphere of activity, give birth to other elements in juxtaposition to themselves, in this manner perfecting it, and identifying more and more with the vertebrate type, which it offers for our consideration. After some considerable time, vertebrates of as simple an organism as myxine and lampreys will have thus appeared. Then again, after another considerable lapse of time-millions of centuries rather than thousands-these animals with elementary vertebra, will have successively produced, by transformation, all the vertebrata which stock the globe at the present day." (4–124.)

Between the time of Lamarck and that of the publication of the "Origin of Species," the most important work on the subject appeared anonymously in 1844, under the title of "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation." It is a work of extraordinary ability, and the theory proposed, with all its defects, has the merit of recognizing the evidence of creative design.

What it was as originally published may be gathered from the following extracts:-"The first step in the creation of life upon the planet was a chemico-electric operation, by which simple germinal vesicles were produced. This is so much, but what were the next steps? I suggest as an hypothesis countenanced by much that is ascer

much that remains to be known, that the first step was an advance under peculiar conditions from the simplest forms of beings to the most complicated, and this through the medium of the ordinary process of generation." (1st edition

p. 155).

Again "The idea then is that the simplest and most primitive type under a law to which that of like production is subordinate gave birth to the type next above it, that this again produced the next higher, and so on to the very highest, the stage of advance being in all cases very smallnamely from one species to another?" (p. 170). It will thus be seen that life is supposed to have originated in its lowest germ by "chemicoelectric" operation; and then the work of advancing and differentiating into species has been through "the medium of the ordinary process of generation." How far the idea that the origin of species is due to "the ordinary process of generation" will be noticed hereafter.

In the eleventh edition of the "Vestiges," published in 1860, though the author, in a more extended elaboration of his theory, has varied his phraseology, he has not essentially changed his ground. He supposes the series of animated beings from the lowest to the highest are results under the providence of God: 1st, of "an impulse imparted to the forms of life, advancing them in definite times by generation." 2nd, of another

ment, answering to the "adaptation of the natural theologian." (13-138).

Under these and similar considerations, he restates as not "a very immoderate hypothesis that a chemico-electrie operation by which germinal vesicles were produced was the first phenomenon in organic creation; and that the second was an advance of these through a succession of higher grades, and a variety of modifications, in accordance with the laws of the same absolute nature as those by which the Almighty rules the physical department of nature." (13-139).

These impulses are regarded as possibilities of nature, as instanced in the manner in which bees so modify a larva as to produce the queen bee. (13 -144). So, speaking of the hermit crab, he says they are as truly the creatures of the great God as if they had been made in the manner of "a human artist modeling a figure. But the means was inherent in natural forces in the constitution of the original tribe tending in generation to accomodate organic form to physical circumstances." (13-176.)

As a further illustration of what is meant by these impulses and inherent natural forces he says:

"It is the narrowest of all views of the Deity, and characteristic of an humble class of interests, to suppose him constantly acting in particular ways for particular occasions." (p. 117.) Much more worthy of him it surely is to suppose that

the first, though neither is he absent from a particle of the current of natural affairs in one sense, seeing that the whole system is supported by his Providence." (13-138).

This is very little removed from the old idea that the Creator impressed upon the creation certain laws, like the winding up of a clock, leaving natural things in a measure to take care of themselves. It is to be regretted that the accomplished author could not have perceived a continual flow of creative energy from the Divine Being, acting at all times and places, and just as directly and potentially in the minutest, as the most general operations. "Is it, conceivable" he says, "as a fitting mode of exercise for creative intelligence, that it should be constantly moving from one sphere to another, to form and plant the various species which may be required in each situation at particular times"-"yet such is the notion which we must form if we adhere to the doctrine of special exercise?" (13-109).

Well let us see. The heat and light of the sun is absolutely necessary for the growth of wheat; and the farmers over the whole earth, and it may be in Jupiter and Saturn as well, have prepared the ground and sown the seed in especial reference to the operation of these elements. Does the sun find it necessary to give its attention, first to one farm and then to another; or first to the earth, then to Jupiter and lastly to Saturn? Or does he pour forth his heat and light uniformly

There is certainly some misconception as to what constitutes a special, and what a general exercise of creative power. To suppose the Creator to have made an elephant, as a sculptor fashions a piece of statuary is one thing; to suppose him to have created the elephant by infusing the proper life into an approximate living form without ordinary generation, is quite another thing; and yet both may be called special acts of creation. The first supposition is too incongruous to be entertained for a moment, while the other is consistent with a rational conception of omnipotent power.

Mr. Herbert Spencer summarises the theory of "The Vestiges" thus: "The broad general contrasts between lower and higher forms of life, are regarded by him as due to an innate aptitude to give birth to forms of more perfect structures." And he says that Prof. Owen re-enumerates the same doctrine in asserting, "the axioms of the continuous operation of creative power, or of the ordained becoming of living things." He roundly characterises this as "unphilosophical" because "it is the ascription of organic evolution to some aptitude naturally possessed by organisms, or miraculously imposed on them as "an explanation which explains nothing"-"a shaping of ignorance into the semblance of knowledge"-as "unpresentable in thought," etc. (5-1-403-4).

All this is very Spencerian. Nevertheless, I think it will be found in the sequel, that both "Vestiges" and Prof. Owen enjoy an advantage

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