prevailed, in ancient and modern times, respecting a chaos, are without foundation.

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Among all heathen nations of antiquity, the belief in a primeval chaos was almost universal; and from the heathen philosophers it was transmitted to the Christian world, and incorporated with the Mosaic cosmogony. It is not, indeed, easy to ascertain what is the precise idea which has been attached to a chaos. It is generally described, however, as a confused assemblage of elements,' an unformed and undigested mass of heterogeneous matter;" not, of course, subject to those laws which now govern it, and which have arranged it all in beautiful order, even if we leave out of the account vegetable and animal organisation. Now, I have attempted to show that there never was a period on the globe when these laws, with the exception of the organic, did not operate as they now do. Nay, the geologist, when he examines the oldest rocks, finds the results of these laws at the supposed period when chaos reigned; that is, in the earliest times of our planet. And what are these results? The most splendid crystallisations which nature furnishes. The emerald, the topaz, the sapphire, and other kindred gems, were elaborated during the supposed chaotic state of the globe; for no earlier products have yet been discovered than these most perfect illustrations of crystallographical, chemical, and electrical laws. If, indeed, any should say, that by a chaos they mean only that state of the world when no animals or plants existed in other words, when no organic laws had been established-to such a chaos I have no objection. And this is the chaos described in the Bible, where it is said that, before the creation of animals and plants, the earth was "without form and void." The "tohu vau bohu" of Moses, which is thus translated in our English Bible, means, simply and literally, invisible and unfurnished-invisible, both because the ocean covered the present land, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and unfurnished, because as yet no organic natures had been called into existence. This is the meaning which the old Jewish writers, as Philo and Josephus, attached to these words; and they have been followed by some of the ablest modern commentators. "It is wonderful," says Rosenmuller the elder, "that so many interpreters could have persuaded themselves that it was possible to detect a chaos in the words. That notion unquestionably derived its origin from the fictions of the Greek and Latin poets, which were transferred by those interpreters to Moses. If we follow the practice of the language, the Hebrew phrase has this signification: The earth was waste and desert, or, as others prefer, empty and vacuous; that is, uncultured and unfurnished with those things with which the Creator afterwards adorned it."-Antiquiss. Tell. Hist., pp. 19-23.

Upon the whole, there is no evidence whatever, either in nature or revelation, that the earth has ever been in a state corresponding to the common notions of a chaos; while, on the other hand, there is strong proof that the present laws of nature have been in operation from the beginning. These laws have varied in the intensity

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of their action, and we have strong reason to believe that organic laws did not always exist; but none of these laws have ever been suspended, to leave the elements to mix in wild disorder in a formless mass. It is high time that religion was freed from the indescribable incubus of a chaos.

Finally, the most important conclusion to which the mind is conducted by this subject is, that the present and past conditions of this world are only parts of one and the same great system of infinite wisdom and benevolence.

We have seen that the same wise and benevolent laws, organic and inorganic, have always controlled, as they now control, this lower world. It is true we find modified conditions of the globe in its past history; but they were always the foreseen result of the same laws, and in harmony with the same great plan. And the modifications of organic structure, which were great in the successive economies, were always in perfect correspondence with the earth's physical changes. Nowhere do we meet with conflicting plans; but, throughout all nature, from the earliest zoophyte and seaweed of the silurian rocks to the young animals and plants that came into existence to-day, and from the choice gems that were produced when the earth was without form and void to the crystals which are now forming in the chemist's laboratory, one golden chain of harmony links all together, and identifies all as the work of the same infinite mind.

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In all the numerous examples of design which we have selected from the various animal and vegetable remains that occur in a fossil state," says Dr. Buckland, "there is such a never-failing identity in the fundamental principles of their construction, and such uniform adoption of analogous means to produce various ends, with so much only of departure from one common type of mechanism as was requisite to adapt each instrument to its own especial function, and to fit each species to its peculiar place and office in the scale of created beings, that we can scarcely fail to acknowledge in all these facts a demonstration of the unity of the intelligence in which such transcendent harmony originated; and we may almost dare to assert that neither atheism nor polytheism would ever have found acceptance in the world, had the evidences of high intelligence and unity of design which have been disclosed by modern discoveries in physical science been fully known to the authors or the abettors of systems to which they are so diametrically opposed. It is the same handwriting that we read, the same system and contrivance that we trace, the same unity of object and relation to final causes which we see maintained throughout, and constantly proclaiming the unity of the great divine original."-Bridgewater Treatise, p. 584.

"The earth, from her deep foundations, unites with the celestial orbs, that roll throughout boundless space, to declare the glory and show forth the praise of their common Author and Preserver; and the voice of natural religion accords harmoniously with the testimonies of revelation, in ascribing the origin of the universe to the will of one eternal and dominant intelligence, the Almighty Lord

and Supreme First Cause of all things that subsist; the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, before the mountains were brought forth, or ever the earth and the world were made, God from everlasting and without end.' "-Bridgewater Treatise, p. 596.

LECTURE IX.

THE HYPOTHESIS OF CREATION BY LAW.

IN all ages of the world, where men have been enlightened enough to reason upon the causes of phenomena, a mysterious and a mighty power has been imputed to the laws of nature. A large portion of the most enlightened men have felt as if those laws not only explain, but possess an inherent potency to continue, the ordinary operations of nature. Most men of this description, however, have thought that to originate nature must have demanded the special exercise of an infinite and all-wise Being. But a few, in every age, have endeavoured to exalt law into a Creator, as well as Controller, of the world. The hypothesis has assumed a great variety of forms, and until recently few have attempted to draw it out in all its details, and apply it to all nature. Among the ancient philosophers it was based on the eternity of matter, and made the foundation of a system of rank atheism. Starting with the position, as an axiom, that nothing produces nothing-in other words, that creation out of nothing is impossible-Democritus maintained that all existence was the result of two necessary and self-existent principles, viz., space, infinite in extent, and atoms, infinite in number. The latter have been eternally in motion, in directions varying from right lines; and their necessary collisions have produced the various forms of organic and inorganic nature. To produce animals and plants, it was only necessary that the atoms should be suitably arranged. The only animating principle was the rapid agitation of atoms.

In modern times, very few philosophers have ventured to solve the whole problem of the universe by any self-acting, self-producing power in nature. La Place limited himself to the mode in which the great bodies of the universe were produced by the vortical movements of nebulous matter; although his object, equally with that of Democritus and Epicurus, was to dispense with an intelligent, personal Deity. Lamarck, Geoffrey St. Hilaire, and Bory St. Vincent, assuming the existence of matter and its laws, have endeavoured to show, by the inherent vitality of some parts of matter, how the first or lowest classes of animals and plants may have been produced; and how, from these, by the theory of development and the force of circumstances, all the higher families, with their instincts and

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intellects, may have been evolved. A still more recent, but anonymous, writer has had the boldness to unite the nebular hypothesis, with those of spontaneous generation and transmutation, into a single system, and to attempt to clothe it with the garb of philosophy; nay, to do this in consistency, not only with Theism, but with a belief in revelation. This theory is what I denominate the hypothesis of creation by law. And judging from its wide reception, we should be led to infer that it had strong probabilities in its favour. It should, therefore, at least receive a careful and candid examination. For, though many of its statements and conclusions are absurd, and some of them are highly ridiculous, the hypothesis, at least in some of its parts, falls in with certain loose notions that have got possession of the public mind, and which nothing but cogent reasoning can eradicate.

Before entering upon such an examination, however, it seems necessary to go somewhat more into detail in illustration of the nature of this hypothesis. It may conveniently be described under the heads of cosmogony, which attempts to account for the origin of the world; zoogony, which explains the origin of animals; and zoonomy, which describes the laws of animal life.

The cosmogony of this theory is embraced in what is denominated the nebular hypothesis, propounded by the eminent mathematician La Place. He supposes that, originally, the whole solar system constituted only one vast mass of nebulous matter, being expanded into the thinnest vapour and gas by heat, and more than filling the space at present occupied by the planets. This vapour, he still further supposes, had a revolution from west to east on an axis. As the heat diminished by radiation, the nebulous matter must condense, and consequently the velocity of rotation must increase, and an exterior zone of vapour might be detached; since the central attraction might not be able to overcome the increased centrifugal force. This ring of vapour might sometimes retain its original form, as in the case of Saturn's ring; but the tendency would be, in general, to divide into several masses, which, by coalescing again, would form a single mass, having a revolution about the sun, and on its axis. This would constitute a planet in a state of vapour; and by the detachment of successive rings might all the planets be produced. As they went on contracting, by the same law, satellites might be formed to each; and the ultimate result would be solid planets and satellites, revolving around the sun in nearly the same plane, and in the same direction, and also on their axes.

Although this hypothesis has been regarded with favour by many philosophers, who were Theists, and even Christians, yet the object of La Place in proposing it was to sustain atheism. Sir Isaac Newton had expressed the conviction that "the admirable arrangement of the solar system cannot but be the work of an intelligent and most powerful Being." La Place declared that, in this statement, Newton had "deviated from the method of true philosophy," and brought forward these views to sustain his declaration. Whether they do sustain it, will be considered in another place. But since

it is one of those modes in which men have attempted to account for the universe without a Deity, it is a proper subject of examination in this lecture, in which we are inquiring whether law alone will account for the creation and sustentation of the universe.

The zoogony of this hypothesis undertakes to show how animals and plants may be produced without any special exercise of creating power on the part of the Deity. It supposes matter to be endowed with certain laws, whose operation alone will determine life in brute matter, or, rather, whose operation constitutes life. Some would have it that a part of matter is essentially vital; that is, endowed with inherent life; and that this matter, like leaven, communicates life to dead matter arranged in a certain order. But the more modern view is, that life is produced by electrical agency. It is found that the fundamental form of organic beings is a globule, having another globule forming within it. It is also found that globules may be produced in albumen by electricity; and if we could discover how nature produces albumen, it is thought that the whole process by which living organisms are produced would be distinctly before us. It seems to be simply the operation of electricity, and requires no intervention of special creating energy. If the question

arises, Whence came such marvellous laws to exist in nature? the atheist replies that matter and its laws are eternal, having neither beginning nor end; while the Theist, who maintains this hypothesis, asserts that, when God created matter, he endowed it with such laws, having an inherent, self-executing power.

Having thus ascertained, as it supposes, how life and organisation in the simplest forms may be produced, the next inquiry is, how the more perfect and complicated forms of organic beings may be developed by laws, without divine power. This constitutes the zoonomy of the subject. The French zoologist, Lamarck, first drew out and formally defended this hypothesis, aided by others, as Geoffrey St. Hilaire and Bory St. Vincent. Their supposition was, that there is a power in nature, which they sometimes denominated the Deity, yet did not allow it to be intelligent and independent, but a mere blind, instrumental force. This power, they supposed, was able to produce what they called monads, or rough draughts of animals and plants. These monads were the simplest of all organic beings, mere aggregations of matter, some of them supposed to be inherently vital. And such monads are the only things ever produced directly by this blind deity. But in these monads there was supposed to reside an inherent tendency to progressive improvement. The wants of this living mass of jelly were supposed to produce such effects as would gradually form new organs, as the hands, the feet, and the mouth. These changes would be aided by another principle, which they called the force of external circumstances, by which they meant the influence upon its development of its peculiar condition; as, for instance, a conatus for flying, produced by the internal principle, would form wings in birds; a conatus for swimming in water would form the fins and tails of fishes; and a conatus for walking would form the feet and legs of quadrupeds. Thus the organs were not