The anonymous author of the Vestiges of Creation, whose work has excited such general attention, has carried out this theory of development into its furthest consequences and most detailed applications, to the successive origination of new species of plants and animals, and to all the contemporaneous geologic changes of the earth ; thus leading into the question of organic development. He maintains " that the simplest and most primi- tive type gave birth to a type superior to it in compositeness of organization and endowment of faculties, and this again to the next higher, and so on to the highest." Every organic existence being developed by successive stages, the higher from the lower, and all at last from an original " fire mist/' by an inherent law of progression.
This theory does not necessarily lead to theoretical atheism, since the creation of so wonderfully pregnant a " fire mist" would as much require an original intelligent cause as the immediate creation of the world in the Bible sense. It leads, however, to practical atheism, since it denies all providential intervention, and it sets forth man as developed through the tadpole, by virtue of the ultimate mechanical and chemical properties inherent in mat- ter, instead of being created in the image of God.
We have to say, I. With reference to La Place's Nebular Hypothesis, or theory of cosmical development, that it is now generally held by Christian philosophers and astronomers as a highly probable speculation, agreeing with and interpreting all known facts. They agree, however, also in maintaining it only as an approximate account of the successive stages in which the infinite Creator, having previously created all things out of nothing by the word of his power, brought his work in the exercise of his ceaseless providential agency to its present condition. They maintain these two principles, (1.) That as far as it is known, without exception, God always perfects his works from an ele- mentary commencement, by a regular method, and through suc- cessions of time. That is, he works by fixed law. And for this there appears this wise and beneficent reason, that if God should
24 THE BEING OF GOD.
exercise his infinite power any otherwise, his working would be perfectly inscrutable to his intelligent creatures, and therefore to them a revelation of his power merely, and not of his wisdom. (2.) That law is never a cause, but only the method according to which a cause acts. It is infinitely absurd therefore to offer the Nebular Hypothesis as a rational account of the way in which the universe might have come into its present condition without either an infinitely intelligent and powerful creating cause or an infin- itely intelligent and powerful providential upholder and director. II. With respect to the further application of this theory to the explanation of the origination of the simplest organic beings from inorganic material elements in the first place, and then the gradual development through successive stages of organic races, the higher from the lower in virtue of the inherent self-acting principles of nature, we have to say, (1.) As this view is held by the author of the " Vestiges," and generally by Deistical specula- tors, it rests wholly upon an absurd idea of "law." Law is only the method according to which a cause acts. The law itself, as well as its effects, must be referred to the cause which observes it. The more general and comprehensive the law, the more powerful and intelligent must be the cause. (2.) All the leading natural- ists, geologists and physiologists repudiate this theory upon scien- tific grounds, e. g., L. Agassiz, Dr. Carpenter, Mr. A. Pritchard, Hugh Miller, Dr. Hitchcock. (3.) Its pretended experimentum crucis, the generation under a galvanic current of small insects without a parent germ, is discredited as a mistake by the highest scientific authorities. (4.) Hugh Miller, in his " Footprints of the Creator," has annihilated this fiction. He proves, a, That one species • never developes into another, b, That there is no such thing as spontaneous generation ; that every living thing comes from a parent, c, That geology presents, on the contrary, instances of the degradation of certain races, i. e., a retrograde movement in creation perfectly inconsistent with the Theory of Development. (5.) This theory developes mind from matter, which is absurd, see below, Question 32. (6.) The most recent and highest tendencies of scientific speculation indicate the con- clusion that while all living organisms are formed of matter and are built up by material for ces, yet that the vital principle which directs those forces is wholly immaterial, not subject to the known
ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN. 25
laws of matter, and therefore the organism which that vital prin- ciple erects can not be developed by those laws.