On these several points, Prof. Lewis says (p. 136): "Science is dumb, and revelation says nothing;" and again as to the establishment of the relation of the earth and the sun at that time, he remarks with equal confidence (p. 144): "science cannot say anything for or against such a view;" and again: "how can science say whether there was then any revolution of the earth upon its axis or not," and so on to a depth the reader can explore on page 145. Science seems to haunt the author like a horrible ghost, and his cudgel is always up. After all this and much more, he adds as follows, in which the remarks on vegetation are noteworthy:

"We may conclude that at this fourth period, partly contemporary with vegetation, and before the earliest dawn of animal life, the sun assumed towards our earth the state and form of a luminous body, and the adjustment of the shorter periodic seasons commenced. . . . All that we can say is, that at this period the solar system was lit up, the phosphorescent light which the earth may have possessed went out as the planet became more dense, the veil was taken from the central luminary, in order that now there might be not only light and warmth, which existed before, but such regulated diversities of them as would be required for the later vegetation as well as for the animal and human life" (pp. 147, 148).

Between the chapters on the fourth and fifth days, a discussion comes in again on the word day, and on time, and the uses of the sun, which it is unnecessary here to consider.

The fifth day is now taken up, when the author speaks of the creation of vegetation, and animals generally, exclusive of man. The expressions, "Let the waters bring forth," "Let the earth bring forth," are explained thus:

"In its general effect, [the general effect of the account by Moses,] and still more, in the conceptions which lie at the roots of its most important terms, it forces upon the mind the idea of a nature in the earth acting through a real dynamical process of its own, and in periods, which, whether longer or shorter, contain within themselves all the changes and successive stages which we find it impossible to dissociate from the thought of birth and growth. And this, too, of the animal as well as of the vegetable world' (pp. 211, 212).

Preparatory to this conclusion he had said (p. 200): "holding Nature thus to be, in some sense, a self-subsisting, self

acting power," etc.; also, p. 199, "from the necessity of our laws of thinking, as well as from revelation, we say, that it [nature] is a power given originally by God. But, though thus originated, we can distinctly conceive of it as a nature, only when we regard it as in some manner left to itself and operating by its own laws or methods;" also, p. 204, "if we thus view Nature as a stream of causation governed by a certain law which not only regulates but limits its movements, then the supernatural, as its name imports, would be all above nature, in other words, that power of God which is employed according to the counsel of his own will' in originating, controlling, limiting, increasing, opposing, or terminating nature, whether it be the universal, or any particular or partial nature;" also, "it [the devout mind] loves to read how Nature, ever so obedient to her lord, is sometimes commanded to stand away from his presence."

After this, he observes that a development theory, of species from species, is pious enough, and Crosse's manufacture of Acari may be in harmony with law and gospel, provided the law have a divine origination; and in this provision the naturalism of the view escapes atheism.

The discussions which next follow, as to "what is meant by God's making the plant before it was in the earth," are not particularly edifying. The following chapter, on "the cyclical law of all natures," urges, that, from the analogy of day and night, summer and winter, life and death, sleep and activity, Nature. has had its passivity and activity. The author "infers not only the fact, but the absolute necessity of repeated creative or supernatural acts; and this, not only to raise Nature, from time to time, to a higher degree, but to arouse and rescue her from that apparent death into which, when left to herself, she must ever fall" (p. 241). This is "the cyclical law of all natures." He quotes, approvingly (p. 243), the following thought from Plato's "strange myth," in the Politicus: "When God suffers Nature to take her course, all things tend to disorder, decay, and dissolution; when he resumes the helm, Nature moves on in her law of progress, VOL. XIII. No. 49.

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order comes again from disorder, growth from decay, and youth from age."

Finally, he comes to the sixth day, under which head, having disposed of the quadrupeds in his remarks on the fifth day, he speaks only of MAN. He thinks that possibly a perfect primus homo could have been made, by God, from the earth, like the animals (p. 247); but the record is against it, asserting that man was made in God's image, and therefore he admits that "the origin of man, as man, was special and peculiar;" by which he means, as he says, "his distinctive humanity, as separate from all that he has in common with the lower animals" (p. 248). He thinks, further, as follows:

"We are not much concerned about the mode of production of his material or merely physical organization. In regard to this, there is nothing in the expressions, 'He made,' or 'He created him,' or 'He made him from the earth,' which is at war with the idea of growth or development, during either a longer or shorter period. Ages might have been employed in bringing that material nature, through all the lower stages, up to the necessary degree of perfection for the higher use that was afterwards to be made of it. We do not say that the Bible teaches this; we do not think that any one would be warranted in putting any such interpretation upon it. There is, however, in itself, and aside from any question of interpretation, nothing monstrous or incredible in the idea that what had formerly been the residence of an irrational and grovelling tenant might now be selected as the abode of a higher life, might be fitted up in a manner corresponding to its new dignity, might be made to assume an erect heavenward position, whilst it takes on that beauty of face and form which would become the new intelligence, and indeed, be one of its necessary results."

In other words, a monkey may possibly have been curtailed behind and straightened up into a man.

The seventh day is regarded as now in progress and as including the period of spiritual existence beyond this life. The prominent points, then, in the system are:

1. His personifying Nature, after Plato's notion; and, as a consequence, regarding her as, in a sense, "self-acting; yet needing occasional supernatural acts, to rescue her from the decay or death to which she tends, and having alternately her time of rest and action.

2. Hence making mother earth to bring forth, through her

"parturitive powers" (p. 206), plants and animals, and even man, as far as his physical nature goes.

3. Admitting that matter is not eternal, but neglecting the obvious meaning of the phrase "In the beginning."

4. Admitting that the higher forms of vegetation were not created before the sun.

5. Regarding the creation of the sun and moon as “phenomenal."

6. Taking the days of Genesis to be indefinite periods. 7. Admitting the expression "evening and morning" to be metaphorical, and implying progress from the beginning to the full completion of a work, which, on the first day, was literally from darkness to light.

With regard to the last four points, geology can make little exception to Prof. Lewis's conclusions.

On the first three, the author and the "Vestiges of Crea-. tion" are pretty well agreed, except that Professor Lewis is less consistent in his use of Nature; and besides, he admits the occasional need of the supernatural to wake Nature from her slumbers, arrest decay, and give new momentum to her activity.

But is this Scriptural cosmology? We fail to find it in Genesis or elsewhere in the Bible. Successive days of evening and morning are announced; but does this imply that God or Nature needed rest? We have been led, from God's word as well as works, to conceive of Nature not only as God's initial work, but his constant work, ever sustained, and never left to go alone; and therefore no more requiring rest than God himself; no more capable of self-acting obedience than as God's own acts are obedient to himself. The world, in this sense, is full of God, though still not God; for these are only physical manifestations, which he ever continues, through the system he has established; while above all is a Moral Governor, a personal will supreme, which, by this system, which we call Nature, is working out physical, moral, and spiritual ends.

The successive phases or conditions in Nature may have, on such a ground, the character throughout of an evolution,

or the working of a single purpose, in all its lines of details, -as much so as in the opening flower. Yet this is so because God is infinite in power and wisdom, needs not to revise his plan or institute new principles; but, at the inception, saw the end and all the steps leading thereto, as a series or succession throughout perfect in law and harmony. In such a plan we have no right to say that God stands by to see Nature go alone; but that, unceasingly, he sustains and directs the glorious work by his power. We have not to conclude, in order to avoid materialism, that there are "some things" which Nature could never have done; for, in this view, there is nothing which, of itself, or in any sense as a self-existent activity, it can do.

This view, which shines forth from every page of the Bible, is as correctly a growth or Genesis, as that of Prof. Lewis; and all his argument, based on the progress of creation by periods, or on the meaning of the word Genesis, or of púors in Greek, or natura in Latin, or the alleged irrationality of any other view, does not go one step towards sustaining his peculiar notion of a huge self-acting something, now and then aroused to progress by God.

Although Prof. Lewis may not regard the fact, we observe that science does not suggest such a view of Nature.

The whole essence of physical Nature is expressed in a molecule; for molecular laws are the laws of physical Nature. The mere aggregation of molecules into stones or earth, however large the amount, does not give powers that are not contained in the minutest particles. Or, if many balls of such stones and earth are set afloat in space, they still do not make "Nature" with higher qualities than the molecular forces; and however great the effort of laboring Nature, we have no right to assume that those forces could make a living germ. The dirt of a laboratory had the misfortune to set afloat the idea of the creation of Acari, by Mr. Crosse. But science has yet no reason to deny that physical forces are physical forces.

In fact, life and physical or inorganic force are directly opposite in their tendencies. There are, in compounds, two