regnated by electricity, or, further still, to a
diffused Nebula or universal Fire-Mist,--we think that the Sensational
and Materialistic speculations with which the work abounds have a
tendency to weaken the evidence for a living, personal, spiritual God,
as the Creator and Moral Governor of the world, and to diminish that
reverence, confidence, and love, which these aspects of His character
alone can inspire. The system of Epicurus, although it contained a
formal recognition of a First Cause, has always been held to be
practically atheistic, simply because it removed God from the active
superintendence of the affairs of the world, and excluded the doctrine
of a special providence and of a moral government. It was held, in the
words of Cicero, "Epicurum verbis reliquisse Deos,--re sustulisse."[56]
And so, in "The Vestiges," Natural Law is substituted for Supernatural
Interposition, not only in the common course of Providence, but in the
stupendous work of Creation itself.

SECTION III.

THEORY OF _SOCIAL_ OR _HISTORICAL_ DEVELOPMENT.--AUGUSTE COMTE.

It might have been thought that the principle of Development had
exhausted its powers, and achieved its highest triumphs, when it had
been applied successively to account, first, for the creation of planets
and astral systems, and, secondly, for the production of vegetable and
animal life; and that little could remain for it to do after it had
succeeded in tracing the genealogy of MAN back, in a direct line through
many generations, to the nebulous matter or luminous Fire-Mist which was
diffused at the beginning of time throughout the Universe. But, on a
more careful study of its last and highest product,--MAN, with his
intellectual and moral nature, his religious beliefs, his social
history, and his immortal hopes,--it seemed as if there were still some
phenomena which remained to be accounted for, some facts of palpable
reality and great magnitude which had not yet been adequately explained.
The mental faculties and their operations, the moral laws that are
universally recognized and appealed to, the social institutions which
have been established, the religious beliefs and feelings which have
generally prevailed, and the rites of worship which have been observed
in all ages and climes, were so widely different from the phenomena of
mere vegetable or animal life, that they seemed to demand a distinct
account of their origin; and it might not be apparent, at first sig