eaving it for him to find out what objects
will be encountered by the way, and where the journey will end. We
propose to finish the work that is thus left incomplete, and to set
forth the doctrine in its plainest terms. We would reduce the theory at
once to its narrowest compass and simplest expression; but at the same
time, would incorporate into it every doctrine which properly belongs to
it, and follow out each hypothesis to its remote, though necessary,
inferences and conclusions. To this end, it is requisite to separate, as
far as possible, the doctrines themselves from the evidence adduced in
support of them; and to consider the former as a whole, before
proceeding, to discuss the cogency of the latter. The following may be
taken as the most concise abstract that we can form of the history of
the creation, according to this author.

In the beginning--we use this word in a kind of preter-perfect sense--in
the _very_ beginning of things, immense portions of infinite space were
filled with finely diffused nebulous matter, heated to an intensity that
is altogether inconceivable. The particles of this "fire mist," as it is
appropriately called, were the true _primordia rerum_,--the elements of
the universe,--the principles of all the forms of inorganic matter and
all organic things. At the outset, the Creator endowed these particles
with certain qualities and capacities, and then stood aside from his
work, as there was nothing farther for him to do. The subsequent
progress of creation is only the successive _development_, upon
mechanical and necessary principles, and as fast as proper occasions
were offered, of these qualities thus made inherent in the primitive
constitution of matter. The atoms thus marvellously endowed have gone
on, without any further aid from Almighty power, to form suns, and
astral systems, and planets with their satellites, and worlds tenanted
by successive generations and races of vegetable and animal things. And
this work of creation, or rather of development, is still in progress
all around us, and in all its various stages, though in the portion most
directly exposed to the observation of man it is far advanced towards
perfection. Upon this earth, the unaided action of these atoms is still
evolving all the phenomena of generation, progress, and decay, of
vegetable and animal life, of instinct and of mind. In the abyss of
space, it is also forming new suns, and solar systems, and worlds that
a