nd all their parts, in the adult
state, are arranged according to the same plan. Man is more like a
gorilla than a gorilla is like a lemur. Such are a few, taken at
random, among the multitudes of similar facts which modern research has
established; but when the student seeks for an explanation of them from
the supporters of the received hypothesis of the origin of species,
the reply he receives is, in substance, of Oriental simplicity and
brevity--"Mashallah! it so pleases God!" There are different species
on opposite sides of the isthmus of Panama, because they were created
different on the two sides. The pliocene mammals are like the existing
ones, because such was the plan of creation; and we find rudimental
organs and similarity of plan, because it has pleased the Creator to set
before Himself a "divine exemplar or archetype," and to copy it in His
works; and somewhat ill, those who hold this view imply, in some of
them. That such verbal hocus-pocus should be received as science will
one day be regarded as evidence of the low state of intelligence in
the nineteenth century, just as we amuse ourselves with the phraseology
about Nature's abhorrence of a vacuum, wherewith Torricelli's
compatriots were satisfied to explain the rise of water in a pump. And
be it recollected that this sort of satisfaction works not only negative
but positive ill, by discouraging inquiry, and so depriving man of
the usufruct of one of the most fertile fields of his great patrimony,
Nature.

The objections to the doctrine of the origin of species by special
creation which have been detailed, must have occurred, with more or
less force, to the mind of every one who has seriously and independently
considered the subject. It is therefore no wonder that, from time to
time, this hypothesis should have been met by counter hypotheses, all as
well, and some better founded than itself; and it is curious to remark
that the inventors of the opposing views seem to have been led into them
as much by their knowledge of geology, as by their acquaintance with
biology. In fact, when the mind has once admitted the conception of
the gradual production of the present physical state of our globe, by
natural causes operating through long ages of time, it will be little
disposed to allow that living beings have made their appearance in
another way, and the speculations of De Maillet and his successors are
the natural complement of Scilla's demonstration of the t