shed,
the curtain drops, and the last sounds heard are that the name of the
Great Unknown will probably never be revealed; that "praise will elicit
no response," nor any "word of censure" be parried or deprecated.

"Give me," exclaimed ARCHIMEDES, "a fulcrum, and I will raise the
earth." "Give me," says the author of the _Vestiges_, "gravitation and
development, and I will create a universe." ALEXANDER'S ambition was to
conquer a world, our author's is to create one. But he is wrong in
saying that his is the "first attempt to connect the natural sciences
into a history of creation, and thence to eliminate a view of nature as
one grand system of causation." The attempt has been often made, but
utterly failed; its results have been found valueless, hurtful--to have
occupied without enlarging the intellect, and the very effort has long
been discountenanced. Great advances, however, have been made in science
since system-making began to be discredited; nature has been
perseveringly ransacked in all her domains, and many extraordinary
secrets drawn from her laboratory. Astronomy and geology, chemistry and
electricity, have greatly extended the bounds of knowledge; still, we
apprehend, we are not yet sufficiently armed with facts to resolve into
one consistent whole her infinite variety.

Efforts at generalization, however, and the systematic arrangement of
natural phenomena, are seldom wholly fruitless. If false, they tend to
provoke discussion--to lead to active thought and useful research. A
solitary truth, though new and useful, rarely obtains higher distinction
than to be quietly placed on the rolls of science, while a bold
speculation, traversing the whole field of creation, and smoothing all
its difficulties, satisfies for the moment, and fixes general attention.
Of this the _Vestiges of Creation_ are an example. Without adding to our
positive knowledge by a single new discovery, demonstration, or
experiment, they have excited more interest than the _Principia_ of
NEWTON. From this popular success, if good do not accrue, no great evil
need be anticipated. Hypotheses are most hurtful when accredited by an
irreversible authority--when erected into a tribunal without appeal,
they become the arbitrary dictator in lieu of the handmaid of science.
Discussion and invention, in place of being stimulated, are then
fettered by them; the human mind is enslaved, as Europe was for
centuries by the _Physics_ of ARISTOTLE, and still