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Show ~72 . EXPLANATIONS new beings countless ages before the sui .able betngs rnake their appearance, showing that such was not the principle to which we are solely to look for the genesis of animals. But even though he were more successful on this point, he would still be required to show his theory of fiats, in harmony with a system, the most il'hportant facts of which appear, on the contrary, to have taken their present forms and arrangements under the immediate agency of the "Unremitting Energy." As to results which may flow from any particular view which reason may show as the best supported, I must firmly p1·otest against any assumed title in an opponent to pronounce what thes~ are. The first object is to ascertain truth. No truth can be derogatory to the presumed fountain of all truth. The derogation 1nust lie in the erroneous construction which a weak human creature puts upon the truth. And practically it is the true infidel state of mind which prompts apprehension regarding any fact of nature, or any concl uswn of sound argument. The ingeniooo Agassiz is equally disposed with Dr. Whewell and the Edinburgh Reviewer to except some part of nature as a domain for special intervention; but he wishes the limits of that domain to be rigidly examined, and reprobates the idea that such inquiries are beyond our province. " If," says he, "it is an obligation on science to proclaim the intervention of a Divine power in the development of the whole of nature, and if it is to that power alone that we must ascribe all things, i.t is not the less incumbent on science to a certain what is the influence which physical forces, left to themselves, exercise in all natural phenon1ena, and what is the part of direct action which we must attribute to the Supreme being in the revolutions to which nature has been subjected ... It is now time for naturalists to occupy themselves likewise, in their domain, in in tuiring within what lin'iits we can recoo-nize the traces of a Divine interposition, and ~ithin what limit~ the phenom~na take place in consequence of a slate of thinO's immutably established from the beg-innin~ of the creation. Let it not be said that it is not given to man to sound these depths: the knowledge he has acq uir d of so rnany hidden mysteries in past ages promises more extended revelations. It is an error tow hich the mind, from a natural inclination to indolence, allows itself too easily to incline, to believe impossible VIEWS OF .M. AGASSIZ. what it would take some trouble to investigate. W• generally would impose limits to our facultt~s, rathP.r than increase their range by their exercise; and the history of the sciences is present to tell us that there are few of the great truths now recognized which have not been treated as chimerical and blasphemous before they were demonstrated.""' Where men are so much perplexed between two G>pposite principles, led by science in the one direction and drawn by intellectual indolence or timidity in the other, it is not surprising to find them expressing opinions wholly contradictory. Sir John Herschel some years ago announced views strictly conformable to those subse quently taken of organic creation in my book. "For my part," said he, " I cannot but think it an inadequate conception of the Creator to assume it as granted that his combinations are exhausted upon any one of the theatres of their former exercise, though in this, as in ali his other works, we are led, by all analogy, to suppose that he operates through a series of intermediate causes, and that, in consequence, the origination ~f fresh species, could it ever c01ne under our cognizance, would be found to be a nat1,~;ral, in cont1·adistinction to a mi~·aculous process,- although we perceive no indications of any process actually in progress 'vhich is likely to issue in such a result." In his address to the Briti&h Association at Cambridge, (1845,) he said, ~·ith respect to my hypothe .. sis of the first step of organic creation-" The transition from an inanimate crystal to a globule capable of such endless organic and intellectual development, is as great a step-as unexplained a one-as unintelligible to usand in any sense of the word as m.iraculous, as the im .. mediate. creation and introduction upon earth of every species and every individual would be!" The reader will now be able to judge of the views opposed to the theory of universal order. He observes that they are of no distinct unique character, but for the most part follow the measure of ignorance, and are maintained at the expense of consist~ncy. It is not surprising that the idea of an organic creation by special exertion or fiat should be maintained by the advocates of these views, for it is one of the last obscure pi'eces of scientific ground on whtch they can show face. One after another the phe- • Jameson's Journal, 1842 |