mastery is evinced, we have conceded, and, we will also add, great show
of fairness in treatment and conclusion.

No partial opening is made; the great design, in all its extent, is
manfully grappled with. The universe is first surveyed, next the mystery
of its origin. After ranging through sidereal space, examining the
bodies found there, their arrangement, formation, and evolution, the
author selects our own planet for especial interrogation. He disembowels
it, scrutinizing the internal evidences of its structure and history,
and thence infers the causes of past vicissitudes, existing relations,
and appearances. These disposed of, the surface is explored, the
phenomena of animal and vegetable existence contemplated, and the
sources of vital action, sexual differences, and diversities of species
assigned. Man, as the supreme head and last work of progressive
creation, challenges a distinct consideration; his history and mental
constitution are investigated, and the relation in which a sublime
reason stands to the instinct of brutes discriminated. The end and
purpose of all appropriately form the concluding theme, which finished,
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