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 Torricellis
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