manifestation. The doctrine of "chemical units" is universally conceded,
and that of "morphological units" almost as universally claimed. What
greater incongruity is there, then, in assuming the presence between the
two of a physiological or vital unit? [5] At all events, it is as
impossible to demonstrate the non-existence of the one unit as the other.
And so long as legitimate induction supports the doctrine of the Bible
Genesis, it is useless to indulge in a contrary assumption which is wholly
without verification or proof.

But to return to land vegetation. This appeared and flourished throughout
the Devonian period, if not anterior to it, and long before the appearance
of batrachian reptiles and other low air-breathing forms of life. In fact,
there could have been no life-breathing atmosphere until the earlier land
vegetation had whipped out its more destructive elements, and paved the
way, in necessary conditions, for the appearance of air-breathing animals.
Hence the command for the earth to bring forth both marine and land
vegetation--the vegetation of the earth--before there was any similar
command respecting either marine or land forms of organic life. But by
what logical method was this exact order inferred in the Bible Genesis?
Neither the Jews, nor their earlier Hebrew ancestors, nor the Phoenicians
before or after them, were in any sense of the word metaphysicians; nor
did their language admit of those nicer distinctions and speculative
conclusions which would have enabled any writer using it, thousands of
years ago, to draw the commanding induction contained in this remarkable
genesis. There is nothing in the incomparable methods of M. Comte, or the
metaphysical spirit of Herbert Spencer, in his most daring speculations,
which gives the world a more legitimate and conclusive induction than is
contained in this simple statement of the order of creation. That it
should have been a mere piece of guess-work on the part of Moses, or any
other writer of his time,--covering, as it does, so many particularities