1856.] Science and the Bible. 97
acting
power," etc.; also, p. 199, " from the necessity of our laws of
thinking, as well as from revelation, we say, that it [nature] is a
power given originally by God. But, though thus originated, we can
distinctly conceive of it as a nature, only when we regard it as in
some manner left to itself and operating by its own laws or methods; "
also, p. 204, " if we thus view Nature as a stream of causation
governed by a certain law which not only regulates but limits its
movements, then the supernatural, as its name imports, would be all above nature, in
other words, that power of God which is employed ' according to the
counsel of his own will' in originating, controlling, limiting,
increasing, opposing, or terminating nature, whether it be the
universal, or any particular or partial nature;" also, " it [the
devout mind] loves to read how Nature, ever so obedient to her lord, is
sometimes commanded to stand away from his presence."
After this, he observes that a development theory, of species from species, is pious enough, and Crosse's manufacture of Acari may be in harmony with law and gospel, provided the law have a divine origination ; and in this provision the naturalism, of the view escapes atheism.
The
discussions which next follow, as to " what is meant by-God's making
the plant before it was in the earth," are not particularly edifying.
The following chapter, on " the cyclical law of all natures," urges,
that, from the analogy of day and night, summer and winter, life and
death, sleep and activity,, Nature has had its passivity and activity.
The author " infers not only the fact, but the absolute necessity of
repeated creative or supernatural acts; and this, not only to raise
Nature, from time to time, to a higher degree, but to arouse and
rescue her from that apparent death into which, when left to herself,
she must ever fall" (p. 241). This is " the cyclical law of all
natures." He quotes, approvingly (p. 243), the following thought from
Plato's " strange myth," in the Politi-cus : « When God suffers Nature
to take her course, all things tend to disorder, decay, and dissolution
; when he resumes the helm, Nature moves on in her law of progress,
Vol. XIII. No. 49. 9
