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as they find convenient for the peculiarities of their then position; that these living filaments become beasts, birds, fishes, or insects, according as they are placed; that they increase their parts with their wants, and modify their forms and peculiarities of organization according to the changes they may be forced to undergo. Nor is this all: man, that microcosm who has hitherto arrogated to himself the highest place, who affirms that he was formed from finer materials, and claims participation with the nature of the gods, who boasts that he alone was born

cœlum intueri,

and, not confined to terrene subjects, carries his thoughts Extra flammantia monia mundi

Atque omne immensum peragrat—

he, alas! must abate somewhat of his claims when he is informed that he began his career as a fish, and lost by degrees his fins and his tail, till he became the naked and forked biped we now behold him.

But the wonders of this philosophy are not yet exhausted. We are informed that the organization of animals (thus wonderfully acquired) is lost or changed when the animal by any chance is placed in different circumstances. The mole, for instance, by living in deep holes under water, loses not only the faculty of vision, but all vestiges of its organization. To serpents the system gives four feet, but as they live under shrubs, and are accustomed to glide among low grass, they have lost these (somewhat useful) additions; aquatic birds preying upon fish, being under the necessity of opening their claws to give more power to their oars, by this action stretch the skin between them, and thus become web-footed; and lastly, as a climax, fish which are in the habit of entering rivers whose sides are shallow, are forced to swim upon their flat surface, in order to approach nearer the banks. In this situation, receiving more light from above than from below, and having occasion to be more watchful in that direction, one of their eyes has suffered a complete displacement, and is forced over to the other side. Such is the case with soles and turbots, which have both eyes upon one side of the head!

But it is not in abstract philosophy alone that we are at variance with these writers; there is a point at issue of much greater importance, and one upon which the happiness of society hinges. We allude to RELIGION. Not content with depriving us of our ordinary senses, they would take away our God; not content with flinging science back to the worst part of the middle ages, they would take away or weaken principles, upon which depends the whole of social order. We may excuse folly, but we cannot extend the same indulgence to deliberate crime, for highly criminal the attempts of these men must appear to every well-constituted mind. The great object of their attack is Moses.-Now it is only just

to observe (what cannot be denied), that this author seems to have no system to support. National prejudice has no influence upon him, for he speaks of the faults of his nation without reserve;nor have the ties of blood more weight, for he does not spare even the transgressions of a brother; self is altogether forgotten in the candour of his details, since his personal enemy could not have guided the pen with more rigour in every thing that regards his own interests. He seems to separate himself, as a historian, wholly from his nation, and delivers his annals with all the coolness of a foreigner, who, uninfluenced by personal or party considerations, can do ample justice to all. So much and such noble frankness, we might suppose, would give a writer some claim to consideration; one so little influenced by the motives which guide ordinary men, ought, we think, to command no small portion of respect; yet there is no writer who has been subjected to censure so severe and unsparing, whose principles have been so much misrepresented, and whose motives have been so much maligned. It is the object of Mr. Howard's dissertation to defend the works of this author. To extensive and varied learning, Mr. Howard joins a cool and penetrating judgment. Sometimes he attacks his adversaries with abstract arguments, and sometimes overpowers them with the weight of authority. To all this he adds (what is rarely found in such writings) a high tone of gentlemanly sentiment, which prevents him from ever descending to abuse.

Moses relates that the world was created in six days, that all mankind sprang from one pair, and that when the earth was peopled to a certain extent, the Deity, offended with the wickedness of his creatures, destroyed the world by a deluge. Mr. Howard, in corroboration of Moses, shews that all the ancient cosmogonies agree in the most remarkable circumstances with this account. The Persians hold that the creation was effected in six periods, and the Etrurians held the same opinion. The latter, indeed, have a most curious coincidence with the Mosaic history. In the first chiliad (according to this theory) the Deity made the heaven and the earth, in the second the firmament, in the third the sea and all other waters, in the fourth the sun, moon and stars, in the fifth every volatile, reptile, and four-footed animal.

In giving us the history of the Antediluvian period, Moses counts ten generations from the creation to the deluge. So also the Chinese, who make the greatest pretension to antiquity, (and not without inconsiderable claims to it), count ten generations from Fohi to Yu, who appears at the head of their first dynasty. The Persians, who, in point of antiquity, rank themselves next to the Chinese, count ten generations from Soliman Haki to Caicobed, who was the founder of their second race. Sanconiathan counts ten generations of gods between Uranus and the human race; and lastly, Berosus, a Chaldean, counts ten generations between the creation and the deluge.

The next great fact of the Mosaic history, is the destruction of

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the world by water. Here again we find the same coincidence among ancient writers; and that every nation of the elder world has handed down accounts of this event. It has been formally described by many historians, and is constantly alluded to by the poets. Upon the latter, indeed, we have always been disposed to lay more stress than upon formal historians. The historian must take the facts as they occur in his way; the poets have commonly the choice of a theme, and as they must address themselves to the great body of the people, they must necessarily treat their subjects in a popular manner, and make no allusions to such as are not generally known. Ovid, in his Metamorphoses, details this catastrophe at some length; and, what is very remarkable, he mentions the same cause of this extraordinary interference of the Deity as the Scripture, and in language equally strong

Qua terra patet, fera regnat Erinnys,

In facinus jurasse putes.

Virgil, in his sixth Eclogue, in which he gives the principles of the Epicurean philosophy, makes so very slight an allusion to this fact, that he must have conceived his readers to have been well acquainted with it.

Hinc lapides Pyrrhæ jactos......refert.

He makes the same slight allusion in the first Georgic:

quo tempore primum

Deucalion vacuum lapides jactavit in orbem.

The next example which we shall adduce is a still stronger confirmation of the general diffusion of the knowledge of this fact. It is from Juvenal, a satirist, whose business it was to describe the vices and follies of mankind, and who of course addressed himself to a more miscellaneous class of readers than the two poets we have cited. In his first satire he is shewing the multifarious nature of his subject, and that it comprehends the folly of all ages:

Quicquid agunt homines, votum, timor, ira, voluptas,
Gaudia, discursus nostri est farrago libelli.

He does not say from the beginning of the world, from Romulus, or from any other favourite Roman epoch: it is from the flood. Ex quo Deucalion nimbis tollentibus æquor Navigio montem ascendit.*

Horace, in his ode to Augustus, which, from its nature, has been meant for still more common readers, has the following passage:

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*"Down from that moment when Deucalion spread

His hasty sails, and to the mountain fled,
There breathed awhile, and blessed his little prow,
While whelming torrents swelled the floods below;
Whate'er to man belongs our page employs,
His wishes, fears, resentments, hopes, and joys."

Terruit gentes, grave ne rediret
Sæculum Pyrrhæ nova monstra questa
Omne cum Proteus pecus egit altos
Visere montes.*

We might easily increase the number of such extracts; but these are sufficient to shew that the knowledge of a deluge must have been very general in ancient times. From historians and philosophers we might quote indefinitely, but we will confine ourselves to two, on account of the striking particulars which they contain. Apollodorus informs us, that when Jupiter resolved upon destroying the brazen age, Deucalion, by the advice of Prometheus, having made an arc of wood, and collected every thing for sustaining life, entered into it with Pyrrha his wife: and in Plutarch we find it related, that Deucalion had a dove in the arc, which, when the weather was fine, flew abroad, and when tempestuous returned again.

Mr. Howard, having thus established the credibility of the sacred historian, advances to an examination of those philosophers who, not content with the action of the deluge to account for the changes the earth has undergone, present us with theories of their own upon the subject. It is the scope of Mr. Howard's argument to shew, that, upon a fair and candid review of these several systems, they involve more difficulties than the simple statement of Moses; and that although he allows the advanced state of geology, he is doubtful whether the science will enable us to pronounce without appeal upon the whole system of nature. We perfectly agree with this author, and at the same time give it as our opinion, that at no period will geology enable us to correct any point of chronology, the great point at which the infidel aims. Did all those natural operations which fall under the immediate cognizance of this science, require definite periods for their accomplishment; were the same productions always formed in the same time, a scale would be afforded, whereby to judge of their antiquity. But this is well known not to be the fact. A series of phenomena, which, under ordinary circumstances, require ages for their completion, may, in some cases, be made to appear in a few months or weeks, nay hours; and when such phenomena are presented to us, without some collateral information from history, tradition, or other circumstances, we presume that no geologist would be so hardy as to pronounce upon their antiquity. If this be so, we must admit that geology, instead of being a help to us in our researches in chronology, very frequently requires itself

the aid of that science.

From the systems which have been invented to account for the

* "and alarm'd a guilty world,

Lest Pyrrha should again with plaintive cries
Behold the monsters of the deep arise,
When to the mountain summit Proteus drove
His sea-born herd.-

present state of this globe, Mr. Howard selects that of Buffon, which does not very widely differ from that lately propagated by Mr. Hope in his work "on Man." This he examines at some length, and abundantly refutes. Mr. Howard, however, might have disposed of this system in a few words. Buffon's singularly wild and visionary theory sets out with supposing, that a comet falls obliquely with great velocity upon the sun, and carries off a portion of that body, This matter (which was glass, and which nevertheless is the basis of this earth, with all its various furniture) was projected to an immense distance, till the projectile force being gradually weakened by the attraction of the sun, was at last arrested by it, and made to move in a circle. Setting aside all the absurdities which this supposition involves, it must be called to mind, that for the space of 6000 years this system has performed its various revolutions, without the smallest change. So regular indeed are the motions of the heavenly bodies, that they have been reduced to certain principles; and from these principles they can again be predicted with unerring certainty. The regularity of their motions is as much a law of nature, as it is of smoke to ascend or a stone to descend; and any deviation from this regularity would be as much a miracle, as to see M. Buffon, or one of his followers, fly without wings.

Such is the inconsistency of these philosophers: they reject with disdain all idea of supernatural interference, because it is found in the Bible; while they would force us to swallow the most palpable absurdities, the most miraculous of all miracles, in the shape of a philosophic hypothesis.

But lest we have not "supped full" of these day dreams, we are presented with a yet more transcendent philosophy, which informs us that the seeds of all the plants we now behold, and the rudiments of all animals, were contained in the burning and liquid glass; where although they were subjected to a heat for the space of seventy thousand years, they remained uninjured, and at the moment when the earth, by a course of refrigeration had become a fit receptacle for plants and living creatures, unimpaired they each burst upon it in all their solar vigour.

Are we not then justified in expressing our surprise at the perverseness of these self-styled philosophers, and the retrograde tendency of their discoveries, when compared with the more ancient sects who had not their advantages? The ancients thought so highly of man, that they separated the material from the immaterial part. Struck with the qualities which they found in their species, they were led to conclude that they proceeded from something beyond mere matter, and were unwilling to suppose that after death the soul, like the merely earthly parts, could be resolved into a material element. The philosophy of our age calls in the scalpel to prove that this mens divinior, this emanation of the Deity, is the offspring of superstition, and that those faculties which were made a little lower than the angels," depend upon a certain conforma

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