It traces up every race to a primary organism, endowed with reproductive powers; for it tells us, in regard to the FLORA, that God said, "Let the earth bring forth grass, _the herb yielding seed_, and the fruit-tree yielding fruit _after his kind_, whose _seed is in itself_, upon the earth; and it was so." And it tells us, with regard to the FAUNA, that God said, "Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.

And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, _after their kind_, and every winged fowl _after his kind_.

And God blessed them, saying, _Be fruitful, and multiply_, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth." Here the distinction between different genera and species, and the provision that was made for the perpetuation of different races, are prominently presented; while the production, in the first instance, not of an "infusorial point" or "microscopic monad," but of a living organism capable of multiplying its kind, is expressly declared; and every race is traced up to that primary organism, in perfect consistency with the only law, whether of vegetable or animal reproduction, which is known to be in operation at the present day.

And _this_ law of reproduction, so far from being exclusive of a primary act of Creation, seems to presuppose and require it; for there must be a living organism before there can be vital transmission.

But the theory of Physiological Development proceeds on a totally different supposition,--a supposition for the truth of which we have not only no historical evidence, but not even the slightest _analogical presumption_, since we have no instance of development anywhere except from a germ or seed, produced by an organism preexisting in a state of maturity.
But the exigencies of that theory demand a wide departure from all the familiar lessons of experience; and hence recourse has been had to a series of the wildest and most extravagant conjectures, such as may well justify the opinion of those who have held that the creed of certain philosophers makes a much larger demand on human credulity than that of almost any section of the Christian Church.