"
The slender reed through which Philosophy breathed her first musical
whisperings is laid by, and the sacred lyre of Theology is silent or
little heeded. But the mighty organ of Modern Science with its
hundred stops, each answering to some voice of Nature, takes up the
pausing strain, and as we listen we recognize through all its
mingling harmonies the simple, sublime, eternal melody that came
from the lips of Timaeus the Locrian! The same doctrine reappears in
various forms: in the popular works of Derham and Paloy and the
Bridgewater Treatises; in the learned and thoughtful pages of Burdach,
and in the mystical rhapsodies of Oken. But never, we believe, was
it before enforced and illustrated by so imperial a survey of the
whole domain of Natural Science as in the volumes before us.
We are not disposed to discuss at any length the opinion maintained
by Mr. Agassiz, that life has not grown out of the necessary action
of the physical laws. If we accept the customary definitions of the
physical laws, we accede most cordially to his proposition. As
opposed to the fancies of Epicurus and his poet, Lucretius, or to
modern atheistic doctrines of similar character, we have no
qualification or condition to suggest which might change its force
or significance. When we remember that the genius of such a man as
Laplace shared the farthest flight of star-eyed science only to
"waft us back the tidings of despair," we are thankful that so
profound a student of Nature as Mr.
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