We speak lightly of the author's plan, as one can hardly fail to do of a scheme so magnificent, and going apparently so far beyond the ordinary sources of information and the range of the human intellect. But the execution of the work is of so high an order, as fairly to challenge attention and respect. The writer, who has not chosen to give his name to the world, is evidently a man of great ingenuity and correct taste, a master of style, a plausible, though not a profound, reasoner, and having quite a general, but superficial, acquaintance with the sciences. His materials are arranged with admirable method, the illustrations are copious and interesting, the transitions are skilfully managed, and the several portions of the theory are so well fitted to each other, and form such a round and perfect whole, that it seems a pity to subject it to severe analysis and searching criticism. It is a very pleasant hypothesis, set forth in a most agreeable manner; and though it contains many objectionable features, these are cautiously veiled and kept in the background, and the reader is seduced into accepting most of the conclusions, before he is aware of their true character and tendency. Before a just opinion can be formed of the correctness of the writer's views, it is necessary to take to pieces this skilful fabric, and to bring the parts together in a different connection and with greater succinctness, following out each doctrine to its inevitable, but most remote, conclusions, so as to obtain a just idea of the position in which we should be placed by the acceptance of the theory as a whole. For obvious reasons, the author has not chosen to give a general summary of his views, or to mention explicitly all the inferences that may be drawn from them. He merely puts the reader upon the track, indicating its general direction, and leaving it for him to find out what objects will be encountered by the way, and where the journey will end. We propose to finish the work that is thus left incomplete, and to set forth the doctrine in its plainest terms. We would reduce the theory at once to its narrowest compass and simplest expression; but at the same time, would incorporate into it every doctrine which properly belongs to it, and follow out each hypothesis to its remote, though necessary, inferences and conclusions. To this end, it is requisite to separate, as far as possible, the doctrines themselves from the evidence adduced in support of them; and to consider the former as a whole, before proceeding, to discuss the cogency of the latter. The following may be taken as the most concise abstract that we can form of the history of the creation, according to this author.