With opinions having such a decided tendency to materialism, it is not surprising that Lamarck seldom makes allusion to a Deity, and when he does so, he nearly confines himself to the bare acknowledgment of his existence. In his earlier works, there is no mention made of a Supreme Being whatever; and even when his existence is admitted, He is divested of the attributes which belong to him. The glory of forming the works of creation, in which His beneficence and power are so signally manifested, is ascribed to _nature_, or a _certain order of things_. This power to which the Deity has delegated his prerogatives, and which he has appointed his vicegerent, Lamarck defines as “An order of things composed of objects independent of matter, which are determined by the observation of bodies, and the whole amount of which constitutes a power, unalterable in its essence, governed in all its acts, and constantly acting upon all the parts of the physical universe[14].” This blind power, which acts necessarily, has not, indeed, called matter into existence, but it has formed all bodies of which matter is essentially the base; and as it exercises no power except on the latter, which it modifies and changes in every possible manner, producing all its various aggregates and combinations, we may be assured that it is it which has made all bodies such as we now behold them, and that it is Nature which confers on some their properties, and on others the faculties which they exercise[15]. All this power Lamarck distinctly admits has been delegated to Nature by the Deity, and among other errors which he conceives to have attached to the ideas which have been entertained regarding Nature, he refutes the notion that Nature is the Deity himself. “Strange occurrence! that the watch should have been confounded with its maker, the work with its author. Assuredly this idea is illogical and unfit to be maintained. The power which has created Nature, has, without doubt, no limits, cannot be restricted in its will or made subject to others, and is independent of all law. It alone can change Nature and her laws, and even annihilate them; and although we have no positive knowledge of this great object, the idea which we thus form of the Almighty Power, is at least the most suitable for man to entertain of the Divinity, when he can raise his thoughts to the contemplation of him. If Nature were an intelligence, it could exercise volition, and change its laws, or rather there could be no law. Finally, if _Nature_ were God, its will would be independent, its acts unconstrained; but this is not the case; it is, on the contrary, continually subject to constant laws, over which it has no power: it hence follows, that although its means are infinitely diversified and inexhaustible, it acts always in the same manner in the same circumstances, without the power of acting otherwise[16].”