any "Divine design of a revelation," or that any "communication between the two worlds" was requisite, it is therefore clear that his argument consists merely of assumptions admitted to be antecedently incredible. It advances a supposition of that which is contrary to reason to justify supposed visible suspensions of the order of nature, which are also contrary to reason. Incredible assumptions cannot give probability to incredible evidence- Tertullian's audacious paradox: "Credo quia impossible," of which such reasoning is illustrative, is but the cry of enthusiastic credulity. The whole theory of this abortive design of creation, with such impotent efforts to amend it, is emphatically contradicted by the glorious perfection and invariability of the order of nature. It is difficult to say whether the details of the scheme, or the circumstances which are supposed to have led to its adoption, are more shocking to reason or to moral sense. The imperfection ascribed to the Divine work is scarcely more derogatory to the power and wisdom of the Creator, than the supposed satisfaction of his justice in the death of himself incarnate, the innocent for the guilty, is degrading to the idea of his moral perfection. The supposed necessity for repeated interference to correct the imperfection of the original creation, the nature of the means employed, and the triumphant opposition of Satan, are anthropomorphic conceptions totally incompatible with the idea of an Infinitely Wise and Almighty Being. The constitution of nature, so far from favouring any hypothesis of original perfection and subsequent deterioration, bears everywhere the record of systematic upward progression. Not only is the assumption, that any revelation of the nature of ecclesiastical Christianity was necessary, excluded upon {50} philosophical grounds, but it is contradicted by the whole operation of natural laws, which contain in themselves inexorable penalties against natural retrogression, or even unprogressiveness, and furnish the only requisite stimulus to improvement.(1) The survival only of the fittest is the