He declares that his "purpose is, to show that the whole revelation of the works of God presented to our senses and reason is a system based on what we are compelled, for want of a better term, to call _law_; by which, however, is not meant a system independent or exclusive of the Deity, but one which only proposes _a certain mode of his working_."--_Sequel to the Vestiges of Nat. Hist. of Creation_, p. 2.--But this is by no means all that is meant by this hypothesis. Nay, the grand object of the writer above quoted is, to show that there is no such thing as miraculous interference in the creation or preservation of the universe. He admits only the ordinary laws of nature, but denies all special and extraordinary laws; and says that it does not "appear necessary that God should exercise an immediately superintending power over the mundane economy."--_Vestiges_, p. 273.--Nay, he denies that the original creation of the universe and of animals and plants required any thing but the operation of natural laws; of such laws as we see and understand. The thought does not seem to have occurred to him, that special and miraculous acts of the Deity may be as truly governed by law as the motions of planets. Every thing of that sort he seems to regard as a violation of law,--a stepping aside from fixed principles,--a sort of afterthought with Jehovah,--a remedy for some defect in his original plans. True, the law of miracles and of special providence is very different from the common course of nature; and, therefore, the one may for a time supersede the others. But this does not prove that the former is not regulated by laws; nor that it did not enter into the original plan of the universe in the divine mind. It must have been a part of that plan; every thing was a part of it, and there can be with him no afterthought, no improvement, no alteration of his eternal designs. Admitting that every event, miraculous as well as common, is under law, it by no means renders a present directing and energizing Deity unnecessary. This hypothesis admits that organic life had a beginning, for its grand object is to show how it began by law alone. Now, who gave to matter, in a gaseous state, such wonderful laws that this fair world should be the result of their operation? If it would require infinite wisdom as well as power to create the present universe at once out of nothing, would it demand less of contrivance and skill to impart such powers to brute matter? It was not merely a power to produce organic natures, to form their complicated organs, to give life, and instinct, and intellect; but to adapt each particle, each organ, each animal, and each plant, most exactly and most wonderfully to its place in the vast system, so that every single thing should most beautifully harmonize with every other thing.