In disproving the eternity of the organic world, in a former lecture, I adduced and illustrated these examples so fully, that I shall do little more in this place than give a recapitulation of that argument. If we suppose the earth originally to have been merely a diffused mass of vapor, like comets, or nebulae, I can conceive how, by the operation of such natural laws as now exist, it might have been condensed into a solid globe; into a melted state, indeed, from the amount of heat extricated in the condensation. Those same laws might subsequently form over the molten mass a solid crust, which, at length, might be ridged and furrowed by the action of internal heat, so as to form the basis of continents and the beds of oceans. In due time, the vapors might condense, so as to fill those basins with water; and, by the mutual and alternate action of the waters above and the heat beneath, the rocks might be comminuted, so as to form the basis of soils. So far might the arrangements of the world have proceeded by natural laws; in other words, by the ordinary providence of God. But at this point we must bring in an extraordinary agency of the Deity, or the world would have remained, in the expressive language of revelation, _without form and void_; that is, invisible and unfurnished. You have, indeed, the framework of a world, but the most difficult and complicated part of the work, the creation of plants and animals, remains yet to be performed. Here, then, is the precise point where you must call in the miraculous agency of the Deity, or the earth would forever remain an uninhabited waste. For if it does not require miraculous agency to bring into existence animals and plants, I know not what can require it, or prove its operation. I can almost as easily conceive how matter might spring from nothing fortuitously, certainly I can as easily conceive of its eternity, as that organism and life can result from the ordinary laws of nature.