A friend has this day suggested to me, that expressions are used in
certain parts of this Treatise, which some persons consider as speaking
too confidently respecting Physical Phenomena, as if they could not
have
been otherwise disposed, had such been the will of the Creator; or which
seem to imply that His method of proceeding under former systems,
must
of necessity have been the same as those which we witness in the growth
of living species of Animals and Vegetables, and in the laws that now regulate
the material World. I am not conscious of having used any such expressions,
but lest I should have inadvertently done so, I gladly take this opportunity
of stating, that I accord to the fullest extent with such persons respecting
the Omnipotence of the Creator, and admit with them, that had it been his
pleasure, all things that exist might have beeii the immediate results
of an Almighty fiat. My only endeavour has been to shew, that as far as
we may venture to argue on such a subject, from the analogies afforded
by the organic and inorganic parts of the world around us, the proofs of
design which we die cover in the fossil relics of former systems of Creation,
differ in no respect from those drawn by Paley and all writers on Physico
Theology, from the structure of living organic bodies, and the other actual
phenomena of the natural World, in evidence of the Wisdom and Power, and
Goodness of the Deity.
OXFORD,
April 4, 1837.