Note 313 — Chapter VIII

[Our author is quite right. Science does teach us what to think of divine power in its outward manifestations. The more we understand nature, the more ready will earnest-minded men be to praise and give glory to the God who made it, who created man and beast with such marvellous and exquisite regularity, and who continues to govern the world and all that is upon it. Perhaps M. Pouchet thinks he himself could have made a better one. It is a pity that a clever mind is so warped by that science which ought to make him more satisfied than ever that God is the creator of the world; and that spontaneous generation, and the never-clearly explained origin of the first matter, about which even M. Pouchet cannot tell us, with all his scepticism, ought to go to pave the “pathway of good intentions.”—Editor.]