"
(Why?)--"We are told by these naturalists that man belongs to the class
called 'Vertebrata.' So does the snake, the monkey, the lizard and
crocodile, and many other low and mean animals.--Have these creatures
the reasoning faculties of man? Do they walk erect like man? Have they
feet, hands, legs, arms, _hair upon their heads, or beards upon their
faces_? Do they speak languages and _congregate and worship at the
altar_?" (!!)--"Those who are ambitious of such relations, may plant
their heraldic coat-of-arms in the serpent, the lizard, the crocodile,
or the monkey, but we disclaim such relationship--we do not think it
_good taste or good morals_ to place the fair daughters of Eve on
a level with horrid and hideous animals, simply from some apparent
similarity, which we are certain never existed."]
The belligerent pundit who has flung in the face of peaceful geologists
this octavo _camouflet_ of his scientific lucubrations professes to
have scoured the surface and ravaged the bottom (in a suit of patent
sub-marine Scriptural armor) of a no less abysmal subject than the
cryptology of Genesis,--to have undermined with his sapping intellect
and blown up with his explosive wisdom the walled secrets of time and
eternity, carrying away with him in the shape of plunder a whole cargo
of the plans and purposes of the Omnipotent in the Creation. I have not
the least doubt, if he were respectfully approached and interrogated
upon the subject, he would answer with the greatest ease and accuracy
the famous question with which Dean Swift posed the theological tailor.
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