Page:Omniana.djvu/265

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OMNIANA.
247

been for the glory of God and the edification of the church. His notions of edification must have been very curious, and as for the glory of God, Jonathon Edwards himself did not attempt to support it in a more extraordinary manner. Never was there a more beastly collection of horrid and disgusting stories, yet it contained so many odd things that an idle after-dinner hour was not ill bestowed upon its perusal. Nine-tenths of the book were palpably false, and whatever approximation to truth there may be in the animalcular system of physics, of which Dr. Paullinus had persuaded himself, I recollected more facts, and bethought myself of more arguments in its support, than were to be found in his disquisition.

St. Pierre in his first work (Voyage to the isle of France) advances an hypothesis that trees, like Madrepores, are the work of animalculæ; you wonder that a theory which you cannot believe, should be maintained so ingeniously. Darwin in like