revolutions.  It appears that stars are seen in course of formation; it is suspected that some have wholly disappeared.  Nature is not fixed, but is undergoing modifications—­lives, in fact.  The actual state of the universe is but a momentary phase in a development which supposes thousands of ages in the past, and seems to presage thousands more in the future.  These conceptions are the result of solid and incontestable discoveries.  They have disturbed men’s minds, but what is their legitimate import?  Why, Newton’s argument receives new force from them.  From a blind metaphysical necessity, everywhere and always the same, said this great man, no variation could spring.  The more it is demonstrated that the universe is in course of development and modification, the more clearly comes into view the necessity of the supreme Power which is the cause of its modifications, and of the Infinite intelligence which is directing them to their end.  This appears to be solid reasoning, and nevertheless atheism has endeavored to strike its roots in the ground of modern discoveries.  It does this in the following way.

If the universe as it is, with the infinite variety of beings which people it and the marvellous relations which connect these beings mutually together, could be shown to have sprung all at once from nothing, or to have emerged from chaos at a given instant, in its full harmony, the boldest mind would not venture to regard this miracle of intelligence as the product of chance.  But modern science, it is said, no longer admits of this simple explanation of things:  “God created the heavens and the earth.”  This phrase is henceforward admissible only in the catechism.  We know that all has been produced by slow degrees, starting from weak and shapeless rudiments.  This grand marvel of the universe was not made all of one piece.  Man is of recent date; quadrupeds at a certain epoch did not exist; animals had a beginning, and plants also.  The earth was once bare.  Formerly, it was perhaps only a gaseous mass revolving in space.  In course of time, matter was condensed; in time it was organized in living cellules; in time these cellules became shapeless animals; in time these animals were perfected.  Time appears therefore to be the “universal factor”; and for the ancient formula, “the universe is the creation of God,” we are able to substitute this other formula, the result, most assuredly, of modern science, “the universe is the work of time.”

In all this, Gentlemen, I have invented nothing.  All I have done has been to put into form the theory, the elements of which I have met with in various contemporary productions.[120] They bewilder us by heaping ages upon ages, and in order to explain nature they substitute the idea of time for the ideas of power and intelligence.  They seem to suppose that what is produced little by little is sufficiently explained by the slowness of its formation.