From first to last it is a dish of rank materialism cleverly cooked up ... . And why is this done? For no other reason, I am sure, except to make us independent of a Creator.

The pretended physical philosophy of modern days strips Man of all his moral attributes, or holds them of no account in the estimate of his origin and place in the created world.

A cold atheistical materialism is the tendency of the so-called material philosophy of the present day.

The powers of nature are never in repose; her work never stands still.

We cannot take one step in geology without drawing upon the fathomless stores of by-gone time.

As a system of philosophy it is not like the Tower of Babel, so daring its high aim as to seek a shelter against God's anger; but it is like a pyramid poised on its apex.

[Vestiges begins] from principles which are at variance with all sober inductive truth. The sober facts of geology shuffled, so as to play a rogue's game; phrenology (that sinkhole of human folly and prating coxcombry); spontaneous generation; transmutation of species; and I know not what; all to be swallowed, without tasting and trying, like so much horse-physic!! Gross credulity and rank infidelity joined in unlawful marriage, and breeding a deformed progeny of unnatural conclusions!