am nevertheless obliged here to retain the same hypothesis in order to explain what exists on the earth, so that iflclearly show, as I hope to do, that we can by this means provide quite intelligible and certain explanations of all the things observed there, and that we cannot do the same thing in any other way, we have reason to conclude that although in the beginning the world was not made in this way but had been immediately created by God, all the things it contains would nevertheless now be of the same nature as if they had been so produced.