"Never was my late father an atheist; no, the reverse; he could never endure to hear people talking in this way; ; his collection of Nemesis surely testifies to his conception of God, and so do other of his works, and particularly the preface to the System. He believed, no doubt, that species animalium et plantarum and that genera were the works of time: but that ordines naturales were the works of the Creator; if the latter had not existed the former could not have arisen."