duced by the direct miraculous interference of a personal intelligence. There has, indeed, been a constantly increasing series, but the connection between the terms of the series has not been physical or genetic, but intellectual; not founded in the laws of reproduction, but in the eternal counsels of the Almighty."

§ 34. Let us go back, however, to this principle of identity of pattern, each formation in due time mounting to successively higher species, not by transformation, but by specific divine direction. Then, when we take into consideration the almost infinite series of years during which this progress has gone on; the unlimited cosmical field on which it operates; the equally unlimited command of resources which it displays; the magnificent sweep of purpose and the exquisite delicacy of detail it combines, and at the same time the calm precision and evenness of the gradually narrowing cycles by which it concentrates itself upon manwe may well concur in the truths of the following attributes as belonging to the Divine Creator and Ruler of all: I. Unity of agency.

II. Consistency of purpose.

III. Unlimited power.

VI. Patience and majestic endurance.

V. A capacity for the most sublime development of plan and the most exquisite discrimination of detail.

VI. A continuing special superintendence of the world. VII. The recognition of man, as occupying a post of final

* See Agassiz's Report on the Fossil Fishes of the Devonian System, Twelfth Report British Association, p. 85.

importance in this grand series of development, with behind him an almost unlimited past, instinct, with its lessons of humility, of dependence on the divine purpose, and yet, at the same time, of responsibility, showing us that man is the great moral centre of this immense educational as well as economical engine.*

VIII. The recognition also of the truth, that the defects and evils of this stage of spiritual existence are but ancillary to, and preparatory for, a higher order, in the same way that the defects and evils in the earlier stages of physical development are incident to the latter. These defects and evils are, therefore, inherent in an intermediate stage, in a series of advances, from chaos to final perfection.†

b. UNION OF HARMONY IN GENERAL LAWS, WITH SPECIAL ADAPTATION OF DETAILS. ‡

§ 35. Under this head I cannot do more than adopt the following summary, in which Professor Agassiz, with a delicacy and exactness of analysis only excelled by the synthetical completeness of the material on which it rests, sums up the theistic inferences to be collected from the first volume of the great work which he has now under publication:

"In recapitulating the preceding statements we may present the following conclusions :

1st. The connection of all these known features of nature into one system exhibits thought, the most comprehensive thought, in limits transcending the highest wonted powers of

man.

* See post, 2 100.

† See post, & 173.

See post, 229.

2d. The simultaneous existence of the most diversified types under identical circumstances exhibits thought, the ability to adapt a great variety of structures to the most uniform conditions.

3d. The repetition of similar types, under the most diversified circumstances, shows an immaterial connection between them; it exhibits thought, proving directly how completely the creative mind is independent of the influence of a material world.

4th. The unity of plan in otherwise highly diversified types of animals, exhibits thought; it exhibits more immediately premeditation, for no plan could embrace such a diversity of beings, called into existence at such long intervals of time, unless it had been framed in the beginning with immediate reference to the end.

§ 36. 5th. The correspondence, now generally known as special homologies, in the details of structure in animals otherwise entirely disconnected, down to the most minute peculiarities, exhibits thought, and more immediately the power of expressing a general proposition in an indefinite number of ways, equally complete in themselves, though differing in all their details.

6th. The various degrees and different kinds of relationship among animals which can have no genealogical connection, exhibit thought, the power of combining different categories into a permanent, harmonious whole, even though the material basis of this harmony be ever changing.

7th. The simultaneous existence, in the earliest geological periods in which animals existed at all, of representatives of

all the great types of the animal kingdom, exhibits most especially thought, considerate thought, combining power, premeditation, prescience, omniscience.

8th. The gradation based upon complications of structure which may be traced among animals built upon the same plan, exhibits thought, and especially the power of distributing harmoniously unequal gifts.

9th. The distribution of some types over the most extensive range of the surface of the globe, while others are limited to particular geographical areas, and the various combinations of these types into zoological provinces of unequal extent, exhibit thought, a close control in the distribution of the earth's surface among its inhabitants.

10th. The identity of structure of these types, notwithstanding their wide geographical distribution, exhibits thought, that deep thought which, the more it is scrutinized, seems the less capable of being exhausted, though its meaning at the surface appears at once plain and intelligible to every

one.

§ 37. 11th. The community of structure in certain respects of animals otherwise entirely different, but living within the same geographical area, exhibits thought, and more particularly the power of adapting most diversified types with peculiar structures to either identical or to different conditions of existence.

12th. The connection, by series, of special structures observed in animals widely scattered over the surface of the globe, exhibits thought, unlimited comprehension, and more directly omnipresence of mind, and also prescience, as far as such series extend through a succession of geological ages.

13th. The relation there is between the size of animals and their structure and form, exhibits thought; it shows that in nature the quantitative differences are as fixedly determined as the qualitative ones.

14th. The independence in the size of animals of the mediums in which they live, exhibits thought, in establishing such close connection between elements so influential in themselves and organized beings so little affected by the nature of these elements.

§ 38. 15th. The permanence of specific peculiarities under every variety of external influences, during each geological period, and under the present state of things upon earth, exhibits thought; it shows, also, that limitation in time is an essential element of all finite beings, while eternity is an attribute of the Deity only.

16th. The definite relations in which animals stand to the surrounding world, exhibit thought; for all animals living together stand respectively, on account of their very differences, in different relations to identical conditions of existence, in a manner which implies a considerate adaptation of their varied organization to these uniform conditions.

17th. The relations in which individuals of the same species. stand to one another exhibit thought, and go far to prove the existence in all living beings of an immaterial imperishable principle, similar to that which is generally conceded to man only.

18th. The limitation of the range of changes which animals undergo during their growth, exhibits thought; it shows most strikingly the independence of these changes of