314 CONCLUSION. 



finally, just after the hatching of the young, is completely drawn 

 into the body, and resorbed by the intestine. 



CONCLUSION. 



Thus it appears that there is a plainly visible, intelligent, con- 

 trolling power, which is manifested, with unvarying- regularity of 

 character, in each of the five groups of animals. Shall we now 

 undertake to say how far, how minutely, that power operates ; 

 and shall we assume that we can tell at what point in time or 

 place this power ceases to act undisturbed in the regularity of 

 its proceedings, and allows itself to be swerved from its course 

 by the apparently disturbing influence of circumstances ? 



Who shall say that these circumstances have not been pro- 

 vided for, or even regulated in the succession of events so as 

 to become a part of the plan ? 



We all know that the physical agents, light, heat, electricity, 

 magnetism, &c., have a law according to which they evince their 

 operations, as the science of meteorology teaches; and if, 

 now, these so-called secondary causes have a method among 

 themselves, we should expect to find them likewise affecting the 

 processes of organic nature in the same orderly manner that they 

 affect each other interchangeably ; and consequently evincing 

 the presence of the same directing hand in the one case as the 

 other. 



We cannot arbitrarily assume that these forces are included 

 in the plan, in one case, for instance, heat and air in hatching 

 the bird's egg, and reject them in another, or class them as 

 accidental. 



How far time and the progress of science may lead us on 

 to a better understanding of the mode of operation of these 

 forces, it is impossible to foresee; but we may, I think, venture 

 the conjecture, that, since in all the thus-far-known phenomena 

 of Nature we have learned to recognize a more or less intimate 

 and direct relation to each other, either in the condition of influ- 

 encing or of being influenced, we shall presently discover that 

 many of the so-called variable influences and accidents have a 



