FUNDAMENTAL RELATIONS OF ANIMALS. 



11 



that degree of advancement, when we may venture upon 

 such an investigation. 



The argument for the existence of an intelligent Creator 



o o 



is generally drawn from the adaptation of means to ends, 

 upon which the Bridgewater treatises, for example, have 

 been based. 1 But this does not appear to me to cover 



not be considered as accounting for 

 the existence of living beings, even 

 though these have a material body, 

 unless it be actually shown that these 

 laws imply by their very nature the 

 production of such beings. Thus far, 

 Cross' experiments are the only ones 

 offered as proving such a result. I 

 do not know what physicists may 

 think about them now ; but I know 

 that there is scarcely a zoologist who 

 doubts that they only rested upon 

 mistake. Life, in appropriating the 

 physical world to itself, with all its pe- 

 culiar phenomena, exhibits, however, 

 some of its own, and some of a higher 

 order, which cannot be explained by 

 physical agencies. The circumstance, 

 that life is so deeply rooted in the 

 inorganic nature, affords, neverthe- 

 less, a strong temptation to explain 

 one by the other ; but we shall see 

 presently how fallacious these at- 

 tempts have been. 



1 The Bridgewater Treatises, on 

 the Power, Wisdom, and Goodness of 

 God, as Manifested in the Creation : 

 CHALMERS (THOMAS), The Adapta- 

 tion of External Nature to the Moral 

 and Intellectual Constitution of Man; 

 Glasgow, 1839, 2 vols. 8vo. KIDB 

 (JOHN), On the Adaptation of Exter- 

 nal Nature to the Physical Condition 

 of Man ; London, 1833, 1 vol. 8vo. 

 WHEWELL (WiLL.), Astronomy and 

 General Physics considered with Re- 

 ference to Natural Theology ; Lon- 

 don,1839,lvol.8vo. BELL(CHAELES), 

 The Hand, its Mechanism and Vital 

 Endowments, as evincing Design ; 

 London, 1833, 1 vol. 8vo. ROGET 

 (PETER MARK), Animal and Vege- 

 table Physiology, considered with 

 Reference to Natural Theology ; Lon- 



idea of being considered as material- 

 ists, who are yet prone to believe, 

 that, when they have recognized the 

 laws which regulate the physical 

 world, and acknowledged that these 

 laws were established by the Deity, 

 they have explained everything, even 

 when they have considered only the 

 phenomena of the inorganic world : 

 as if the world contained no living 

 beings ; and as if these living beings 

 exhibited nothing that differed from 

 the inorganic world. Mistaking for 

 a casual relation the intellectual con- 

 nexion observable between serial phe- 

 nomena, they are unable to perceive 

 any difference between disorder, and 

 the free, independent, and self-pos- 

 sessed action of a superior mind ; and 

 call mysticism, even a passing allu- 

 sion to the existence of an immate- 

 rial principle in animals, which they 

 acknowledge themselves in man. 

 [POWELL'S Essays, etc., p. 478, 385, 

 and 466.] I would further remark, 

 that, when speaking of creation iu 

 contradistinction with reproduction, 

 I mean only to allude to the differ- 

 ence there is between the regular 

 course of phenomena in nature, and 

 the establishment of that order of 

 things, without attempting to explain 

 either ; for, in whatever manner any 

 state of things which has prevailed 

 for a time upon earth may have been 

 introduced, it is self-evident that its 

 establishment and its maintenance 

 for a determined period are two very 

 different things, however frequently 

 they may be mistaken as identical. 

 It is, further, of itself plain that the 

 laws which may explain the pheno- 

 mena of the material world, in con- 

 tradistinction from the organic, can- 



