THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 5 



tuted for the impotence of old age. Thor shows like a re- 

 volted giant, raging and shattering everything that falls 

 within his reach. 



But to us, accustomed to bow before an all-powerful 

 Creator, such images appear very puerile. Instead of these 

 old men and giants laboriously occupied in hammering 

 out the globe, we trace everywhere the invisible hand of 

 God. In one place, with a delicacy which passes all con- 

 ception, it fashions and animates the insect with the breath 

 of life ; in another, expanding itself to vast dimensions, it 

 guides and governs the worlds scattered through space, con- 

 vulses or annihilates them. It is at such times that with 

 direful throes mountains are heaved up and abysses open 

 on our globe, and upon these gigantic ruins, as upon each 

 grain of sand, the philosopher finds written a grand page 

 of natural theology. 



In fact, every crumbling peak displays to our view the 

 remains of generations buried by the revolutions of the 

 globe. Their numbers, their size, their new and strange 

 forms, astonish us ; but we cannot doubt the evidence, for 

 these inanimate remains, of which the earth has faithfully 

 kept the impress, are so many medals struck by the Creator 

 and spared by the hand of time, to reveal to us the world's 

 eventful history. 



If we investigate the active forces of our planet, we soon 

 perceive that their power is boundless. When they are un- 

 chained within its bowels, the whole surface of the earth 

 is shaken. At one time they raise up the Alps and Hima- 

 layas, with their summits towering into the region of the 

 clouds. At another, almost cleaving the globe from pole to 



