334 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



been able to demonstrate a uniform plan pervading the ostcological struc- 

 ture of so many diversified animated beings, I must have enforced, were 

 that necessary, as strong a conviction of the unity of the Creative Cause. 

 If, in all the striking changes of form and proportion which have passed 

 under review, AVC could discern only the results of minor modifications of 

 the same few osseous elements, surely we must be the more strikingly im- 

 pressed with the wisdom and power of that Cause which could produce so 

 much variety, and at the same time such perfect adaptations and endow- 

 ments, out of means so simple. For, in what have those mechanical instru- 

 ments the hands of the ape, the hoofs of the horse, the fins of the whale, 

 the trowels of the mole, the wings of the bat so variously formed to obey 

 the behests of volition in denizens of different elements in what, I say, 

 have they differed from the artificial instruments which we ourselves plan 

 with foresight and calculation for analogous uses, save in their greater com- 

 plexity, in their perfection, and in the unity and simplicity of the elements 

 which are modified to constitute these several locomotive organs. Every- 

 where in organic nature we see the means not only subservient to an end, 

 but that end accomplished by the simplest means. Hence we are compelled 

 to regard the Great Cause of all, not like certain philosophic ancients, a a 

 uniform and quiescent mind, as an all-pervading anima mnndi, but as an 

 active and anticipating intelligence. By applying the laws of comparative 

 anatomy to the relics of extinct races of animals contained in and character- 

 izing the different strata of the earth's crust, and corresponding with as 

 many epochs in the earth's history, we make an important step in advance 

 of all preceding philosophies, and are able to demonstrate that the same 

 pervading, active, and beneficent Intelligence- which manifests His power 

 in our times, has also manifested His power in times long anterior to the 

 records of our existence. But we likewise, by these investigations, gain a 

 still more important truth, viz., that the phenomena of the world do not 

 succeed each other with the mechanical sameness attributed to them in the 

 cycles of the Epicurean philosophy ; for we are able to demonstrate that the 

 different epochs of the history of the earth were attended with correspond- 

 ing changes of organic structure; and that, in all these instances of change, 

 the organs, as far as we could comprehend their use, were exactly those 

 best suited to the functions of the being. Hence we not only show intelli- 

 gence evoking means adapted to the end, but, at successive times and 

 periods, producing a change of mechanism adapted to a change in external 

 conditions. Thus the highest generalizations in the science of organic 

 bodies, like the Newtonian laws of universal matter, lead to the unequivocal 

 conviction of a great First Cause, which is certainly not mechanical. Unfet- 

 tered by narrow restrictions, unchecked by the timid and unworthy fears 

 of mistrustful minds, clinging, in ix?gard to mere physical questions, to 

 beliefs, for which the Author -of all truth has been pleased to substitute 

 knowledge, our science becomes connected with the loftiest of moi'al 

 speculations; and I know of no topic more fitting to the sentiments with 

 which I desire to conclude the present course. If I believed to use the 

 language of a gifted contemporary that the imagination, the feelings, the 

 active intellectual powers, bearing on the business of life, and the highest 

 capacities of our nature, were blunted and impaired by the study of phys- 

 iological and palreontological phenomena, I should then regard our science 

 as little better than a moral sepulchre, in which, like the strong man, we 

 were burying ourselves and those around us in ruins of our own creating. 



