140 Psychological Distinctions between Man and Brutes. 



taking the higher ground of natural theology in reference to 

 human kind, and recognising, in the grand aggregate of all 

 that has been effected in past ages by the joint influence of 

 every cause that has been in operation, not only a gradual 

 prospective adaptation to the welfare of each succeeding race, 

 but an ulterior object in capacitating the globe for the resi- 

 dence of human beings. A new era commenced with the 

 introduction of man upon this world : a secondary intelligence 

 was permitted to assume the dominion over matter, in so far 

 as, by experimenting upon its properties, it can elucidate 

 the unvarying laws which regulate these, a knowledge of 

 which is indispensable to empower intellect to direct their 

 operation.* To man it was given to "conquer the whole 

 earth and subdue it;" and who can venture to aver the ulti- 

 mate limits of those changes which he every where superin- 

 duces; changes which, in conjunction with the physical laws 

 which wear away the land and uplift the bed of the ocean, 

 may, in time, be gradually fatal to the normal condition of 

 every other race, and to the existence even of by far the 

 greater number ? that is, assuming, what there is every reason 

 to infer, that the human species was the last act of creation 

 upon this world, and that it will continue to be so until its 

 removal. It is needless to add, that a prodigious lapse of 

 time is here required; and, to judge from data which the 

 past history of the globe abundantly furnishes, in legible 

 records, wherever we turn our eyes; to judge from the pro- 

 gressiveness of human intellect, and the long, long while that 

 must yet transpire ere man can hope to assume that rank, as 

 a consistent being, for which his faculties clearly show that 

 he was intended, the duration of his existence upon this 

 planet would appear likely to bear proportion to that im- 

 mense period that the globe will continue fitted for his 

 reception; a period, it may be presumed, that will abun- 

 dantly suffice to alternate the land and sea, as we know has 

 repeatedly happened heretofore, and which may sweep from 

 existence the inhabitants of the present ocean, as those of 

 which the exuviae occur in the chalk have become extinct 

 before them.-)- The past affording the only record from which 

 we are competent to judge rationally of the future, this inverse 

 analogy would argue a continuance of the refrigeration of our 

 planet, till it shall be again unfitted for the existence of or- 



* " Homo, naturae minister et interpres, tantum facit et intelligit quantum 

 deViaturae ordine re vel mente observaverit ; nee amplius scit aut potest."-^ 

 Lord Bacon. 



f Except man shall have domesticated some of these, and artificially 

 transferred them to new localities. 



