398 Professor Agassiz on thv Ikvelopment of Organised Beings 



given to man to be recognised in his own heart when he re- 

 flected upon himself. 



But here the task which the naturalist ought to impose on 

 himself by no means terminates. If it is an obligation on 

 science to proclaim the intervention of a divine power in the 

 development of the whole of nature, and if it is to that power 

 alone that we must ascribe all things, it is not the less incum- 

 bent on science to ascertain what is the influence which physical 

 forces, left to themselves, exercise in all natural phenomena, and 

 what is the part of direct action which we must attribute to the 

 Supreme Being in the revolutions to which nature has been sub- 

 jected. For a long period moralists have been endeavouring 

 to trace the limits of human responsibility, and to fix the de- 

 gree of liberty which is devolved on man by his nature. It 

 is now time for naturalists to occupy themselves likewise, in 

 their domain, in inquiring within what limits we can recog- 

 nise the traces of a divine interposition, and within what 

 limits the phenomena takes place in consequence of a state 

 of things immutably established from the beginnhig of crea- 

 tion. 



Let me endeavour to give more precision to what I mean. 

 If the course of the stars does not present to us any variation, 

 if the order of the seasons is immutable, if the reproduction 

 of species always takes place in the same manner, it is evident 

 that the cause of these phenomena is regulated in an unvary- 

 ing manner, and follows natural laws, independent of the 

 creative will which established them. But if, on the other 

 hand, we see in the beds of the crust of the globe a succession 

 of organised beings such as no longer makes its appearance, 

 and such as man has never seen appearing, such, in fine, as 

 our intelligence cannot conceive appearing spontaneously 

 under the simple influence of the forces of nature, we must 

 attribute its creation to a Supreme Intelligence, which has 

 regulated from the beginning of time the order of the world. 



Let it not be said that it is not given to man to sound these 

 depths : the knowledge he has acquired of so many hidden 

 mysteries in past ages promises more and more extended 

 revelations. It is an error to which the mind, from a natural 



