110 STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 
arrive at the conviction of design in the material 
world, we are persuaded that there is a Designer ; or, 
in other words, the atheistical doctrines of chance, 
and of self-development, vanish like a mist. This 
design must have emanated solely from the Creator; 
and as perfection is His attribute, design can never 
be partial, because it would then be imperfect. Every 
thing in nature being thus formed for some specific 
purpose, it follows, man was created with the 
same object. But what this object is, unassisted 
reason can never discover. It requires no depth 
of penetration to perceive that one of the chief 
uses of the vegetable kingdom is, to supply food to 
the animal; this object being effected, the plant 
dies. Insects either furnish nourishment to other 
animals, or they assist the propagation of plants, or 
they hasten the decomposition of decayed matter ; 
this done, the purposes of their creation appear to 
be effected, and they pass away. In like manner we 
may trace the great outlines of design through every 
branch of the animal kingdom: each is dependent 
the one upon the other, and this dependence pro- 
duces the most inconceivable harmony. 
(58.) But when we come to MAN, who reigns 
over the whole,—when we ask for what visible 
purpose, or with what design, he was called into 
being, our natural reason is baflled. No part of 
the economy of nature is dependent upon his ex- 
istence: he assists not in one of the innumerable 
operations which are continually going on, by which 
the harmony of nature is upheld, and a mutual 
dependence preserved in all the parts. The fruits of 
the earth require not his care, nor do the beasts of the 
