10 INTRODUCTION. 



8. No accident or CAPRICE IN Nature. Much more in tho living kingdoms 

 of naturo may wo look for an adequate purposo and end accomplished by every 

 movement and in every creaturo of tho Divine hand. Each species is created and 

 sustained to answer some worthy end in the vast plan ; and henco no individual, 

 animal or plant is to be regarded in science as insignificant, inasmuch as the indi- 

 vidual constitutes tho species. Nor is accident or caprice to be found in tho form of 

 the loaf, or tho color of tho flower. There is for each a special reason or adaptation 

 worthy of unerring wisdom. 



9. Object op natural Science. In the study of nature we are therefore 

 concerned in reasons and ends as well as in forms and appearances. That investi- 

 gation which ceases contented with the latter only ia peurile. It may amuse, but 

 can scarcely instruct, and can never conduct to that purest source of the student's 

 enjoyment, namely, the recognition of Intelligence by intelligence. 



10. Design, a settled principle in Science. The end or purpose, it ia 

 true, is not always as easily discerned as the form and fashion are. In a thousand in- 

 stances tho end is yet inscrutable. Nevertheless it is now a settled principle of 

 Eciencs that there is an end — a purpose — a reason, for every form which we contem- 

 plate ; and tho adaptation to that end is as beautiful as tho form itself. That the 

 tendril of tho vino and tho runner of the strawberry were happily adapted to a 

 special purposo is readily admitted ; for that purpose is immediate and obvious to 

 all. Let us not then say that the spine, tho stipule, or tho varying tints of the rose, 

 were made merely in caprice, their uses being less obvious in the present state of 

 our knowledge. 



11. Design, as distinguished from "Typical Forms." In addition to this 

 eequence of cause and effect in nature, disclosing the Infinite Designer in all 

 things, as early taught by Paley in his " Natural Theology," another class of prin- 

 ciples more recently developed are shown by tho author of " Typical Forms" 

 (McCosii), to indicate with a still clearer light tho thoughts of tho Omniscient Mind 

 in tho operations of naturo. A single observation often suffices for the discovery of 

 design, as in tho down of the thistle, by mean3 of which the seed is wafted on tho 

 winds to flourish in distant lands. But a typical form or^j/«;i requires a long series 

 of observations for its discernment. 



12. Typical Forms illustrated. Tho scientific world wero slow to learn 

 that tho numerous organs of plants so diversified in form and use are all modeled 

 from a single type, one radical form, and that form, the leaf! 



13. Results. This interesting doctrine, now universally admitted, sheds a new 

 light upon nature, making it all luminous with the Divine Presence. It brings tho 

 operations of the Great Architect almost within tho grasp of human intelligence, 

 revealing tho conceptions which occupied Ills mind before they wero embodied in 

 actual existence by His word. 



14. Graduated Forms. Again, by continued observation, tho principle of 

 graduated forms, allied to tho last, appeared as another grand characteristic of na- 

 ture. This principle implies that while natural objects vary to wide and seemingly 

 irreconcilable extremes, their differences are never abrupt, but they pass by insen- 

 sible gradations and shades from species to specie3 in a continuous series. 



15. Illustration. Thus in magnitude, although tho tiny moss is far removed 

 from tho gigantic oak, yet a scries connects them representing every imaginable in- 

 termediate grado in size. So in number, from tho one-stamened saltwort to the 

 hundred-stamened rose, there is a connecting series, representing every intervening 

 number. Moreover, inform and figure, wo pass from the thread-leafed pine to tho 

 broad-leafed poplar through a Bcries of every intermediate degree of leaf-expansion ; 



