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 baffled. 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 



