150 RELATIVE GEOLOGICAL ANTIQUITY OF TREES. 



changes which form collectively the life of a flower or tree 

 are conducted on a plan and system, why not those of this 

 world? Does it not necessarily follow, when all Nature is 

 thus bound together in adamantine links ? I confess to you, 

 reader, that this assemblage of facts connected with the devel- 

 opment of life on the surface of our planet, this mutual 

 dependency which pervades all Nature, and this order and 

 mechanism which ever surrounds me, inspires me with the 

 profoundest of all convictions, that there is plan and system 

 pervading the whole of these onward movements. I have 

 thought on this subject until I feel myself to be a part of 

 Nature, linked on the one hand with the lichen on the rock, 

 and, on the other, with the most distant star, for I know not 

 where to break the chain. 



I am connected with the whole of Creation, and with a 

 system of things conducted on a plan so vast that I see 

 neither the beginning nor the end.* I know that the parts 

 of a tree are put together with matchless skill and beauty, 

 and my impression is, that things are just as well and wisely 

 ordered in this world. We meet with much that is dark and 

 distressing in life ; but let us place a cheerful trust in Divine 

 Providence, and rest assured that ALL is FOR THE BEST. 



For my own part, I have been very happy in tracing out 

 these beautiful harmonies in Creation. Nature is a library 

 from which no man can be excluded. I have come to look 

 upon her lowly flowers and lofty trees as my books. Seated 

 beneath some shadowy beech or venerable oak, I have an 

 infinite variety of choice volumes in the flowers spread at my 



* "The Author of Nature has not given laws to the Universe which, 

 like the Institutions of man, carry in themselves the elements of their 

 own destruction. He has not permitted in his works any symptoms of 

 infancy or of old age, or any sign by which we might estimate either 

 their future or their past duration. He may put an end, as he no doubt 

 gave a beginning, to the present system at some determinate period, 

 but we may safely conclude that this great catastrophe will not be 

 brought about by any of the laws now in existence, and that it is not 

 indicated by any thing which we perceive."" Illustrations of the Hut- 

 tonian Theory of the Earth," by JOHN PLAYFAIR. 1802. 



