182 ANDREW JACKSON HOWE. 



any other shape, is interesting yet not satisfactory to 

 a mind seeking ultimate causes. Perhaps we shall be 

 told that all minerals have attributes, such as cleavage, 

 specific gravity, and frangibility, and that each mineral 

 has a peculiar attribute that determines the form it 

 shall take when undergoing congelation or crystal- 

 lization. Then, if we ask whence came the attribute, 

 we may be told that it always existed; that it was 

 never created any more than the mineral substance 

 was elaborated from nil. Quartz without its attributes 

 is not conceivable ; quartz is only such when substance 

 and attribute are combined. The substance can not 

 exist without the attribute, nor the attribute without 

 the substance. A similar course of reasoning leads to 

 the conclusion that the vapor of water congeals at a 

 certain temperature ; and the law of its crystallization 

 is, that the frozen particles shall arrange themselves 

 in shapes which correspond to those of certain crypto- 

 gamic plants to those of club-mosses, for instance. 

 The poet, in giving rein to his fancies, might say that 

 Puck invented these beautiful forms, and displayed 

 them in crystals of ice ! 



If the ordinary geological interpretation of the 

 earth's cosmogony be accepted, it would seem that 

 what was once a molten planet became at length suf- 

 ficiently cooled to exhibit sea and land ; and that the 

 internal fires warped the outside crust into mountains 

 and valleys, hills and plains, with vistas and land- 

 scapes. In a restricted sense there is nothing pur- 

 posive in all this nothing but changes brought about 

 by disturbed forces seeking equilibrium ; yet in a more 

 liberal interpretation of the matter, a scheme may be 

 seen in every feature. The introduction of life upon 

 the planet was seemingly an aim of Omnipotence, and 



