360 LESSONS FROM, NATUEE. [CHAP. XII. 



quently, as just said, the cause of an universe with both 

 continuity and purpose. 



We have also seen, in the succeeding chapters, how the 

 -Purpose&quot; process of evolution, as carried through the material 



as shown in 



Nature. world, shows us the development from potentiality 

 into actuality of successively new forms. We cannot indeed 

 imagine the ultimate &quot; how &quot; of their production (which as 

 being beyond experience is necessarily beyond imagination), 

 but we recognise the fact that they are so evolved ; and we 

 have, in some cases, already gleaned a few of the conditions 

 of their evolution. In passing to the vegetable world from 

 the mineral kingdom, we behold manifested, for the first 

 time, a vital form, or force. In passing to the animal world 

 from the vegetable kingdom, we behold manifested, for the 

 first time, a sentient form. In passing to the human world 

 from the kingdom of brute animals, we behold manifested, 

 for the first time, a rational form. 



Thus modern science shows us plainly the truth proclaimed 

 of old that a successively increasing fulfilment of purpose 

 runs through the irrational creation up to man. The in 

 organic world can do without the organic, but not vice versa. 

 The vegetable world can exist without the animal, but not 

 vice versa. The animal world can do without the rational 

 world as experienced by us, but not vice versa. Cosmical 

 entities and their laws do, then, serve organic being more 

 than inorganic, sentient being more than insentient, rational 

 being more than sentient. Therefore if there is inten 

 tion and will in the First Cause at all (and we have seen 

 that to deny it is to contradict reason), He must have 

 willed most service to man of all the multitude of creatures 

 which our senses make known to us. It is not surprising 

 then that we find the same law of progress to extend through 

 the evolution of human society. In politics, in law, in science, 

 in art, and in religion, we find the same law of evolution 

 continuity and final causality resulting in the manifestation of 

 increasingly stable, coherent, definite, and complex varieties 

 of being. 



