170 Natural Theology. 



We have already referred to crystallography, and we 

 shall, in a future lecture, enter into the considera- 

 tion of chemical combinations, in their relation to 

 man. We never could see how the plan of struc- 

 ture, the whole science of homologies in the animal 

 and vegetable kingdoms, could be fully comprehend- 

 ed by any one, without the recognition of a direct 

 provision for man as an intellectual being. Animals 

 and plants are constructed with parts apparently for 

 no other purpose than to show their true place in 

 the organic kingdom. We believe that they are 

 thus linked together by homologous parts that they 

 might be comprehended by man, that he might more 

 surely trace the plan of the Great Architect. 



We believe this also, without reference to the 

 question whether these parts came to be as they are 

 through secondary causes or by direct creation. 



In the provision made for the increase of beauty 

 in the flower by doubling, there is certainly no 

 reference to the welfare of the plant, for beauty 

 increases at the expense of the seed, the final cause, 

 or one use of the flower, as all will allow. When 

 we see this tendency to variation in such a multi- 

 tude of flowers ; when we see it confined to those 

 plants having methods of propagation other than 

 the seed ; when we see this tendency conferring no 

 possible benefit upon the individual plant nor upon 

 the species ; when we see what a source of enjoy- 

 ment this law is to man in his highest cultivation, 

 we might say, how necessary for that highest culti- 

 vation can we doubt for what purpose this law of 



