222 THE LAW. 



ferns, reeds, and gigantic endogens of the coal-measures ; 

 from these to the palms, cycads, and pines of the oolite ; 

 and from these, again, to the exogens and true timber-trees 

 of the tertiary and current eras. So also in the animal 

 kingdom : the graptolites and trilobites of the silurian seas 

 are succeeded by the eurypterites and bone-clad fishes of the 

 old red sandstone ; these by the sauroid fishes of the coal- 

 measures; the sauroid fishes by the saurians and birds of the 

 trias and oolite ; the reptiles and marsupials of the oolite by 

 the true mammals of the tertiary epoch : and these, in turn, 

 give place to existing species, with man as the crowning form 

 of created existence. And even as regards man, he, too, has 

 ever been in a state of gradation and progress. Many an- 

 cient races and forms of civilisation have passed away, and 

 others have taken their place. Nor has the line of develop- 

 ment in man's case been uniform and continuous, any more 

 than in the purely geological elimination of vitality. Here at 

 one time, and there at another, with greater intensity now 

 torpid and slow, now fresh and vigorous, but ever and always 

 still forward the human mind acquiring a cumulative force 

 from the experience of the past, and that race becoming 

 most powerful who can grasp the most of nature's laws, and 

 turn them with irresistible force to its own purposes. As 

 in the great design of Nature, so in the minor scheme of 

 Humanity that lies within it, the progress has ever been from 

 materialism to mechanism, from mechanism to mentalism, 

 and all that science indicates or history reveals points to mo- 

 ralism as the highest stage of man's terrestrial development. 

 Such is clearly the course of creation, however dimly we 

 may descry the law that governs its elimination. Matter 

 acted on by certain forces assumes the varied mechanism of 

 minerals, plants, and animals ; to this graduated mechanism 

 is gradually superadded the qualities of sensation and men- 

 talism ; and to mentalism in its highest phase is bequeathed 



