THE SUCCESSION OF ANIMAL FORMS 193 



force, and by the universal and continuous ether ; but whether 

 or not, it has become clear that the conception of the unseen, 

 as existing, has become necessary to our belief in the possible 

 existence of the physical universe itself, even without taking 

 life into account. 



It is in the domain of life, however, that this necessity be- 

 comes most apparent; and it is in the plant that we first 

 clearly perceive a visible testimony to that unseen which is the 

 counterpart of the seen. Life in the plant opposes the out- 

 ward rush of force in our system, arrests a part of it on its 

 way, fixes it as potential energy, and thus, forming a mere eddy, 

 so to speak, in the process of dissipation of energy, it accumu- 

 lates that on which animal life and man himself may subsist, 

 and assert for a time supremacy over the seen and temporal on 

 behalf of the unseen and eternal. I say, for a time, because 

 life is, in the visible universe, as at present constituted, but a 

 temporary exception, introduced from that unseen world where 

 it is no longer the exception but the eternal rule. In a still 

 higher sense, then, than that in which matter and force testify 

 to a Creator, organization and life, whether in the plant, the 

 animal, or man, bear the same testimony, and exist as outposts 

 put forth in the succession of ages from that higher heaven 

 that surrounds the visible universe. In them, too, Almighty 

 power is no doubt conditioned or limited by law ; yet they bear 

 more distinctly upon them the impress of their Maker, and, 

 while all explanations of the physical universe which refuse to 

 recognise its spiritual and unseen origin must necessarily be 

 partial and in the end incomprehensible, this destiny falls more 

 quickly and surely on the attempt to account for life and its 

 succession on merely materialistic principles. 



Here again, however, we must bear in mind that creation, as 

 maintained against such materialistic evolution, whether by 

 theology, philosophy, or Holy Scripture, is necessarily a con- 

 tinuous, nay, an eternal, influence, not an intervention of dis- 



