ON GEOLOGIC HISTORY. 291 



dying irresponsible brute. That scene of things in whicli 

 God becanie Man, and suffered, seems, as it no doubt is, a ne- 

 jessaiy link in the chain. 



I am aware that I stand on the confines of a myster}' 

 which man, since the first introduction of sin into the world 

 till now, has "vainly aspired to comprehend." But I have 

 no new reading of the enigma to offer. I know not why it 

 is that moral evil exists in the universe of the All-Wise and 

 the All-Powerful ; nor through what occult law of Deity it 

 is that "perfection should come through suffering." The 

 question, like that satellite, ever attendant upon our planet, 

 which presents both its sides to the sun, but invariably the 

 same side to the earth, hides one of its faces from man, and 

 turns it to but the Eye from which all light emanates. And 

 it is in that God- ward phase of the question that the mystery 

 dwells. We can map and measure every protuberance and 

 liollow which roughens the nether disc of the moon, as, dur- 

 ing the shades of night, it looks down upon our path to cheer 

 and enlighten ; but what can we know of the other ? It 

 would, however, seem, that even in this field of mystery the 

 extent of the inexplicable and the unknown is capable of 

 reduction, and that the human understanding is vested in an 

 ability of progressing towards the central point of that dark 

 field throughout all time, mayhap all eternity, as the asymp- 

 tote progresses upon its curve. Even though the essence of 

 the question should for ever remain a mystery, it may yet, 

 in its reduced and defined state, serve as a key for the laying 

 of other mysteries open. The philosophers are still as igno- 

 rant as ever respecting the intrinsic nature of gravitation ; 

 but regarded simply as a force, how many enigmas has it not 

 served to unlock ! And that moral gravitation towards evil, 

 manifested by the only two classes of responsible beings of 

 which there is aught known to man, and of which a degra- 

 dation linked by mysterious analogy with a class of facts sin 



