>L 



204 FINAL CAUSES : THEIR BEARING 



duced species of the reigning class there occun'ed for the first 

 time examples of an asymmetrical misplacement of parts, and, 

 in at least one family of fishes, instances of defect of parts : 

 there was the manifestation of a downward tendency towards 

 the degradation of monstrosity, when the elevatory fiat again 

 went forth, and, through an act of creation, the dynasty of 

 the reptile began. Again many ages passed by, marked, ap- 

 parently, by the introduction of a warm-blooded oviparous 

 animal, the bird, and of a few marsupial quadrupeds, but in 

 which the prevailing class reigned undeposed, though at least 

 imelevated. Yet again, however, the elevatory fiat went 

 forth, and, through an act of creation, the dynasty of the 

 mammiferous quadruped began. And after the further lapse 

 of ages, the elevatory fiat went forth yet once more in an act 

 of creation ; and with the human, heaven-aspiring dynasty, 

 the moral government of God, in its connection with at 

 least the world which we inhabit, "took beginning." And 

 then creation ceased. "Why 1 Simply because God's moral 

 government had begun, — ^because in necessary conformity 

 with the institution of that government, there was to be a 

 thorough identity maintained between the glorified and im- 

 mortal beings of the terminal dynasty, and the dying mag- 

 nates of the dynasty which now is ; and because, in conse- 

 quence of the maintenance of this identity as an essential 

 condition of this moral government, mere acts of creation 

 could no longer carry on the elevatory process. The work 

 analogous in its end and object to those acts of creation which 

 gave to our planet its successive dynasties of higher and yet 

 higher existences, is the work of Redemption. It is the ele- 

 vatory process of the present time, — the only possible provi- 

 sion for that final act of re-creation " to everlasting life," 

 which shall usher in the terminal dynasty. 



I cannot avoid thinking that many of our theologians at- 

 tach a too narrow meaning to the remarkable "Reason annex- 



