50 APHORISMS AND REFLECTIONS 



The whole analogy of natural operations fur- 

 nishes so complete and crushing an argument 

 against the intervention of any but what are termed 

 secondary causes, in the production of all the 

 phenomena of the universe ; that, in view of the 

 intimate relations between Man and the rest of the 

 living world, and between the forces exerted by the 

 latter and all other forces, I can see no excuse for 

 doubting that all are co-ordinated terms of Nature's 

 great progression, from the formless to the formed 

 from the inorganic to the organic from blind force to 

 conscious intellect and will. 



Science has fulfilled her function when she has 

 ascertained and enunciated truth. 



Thoughtful men, once escaped from the blind- 

 ing influences of traditional prejudice, will find in 

 the lowly stock whence Man has sprung the best 

 evidence of the splendour of his capacities ; and will 

 discern in his long progress through the Past a 

 reasonable ground of faith in his attainment of a 

 nobler Future. . . 



And after passion and prejudice have died away, 

 the same result will attend the teachings of the 

 naturalist respecting that great Alps and Andes of 

 the living world Man. Our reverence for the 

 nobility of manhood will not be lessened by the 

 knowledge that Man is, in substance and in structure, 

 one with the brutes ; for he alone possesses the 

 marvellous endowment of intelligible and rational 

 speech, whereby, in the secular period of his 



