188 COMPARISONS OF STEUCTURE IN ANIMALS. 



existence of threescore years and ten ? Has he 

 not a consciousness of his great pre-eminence ? 

 Stands he not isolated and, as it were, on a 

 pedestal above the animal creation around him, 

 among them but not of them, with high 

 aspirations, with longings after immortality? 

 And is there this solecism in the laws of 

 creation, that he is really no more than other 

 animals, except in degree, all ending with his 

 present existence? If so, he is a still more 

 extraordinary being, and we shall in vain 

 endeavour to discover the motive of his 

 creation — the final cause of his existence. 

 But no, the reason that is given us is sufficient 

 to prove to us, from a consideration of man as 

 an animal, as a rational animal, not only higher 

 than the brutes, but opposite to them, that this 

 life is not our only term of being. Why else 

 have we conscience ? — why ideas of a great and 

 wise God, derived from a study of his works ? — 

 why a dream that svicli a state as a future 

 existence is even possible ?— whence, too, arose 

 the erroneous belief of idol gods, and of future 

 rewards and punishments, or even of retri- 

 butive justice in this life ? How came men 

 to adore anything, and why such a feeling as 

 that of adoration, however erroneous in its 



