156 NATURAL HISTORY 



We necessarily take man as our type of person- 

 ality. Is it possible, then, we ask, to prove that 

 personality from any of his works? If this is 

 denied, then our argument from contrivance is 

 certainly in danger, because we have no acknowl- 

 edged standard. But if it be granted that any work 

 of man, any of the grand material results brought 

 out by the combined w T isdom and skill of the race, 

 proves personality, then we have a recognized 

 standard. Let that be taken, and I care not what 

 it may be, and it can not only be matched in .every 

 particular in the works of Nature, but as far exceed- 

 ed in completeness as in grandeur and beauty. We 

 see one plan or set of plans commenced in the first 

 creation of animal and vegetable life, the grand 

 ideas in those plans preserved till the present 

 moment, for untold ages, not only through thou- 

 sands of generations, but through thousands of new 

 creations. And yet that plan has been modified in 

 its details, to carry out a particular design in each 

 new species. This wisdom and skill are thus seen, 

 not only providing for the exigencies of the day, 

 not only for the things already created, but looking 



