MAMMALIA. 



123 



which every power or agent throughout nature is 

 always made a little stronger than the average of its 

 work requires. 



When we look carefully at the matter, we see 

 therefore that a direct revelation of the know- 

 ledge of nature would have been incompatible 

 with the whole of the rest of creation, and destructive 

 of all improvement and happiness in man himself. It 

 would in fact have levelled him with the beasts ; and, 

 to use a homely expression, a rational and immortal 

 spirit would have been thrown away upon him. Man, 

 as a created being, is necessarily a finite one, and 

 therefore the knowledge of which he is capable, 

 whether by the immediate exercise of his own powers, 

 or by a supposed direct revealment from Heaven, 

 must necessarily have had a limit under every cir- 

 cumstance which we can possibly imagine. No 

 matter where this limit is taken, for be it wide be it 

 narrowband admit that within it man possesses by 

 direct revelation from God all that can be known 

 and to what would such a supposition reduce this 

 knowledge ? clearly to nothing else but a set of in- 

 stincts ; for what are the instincts of animals, the 

 habits of plants, the modes of inorganic matter, but 

 so many direct revelations, so many givings forth of 

 that decree of the Creator, which sets its bound to 

 every unreasoning thing which he has created, and 

 says, " Hitherto shall thou come, but no farther." 



Now if natural knowledge, as one science or as 

 many sciences, is thus perfectly incompatible with 

 man as a rational being, it is perfectly evident that 

 the Bible could not, consistently with its being the 

 book of inspiration, communicate this kind of know- 

 ledge as its express and original purpose. It is true 

 that it became necessary to extend the line of Bible 

 history backward to the dawn of creation ; but the 

 earlier events, those antecedent to what are more 

 essential to the grand purpose of the book, are barely 

 touched on ; and as no language could explain in exact 

 terms the manner of the Almighty's acting in crea- 

 tion, the language is of course figurative. The Bible 

 too was delivered to people at different times, and 

 possessing very different degrees of knowledge ; and 

 the object of it being clearly that all the revealed por- 

 tion should be intelligible to the majority of those to 

 whom it was promulgated, it became necessary that, 

 in taking illustrations from the works of nature, which 

 illustrations are indispensable to man's understanding 

 the truths which they illustrate, to take those illus- 

 trations in so general a manner as to avoid the tem- 

 porary and local errors of speculators. 



Those who read the book with attention will find 

 that, making allowance for metaphorical language, 

 and for the impossibility of rendering a work with 

 absolute perfection in a translation, there is no 

 ancient book which stands so perfectly free from 

 violations even of the most recent philosophical truths 

 than the oldest book of the Bible. So remarkable is 

 this property, that there is not a single expression in 

 the whole Bible, excepting such as are clearly and 

 obviously metaphorical, which contradicts one single 



!)rinciple that experience has established in the phi- 

 osophy of nature, how long so ever the expression 

 may have been given to the world before the prin- 

 ciple was discovered. This is a very remarkable 

 property of the book, and one which distinguishes it 

 from all books that ever were composed by human 

 ability alone, whether their authors were more or 

 less philosophical. Take any of the systems which 



were given to the world before what may be con- 

 sidered as the establishment of the philosophy of 

 nature on the basis of experience, and leaving out of 

 view the mythology with which they may be mixed, 

 it will be found that, upon every point which had not 

 been brought fairly to the test of experience, they 

 are erroneous. It is highly probable too, notwith- 

 standing all that has been done in modern times, that 

 a future age will find the same imperfections in the 

 speculative part of our philosophy. This cannot be 

 avoided, upon the very principle that this philosophy 

 is, by the constitution of man, left to human disco- 

 very ; and perhaps there is no stronger natural proof 

 of the inspiration of the sacred volume than its per- 

 fect avowal of this subject, and never producing error 

 where it would have been inconsistent with its nature 

 to reveal the truth. 



These considerations are not generally, at all events 

 they are not habitually introduced into disquisitions 

 on physiology, and yet the subject is very imperfect 

 without them, and unless they are made, the ignorant 

 are very apt to suppose that there is some doubtful 

 ground lying between philosophy and revelation, 

 upon which the investigator of nature is afraid to 

 enter, and the introduction of this suspicion is in 

 itself a serious evil. It were indeed to be desired 

 that the system of nature should be viewed in its 

 connexion, not merely with natural theology, but 

 with the particular revelation of the divine will to 

 man ; because if any part is left out, the very fact of 

 leaving it out creates a suspicion that it does not 

 harmonise with the rest. 



Perhaps the most perplexing part of the subject, 

 when viewed thus extensively, is the doctrine of the 

 fall of man, and his redemption through Jesus Christ. 

 But when we view this in the sober light of philo- 

 sophy, we find that it is perfectly consistent with the 

 rest of the system of nature, and we cannot easily 

 imagine how the result could have been otherwise. 

 We have already endeavoured to show that nn imme- 

 diate revelation to man of all that it behoved him 

 to know and to do, would have been inconsistent 

 with his character as a rational being, and have 

 brought him within the class of other animals, over 

 which in all their actions, the laws of nature have 

 complete and absolute power, and which, as all that 

 they do is not only in accordance with the Jaw, but 

 in consequence of it, cannot by possibility violate the 

 law in any one respect. But a creature so tied down 

 would have reason given to it in vain, because that 

 would be furnishing a guide where no guidance were 

 needed, and would therefore be the introduction of 

 something useless into nature, which is contrary to 

 all that we observe of nature, and to all that we 

 know and believe of nature's Author. In order there- 

 fore that man might exercise his powers and fill his 

 place in creation, it became necessary to leave his 

 reason to its own exercise ; and as the reason of man 

 at any given stage of his being is not only finite in 

 itself, but limited in respect of many parts of that 

 knowledge which is necessary for enabling man to 

 conduct himself in a manner the most conducive to 

 his own advantage, it is morally and philosophi- 

 cally impossible that man could keep, or can keep 

 in the right path by the guidance of his own 

 lodgment; because his knowledge never can, in the 

 nature of things, apply equally to all the circum- 

 stances or ways in which the future may be affected 

 by the present action. We may say therefore that 



