142 LIFE ON THE EARTH. 



the purpose of this great plan, of which man comes in 

 as the highest exponent and present terminal of the 

 series ? How explain that long array of beings, mul- 

 titudinous in number and forms, now buried in the 

 rocks of the globe, and indicating innumerable ages of 

 life anterior to man ? Any notion of tentative work in 

 creation is excluded by the character and complexity 

 of the series, and not less by the conceptions which 

 alone we can form of the Creator. That Power which 

 could confer the higher faculties of existence, either by 

 special acts or general laws of progress, must have 

 been capable of creating the higher without the inter- 

 vention of the lower grades of life. But, however we 

 may shape the argument, the fact on which it rests is 

 that of a scale of created beings, irregular, indeed, in 

 parts, yet showing relation and continuity throughout, 

 and therefore what we must regard as unity in the 

 original design. 



While making full confession of ignorance as to the 

 purpose of this vast world of life around us, it must be 

 repeated and ever kept in mind that man is an integral 

 part of the scheme. His endowments, even as attested 

 by those wonderful instances which form the pride of 

 human history, are still relative in kind and degree. 

 And if we descend in the human scale itself detach- 

 ing from the great mass of mankind the names ren- 

 dered immortal by virtue, genius, learning, or art we 

 bring the connexion yet closer to those forms of animal 

 life which, though below man, may well startle him 

 by their proximity. No one can have travelled much, 

 as I myself have done, or lived observantly among 



