350 LAUGEL'S PROBLEMS OF NATURE AND LIFE. 



In what, and how, and when, did life begin on our 

 globe? In its lowest aspects, whether animal or 

 vegetable, we see nothing more than a few material 

 elements, aggregated tinder the simplest forms ; with 

 few organic functions, yet these such in kind as to 

 preserve existence for a certain time to provide for a 

 succession of similar existences and this fulfilled, to 

 expire. From these simple conditions (taking animal 

 life as best for illustration) we find a series rising up- 

 wards to forms and functions the most complex and 

 complete. In no part of this ascending scale is there 

 any wide gap ; what in many cases seemed such 

 having been, partially at least, filled up by recent dis- 

 covery in the living or the fossil world. However this 

 series may have begun, and whether it has been 

 worked out by derivation or evolution within itself, or 

 by successive acts of creative power, equally must we 

 affirm the unity of the whole, and the necessity of a 

 First and Supreme designing Cause. If the endless 

 forms, functions, and instincts of life which surround 

 us be derived by progressive changes in unmeasured 

 time from a few primitive types of being, such changes 

 bespeak certain vital laws acting on matter through 

 and concurrently with the other great forces of the 

 natural world. Under any and every view of the sub- 

 ject, intention by a higher Power, however obscure to 

 man as the interpreter, is manifest as the foundation of 

 the whole the sole standing-point to our reason, when 

 regarding the origin, varieties, and perpetuation of 

 animal life on the earth. 



This recognised, we are better prepared to meet 



