640 UNITY OF DESIGN. 



views into futurity, the feeble light of his reason 

 is scattered and lost in the vast abyss. Although 

 we plainly discern intention in every part of the 

 creation, the grand object of the whole is placed 

 far above the scope of our comprehension. It is 

 impossible, however, to conceive that this enor- 

 mous expenditure of power, this vast accumula- 

 tion of contrivances and of machinery, and this 

 profusion of existence resulting from them, can 

 thus, from age to age, oe prodigally lavished, 

 without some ulterior end. Is Man, the favoured 

 creature of nature's bounty, " the paragon of 

 animals," whose spirit holds communion with 

 celestial powers, formed but to perish with the 

 wreck of his bodily frame? Are generations 

 after generations of his race doomed to follow in 

 endless succession, rolling darkly down the 

 stream of time, and leaving no track in its path- 

 less ocean ? Are the operations of Almighty 

 power to end with the present scene ? May we 

 not discern, in the spiritual constitution of man 

 the traces of higher powers, to which those he 

 now possesses are but preparatory ; some embryo 

 faculties which raise us above this earthly habi- 

 tation ? Have we not in the imagination, a power 

 but little in harmony with the fetters of our 

 bodily organs ; and bringing within our view 

 purer conditions of being, exempt from the illu- 

 sions of our senses and the infirmities of our 

 nature, our elevation to which will eventually 



