PLAN IN THE CREATION. 



(385.) No one who believes in the existence of an 

 Omnipotent Creator,, can suppose, for a moment, that the 

 innumerable beings which HE has created were formed 

 without a plan. If an architect sat down and made in- 

 numerable models of cornices, entablatures, columns, 

 friezes, and all those ornaments used in a stately build- 

 ing, yet without any design of subsequently combining 

 them, we should naturally say, however much we 

 might admire the parts, that his work was imperfect. 

 Let us apply this reasoning to the creation : however 

 perfect an animal may be in its structure, ty would still 

 only resemble one of the ornaments we have just al- 

 luded to. It is beautiful in itself ; but it is only when 

 we attain some glimpse of the station it occupies with 

 its fellows, and of the manner in which it is combined 

 with others into one great whole, that we see this beauty 

 in its true light. No rational being can therefore suppose 

 that the great Architect of the world has created its in- 

 habitants without a plan. 



(386.) The plan of creation, therefore, implies uni- 

 versality, order, and harmony; and, in the view we now 

 take of it, is only another name for the natural system : 

 what, then, is the basis of this system ? Has any part 

 of it been discovered, or are we still wandering in the 

 mazes of error ? Let us briefly consider these questions. 

 Had this plan or system been simple, and of easy ap- 

 prehension, it had long ago been discovered, or each 

 succeeding age would not have produced systems, totally 

 at variance with each other. It was long supposed, 

 indeed, that this plan, aptly termed the chain of being, 

 was in a simple series, beginning with a worm or an 

 animalcule, and proceeding step by step, until the series 

 terminated in man. This, at first sight, strikes ordi- 

 nary minds as the most rational theory ; but when we 

 begin to trace this scale, to search after the innumer- 

 able steps which are supposed to lead, in a straight line, 

 from the despised worm, to man, the lord of the crea- 

 tion, we are very soon perplexed; we discover that every 

 animal has more relations than one, and that many 



