142 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. 



object of the Creator is the maintenance of the 

 whole system of creation in order and beauty, 

 and this he is pleased to accomplish, not always 

 by the concord but by the seeming discord of the 

 agents he employs. 



When we take a first view of nature we are 

 struck by a scene which seems to be one of 

 universal conflict, for the very heavens appear 

 not clear from the charge : the philosopher who 

 studies them tells us of antagonist powers, that 

 are perpetually striving with each other, the one 

 to absorb all things in a common centre, the 

 other to dissever them, and scatter them in illi- 

 mitable space, and when we turn to the earth, 

 what a scene of destruction is before us ! The 

 king of the terrestrial globe, man, constantly 

 engaged in a struggle with his fellow man, often 

 laying waste the earth, slaughtering its inhabit- 

 ants, and deforming its productions his subjects 

 of the animal kingdom following the example of 

 their master, and pitilessly destroying each 

 other the strong oppressing the weak, and 

 most seeming bent to annihilate the races to 

 which they are opposed ; so that, humanly 

 speaking, in the lapse of ages, we might expect 

 that one species of animals would be annihilated 

 after another, till the whole were obliterated 

 from the face of creation, and the sublime lan- 

 guage of the prophet literally verified ; " / 

 beheld the earth, and, lo, it was without, form 



