278 THE WORLD OF LIFE 



ultimate purpose is (so far as we can discern) the develop- 

 ment of mankind for an enduring spiritual existence. With 

 this object in view it would be important to supply all 

 possible aids that a material world can give for the training 

 and education of man's higher intellectual, moral, and aesthetic 

 nature. If this view is the true one, we may look upon our 

 Universe, in all its parts and during its whole existence, as 

 slowly but surely marching onwards to a predestined end ; 

 and this involves the further conception, that now that man 

 has been developed, that he is in full possession of this earth, 

 and that upon his proper use of it his adequate preparation 

 for the future life depends, then a great responsibility is placed 

 upon him for the way in which he deals with this his great 

 heritage from all the ages, not only as regards himself and 

 his fellows of the present generation, but towards the unknown 

 multitude of future generations that are to succeed him. 



All of us who are led to believe that there must be a 

 being or beings high and powerful enough to have been the 

 real cause of the material cosmos with its products life and 

 mind, can hardly escape from the old and much-derided view, 

 that this world of ours is the best of all possible worlds calcu- 

 lated to bring about this result. And if the best for its 

 special purpose, then the whole course of life-development 

 was the best ; then also every step in that development and 

 every outcome of it which we find in the living things which 

 are our contemporaries are also the best are here for a 

 purpose in some way connected with us ; and if in our blind 

 ignorance or prejudice we destroy them before we have 

 earnestly endeavoured to learn the lesson they are intended 

 to teach us, we and our successors will be the losers morally, 

 intellectually, and perhaps even physically. 



Already in the progress of this work I have dwelt upon 

 the marvellous variety of the useful or beautiful products of 

 the vegetable and animal kingdoms far beyond their own 

 uses, as indicating a development for the service of man. 

 This variety and beauty, even the strangeness, the ugliness, 

 and the unexpectedness we find everywhere in nature, are, and 

 therefore were intended to be, an important factor in our 

 mental development ; for they excite in us admiration, 

 wonder, and curiosity the three emotions which stimulate 



