316 



THE WORLD OF LIFE 



CHAP. 



In the present work I recur to the subject after forty 

 years of further reflection, and I now uphold the doctrine 

 that not man alone, but the whole World of Life, in almost 

 all its varied manifestations, leads us to the same conclusion 

 — that to afford any rational explanation of its phenomena, 

 we require to postulate the continuous action and guidance 

 of higher intelligences ; and further, that these have probably 

 been working towards a single end, the development of 

 intellectual, moral, and spiritual beings. I will now indicate 

 briefly how the facts adduced in the present and preceding 

 chapters tend to support this view. 



Having shown in the last chapter that the phenomena 

 of growth in the animal world, and especially as manifested 

 in the feathers of birds and the transformations of the 

 higher insects, are absolutely unintelligible and unthinkable 

 in the absence of such intelligence, we must go a step 

 farther and assume, as in the highest degree probable, a 

 purpose which this ever-present, directing, and organising 

 intelligence has had always in view. We cannot help 

 seeing that we ourselves are the highest outcome of the 

 developmental process on the earth ; that at the time of 

 our first appearance, plants and animals in many diverging 

 lines had approached their highest development ; that 

 all or almost all of these have furnished species which seem 

 peculiarly adapted to our purposes, whether as food, as 

 providing materials for our clothing and our varied arts, 

 as our humble servants and friends, or as gratifying our 

 highest faculties by their beauty of form and colour ; and 

 as our occupation of the earth has already led to the 

 extinction of many species, and seems likely ultimately 

 to destroy many more except so far as we make special 

 efforts to preserve them, we must, I think, assume that 

 all these consequences of our development were foreseen, 

 and that results which seem to be so carefully adapted to 

 our wants during our growing civilisation were really 

 prepared for us. If this be so, it follows that the much- 

 despised anthropomorphic view of the whole development 

 of the earth and of organic nature was, after all, the 

 true one. 



But if the view now advocated is not so wholly un- 



