1 66 EVOL UTION AND NA TUEAL THEOL G Y. 



It thus appears that cycles of comparative 

 quiet intervene between epochs of great 

 destruction (as is notoriously the case with 

 volcanic eruptions and earthquakes) allowing 

 considerable progress to take place in the 

 interval, which, when it slackens, receives a 

 fresh impetus from the new scourges which 

 goad it on at intervals. 



Thus, throughout all Nature, we find that 

 death and destruction have no real existence, for 

 life and progress are ever springing from death, 

 stronger and more vigorous than before. In 

 the hand of God we see that the most wholesale 

 destruction of both individual and specific life 

 becomes one of the principal means of covering 

 the earth with new life and beauty. There is 

 no destruction in Nature, for everything is con- 

 verted to other uses ; and no death, for new 

 life always succeeds the old more abundantly. 

 What support then does Nature lend to that 

 materialism which teaches that the body is a 

 mere self-acting machine, and that the con- 

 sciousness vanishes for ever at death ? 



