90 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS RESPECTING THE 



see all in relation to Cause, and we shall chastenedly admit 

 that the whole is alike worshipful. 



We have, then, in this history, a planet formed, and a long 

 and complicated series of superficial changes effected upon it, 

 all through the efficacy of simply natural laws, which we can 

 see at work at this day in numberless familiar ways. But 

 mixed up with these geognostic changes, and apparently as 

 a final object connected with the formation of the globe itself, 

 there is another set of phenomena presented in the course of 

 our history the coming into existence, namely, of a long 

 suite of living things, vegetable and animal, terminating in 

 the families which we still see occupying the surface. The 

 question arises In what manner has this set of phenomena 

 originated ? Can we touch at and rest for a moment on the 

 possibility of plants and animals having likewise been pro- 

 duced in the way of natural law ; thus assigning but one 

 class of causes for everything revealed to our sensual obser- 

 vation ; or are we at once to reject this idea, and remain con- 

 tent, either to suppose that creative power here acted in a 

 different way, or to believe unexaminingly that the inquiry is 

 one beyond our powers ? 



Taking the last part of the question first, I would reply, that 

 I am extremely loath to imagine that there is anything in 

 nature which we should, for any reason, refrain from exa- 

 mining. If we can infer aught from the past history of 

 science, it is, that the whole of nature is a legitimate field for 

 the exercise of our intellectual faculties ; that there is a con- 

 nexion between this knowledge and our well-being ; and that 

 if we can judge from things once despaired of by our inquiring 

 reason, but now made clear and simple, there is none of 

 Nature's mysteries which we may not hopefully attempt to 

 penetrate. To remain idly content to presume a various class 

 of immediate causes for organic nature, seems to me, on this 

 ground, equally objectionable. 



Granting, then, that the inquiry should be entered upon, it 

 may be right to insist, in the first place, upon certain general 

 considerations, which, supposing we enter upon it in a scientific 



