so APHORISMS AND REFLECTIONS 



CLXXVII 



The whole analogy of natural operations fur- 

 nishes so complete and crushing an argument 

 against the intervention of any but what are termed 

 secondary causes, in the production of all the 

 phenomena of the universe ; that, in view of the 

 intimate relations between Man and the rest of the 

 living world, and between the forces exerted by the 

 latter and all other forces, I can see no excuse for 

 doubting that ail are co-ordinated terms of Nature's 

 great progression, from the formless to the formed — 

 from the inorganic to the organic — from blind force to 

 conscious intellect and will. 



CLXXVIII 



Science has fulfilled her function when she has 

 ascertained and enunciated truth. 



CLXXIX 



Thoughtful men, once escaped from the blind- 

 ing influences of traditional prejudice, will find in 

 the lowly stock whence Man has sprung the best 

 evidence of the splendour of his capacities ; and will 

 discern in his long progress through the Past a 

 reasonable ground of faith in his attainment of a 

 nobler Future. . . 



And after passion and prejudice have died away, 

 the same result will attend the teachings of the 

 naturalist respecting that great Alps and Andes of 

 the living world — Man. Our reverence for the 

 nobility of manhood will not be lessened by the 

 knowledge that Man is, in substance and in structure, 

 one with the brutes ; for he alone possesses the 

 marvellous endowment of intelligible and rational 

 speech, whereby, in the secular period of his 



