THEIR HARMONY AND PERMANENCE. 49 



escence ! the old Mils worn and wrinkled and furrowed 

 by decay, and the younger valleys spreading out in their 

 beauty and freshness and fertility ! 



" This earth, like the body of an animal," said Hutton, 

 " is wasted at the same time that it is repaired. It has a 

 state of growth and augmentation; it has another state, 

 which is that of diminution and decay. This world is thus 

 destroyed in one part, but it is renewed in another ; and 

 the operations by which this world is thus constantly re- 

 newed are as evident to the scientific eye as are those in 

 which it is necessarily destroyed." And yet how few will 

 take the trouble to comprehend this system of incessant 

 change, contented to live in the belief that this earth has 

 always been as it is, has been so from the beginning, and 

 will continue to be so to the end ! Verily they deprive 

 themselves of much rational enjoyment, pay little regard 

 to the system of nature of which they form so prominent 

 a part, and show little reverence for Him who has given 

 them eyes to see, and understanding to understand, so be 

 it they will only learn to exert them. How admirable the 

 system of compensation by which decay in one part is bal- 

 anced by renovation in another ! The substances disinte- 

 grated by water are again reconstructed by fire ; the matter 

 dissolved by chemical action is collected anew by vital; 

 and what was appropriated for a while by the living organ- 

 isms is restored again to the mineral world when vitality 

 has ceased its requirements. Everything in this universe 

 is indissolubly woven into a network of interdependence, 

 and not a mesh could be taken away without destroying 

 the beauty and consistency of the whole. 



" From nature's chain whatever link you strike, 

 Tenth, or ten-thousandth, breaks the chain alike ! " 



And the reason is obvious ; for most of the operating forces 

 we have described arise directly from the earth's primal 



D 



