322 WHAT OF THE FUTURE? 



of stability and permanence in its general appointments ! 

 To the ignorant mind, alluded to by Dr Hutton in our open- 

 ing quotation, the earth is a mere monotonous panorama 

 of birth, progress, and decay the same now as it has been 

 from the beginning, and as it is now so to continue un- 

 changed and unchangeable to the end. To the enlightened 

 mind, on the other hand, it becomes a scene of incessant 

 development and progress multiform and variable in its 

 physical relations, diversified and progressive in its vital 

 appointments, and still at every turn assuming more won- 

 derful and more exalted aspects. How much more en- 

 nobling this conviction of our planet's incessant mutation 

 and progress than the old belief in its stereotyped same- 

 ness and ever-threatened decay ! How enlarged the con- 

 ceptions of Creative Wisdom inspired by a knowledge of 

 these ever-varying and ever-advancing aspects these end- 

 less adaptations and boundless resources ! And how much 

 more when we carry our views from this world of ours to 

 the other members of the planetary brotherhood, and be- 

 lieve them subject to similar laws, and characterised by 

 similar appointments ! To the eye of sense they are mere 

 balls swinging clearly and coldly in space j to the eye of 

 enlightened reason they become, like their sister orb, multi- 

 form in the details of their terraqueous surfaces, variable in 

 their physical and vital aspects, and yet throughout all 

 their variability invariably conforming to a higher law of 

 development and progress. 



