124 VESTIGES OF THE 



hands; but they are hands which himself must direct, 

 lie must (Urect eacli one everywhere, and therefore he is 

 ever actuig."* This is a most notable example of a 

 dano-erous kind of reasonine^. It is now believed that 

 corals have a general life and sensation throughout the 

 whole mass, residing in the nervous tissue which envelops 

 them ; consequently, there is nothing more wonderful in 

 their detei'minate general forms than in those of other 

 animals. 



It may here be remarked that there is in our doctrine 

 that harmony iu all the associated phenomena which 

 generally marks great truths. First, it agrees, as we 

 have seen, with the idea of planet-creation by natural 

 law. Secondly, upon this supposition, all that geology 

 tells us of the succession of species appears natural and 

 intelligible. Organic life presses in, as has been re- 

 marked, wherever there is room and encouragement for 

 it, the forms being always such as suited the circum- 

 stances, and in a certain relation to them, as, for example, 

 where the limestone-forming seas produced an abundance 

 of corals, crinoidea, and shell-tish. How well the exten- 

 sive changes of species wdiich are evidenced by geology, 

 comport with our view of the details of law-creation, 

 will be seen when these come to be explained. The more 

 solitary commencements of species, which would have 

 been the most inconceivably paltry exei-cise for an imme- 

 diately creative power, are sufficiently worthy of one 

 operating by laws. 



It is also to be observed, that the thing to be ac- 

 counted for is not merely the origination of organic 

 being upon this little planet, third of a series which is 

 but one of hundreds of thousands of series, the whole of 

 which again form but one portion of an apparently infinite 

 * Macculloch on the Attributes of the Deity, iii. 569. 



