176 VESTIGES OF THE 



we shall see that the decreeing of laws to bring the 

 whole about was an act involving such a degree of 

 wisdom and device as we only can attribute, adoringly, 

 to the one Eternal and Unchangeable. It may be asked, 

 how does this reflection comport with that timid philo- 

 sophy which would have us to draw back from the in- 

 vestigation of God's works, lest the knowledge of them 

 should make us undervalue his greatness and forget his 

 paternal character % Does it not rather appear that our 

 ideas of the Deity can only be worthy of him in the 

 ratio in which we advance in a knowledge of his works 

 and ways ; and that the acquisition of this knowledge is 

 consequently an available means of our growing in a 

 genuine reverence for him ! 



But the idea that any of the lower animals have been 

 concerned in any way with the origin of man — is not this 

 degrading % Degrading is a term, expressive of a notion of 

 the human mind, and the human mind is liable to pre- 

 judices which prevent its notions from being invariably 

 correct. Were we acquainted for the first time with the cir- 

 cumstances attending the production of an individual of 

 our race, we might equally think them degrading, and be 

 eager to deny them, and exclude them from the admitted 

 truths of nature. Knowing this fact familiarly and beyond 

 contradiction, a healthy and natural mind finds no diffi- 

 culty in regarding it complacently. Creative Providence 

 has been pleased to order that it should be so, and it 

 must therefore be submitted to. Now the idea as to the 

 progress of organic creation, if we become satisfied of its 

 truth, ought to be received precisely in this spirit. If it 

 has pleased Providence to arrange that one species should 

 give birth to another, vintil the second highest gave birth 

 to man, who is the very highest ; bo it so, it is our pai-t 

 to admire and to submit. The very faintest notion of 



