CHAPTER XI. 



REVIEW OF THE HISTORY OF LIFE. 



WHAT general conclusions can we reach as to this long 

 and strange history of the progress of life on our 

 planet ? Perhaps the most comprehensive of these is that the 

 links in the chain of life, or rather in its many chains, are not 

 scattered and disunited things, but members of a great and 

 complex plan ; and that when we discern their combinations 

 and their pattern, we find them not only orderly an-' >^ymme- 

 trical, but all tending to one point and bound tc one central 

 object, even the throne of the Eternal. It must also appear 

 evident that the original plan of nature, both in the animal and 

 vegetable worlds, was too vast to be realised at one time on a 

 globe so limited as ours, but had to be distributed in time as 

 well as in space, thus realising the idea of time- worlds : 

 successive aeons in which, one after the other, the work of 

 creation could rise to successive stages of perfection and com- 

 pleteness till it culminated in man. All this is sufficiently 

 plain on the theistic view of nature, and may suffice for those 

 who reverently regard the God of nature as the Father of their 

 own spirits. But there are others who ask further questions. 

 Do wc know anything of the secondary causes and origin of 

 life, of the manner o^ its introduction and advance, of the laws 

 of its succession ? 



