PLAN IN THE CREATION. 319 
(385.) No one who believes in the existence of an 
Omnipotent Creator, can suppose, for a moment, that the 
innumerable beings which He has created were formed 
without a plan. If an architect sat down and made in- 
numerable models of cornices, entablatures, columns, 
friezes, and all those ornaments used in a stately build- 
ing, yet without any design of subsequently combining 
them, we should naturally say, however much we . 
might admire the parts, that his work was imperfect. 
Let us apply this reasoning to the creation: however 
perfect an animal may be in its structure, it would still 
only resemble one of the ornaments we have just al- 
luded to. It is beautiful in itself; but it is only when 
we attain some glimpse of the station it occupies with 
its fellows, and of the manner in which it is combined 
with others into one great whole, that we see this beauty 
in its true light. No rational being can therefore suppose 
that the great Architect of the world has created its in- 
habitants without a plan. 
(386.) The plan of creation, therefore, implies uni- 
versality, order, and harmony; and, in the view we now 
take of it, is only another name for the natural system : 
what, then, is the basis of this system? Has any part 
of it been discovered, or are we still wandering in the 
mazes of error? Let us briefly consider these questions. 
Had this plan or system been simple, and of easy ap- 
prehension, it had long ago been discovered, or each 
succeeding age would not have produced systems, totally 
at variance with each other. It was long supposed, 
indeed, that this plan, aptly termed the chain of being, 
was in a simple series, beginning with a worm or an 
animalcule, and proceeding step by step, until the series 
terminated in man. This, at first sight, strikes ordi- 
nary minds as the most rational theory ; but when we 
begin to trace this scale, to search after the innumer- 
able steps which are supposed to lead, in a straight line, 
from the despised worm, to man, the lord of the crea- 
tion, we are very soon perplexed; we discover that every 
animal has more relations than one, and that many 
