102 ■ MAN: 



more recent; and 4. That, gifted with improvable 

 and progressive functions, man subjugates and adapts 

 the forces of nature, rising higher and higher in the 

 aggregate or as a species — ^the inferior varieties dis- 

 appearing before the spread of the higher and more 

 civilised. Admitting these inferences, and the facts 

 from which they are drawn, we wUl be better pre- 

 pared to understand man's history and origin — that 

 is his Whence — as well as to follow more clearly his 

 Whither, or the progressive destiny that lies before 

 him. The whole forms one great successional cate- 

 gory of events, in which the past merges into the 

 present, and the present into the future, and which 

 we can only understand in proportion to our know- 

 ledge of the existing relations and operations of the 

 universe. 



