4^^ Anniversary Address. 



them, the more do I find that conviction forced upon my 

 mind ; and rising with bated breath from the study of them, 

 exclaim with Pharaoh's magicians, but with far profounder 

 meaning, " This is the finger of God ! " 



Again, as a naturalist, I observe organic life, and am struck 

 with the beauty, completeness, the exquisite finish of every- 

 thing and its exact fitness for the part that it has to perform 

 in the great scheme of Nature. 



My microscope reveals to me another world, equally teem- 

 ing with wonders, in which no less, but perhaps still more 

 startlingly are displayed, 



" Contrivance intricate expressed with ease, 

 Where unassisted sight no beauty sees, 

 The shapely limb, the lubricated joint, 

 Within the small dimensions of a point." 



What is the effect on my mind if you assure me that any one 

 of the objects which has so captivated me, which has called 

 forth spontaneous expressions of wonder, love, and praise, is 

 not the living representative of an original, but the half 

 accidental result of a long course of natural development ? 



If this wondrous piece of mechanism, which we may call 

 A, came from another B, which was improved from C, which 

 adapted itself (»ut of D, which was differentiated out of E, 

 which " survived being the fittest " at the death of F, and so 

 on through many thousands of gradations, the practical 

 effect on my mind is the removal of God to such an infinite 

 distance, that it amounts to a .virtual elimination of Him 

 from the Natural World. His works under such conditions 

 seem to have so remote a connection with Himself, that I 

 may abandon any attempts to look up to Him through them. 

 Could she speak to us with the eloquence which undisturbed, 

 she did for so long, if we no longer were able 



" To trace in Nature's most minute design 

 The signature and stamp of power divine ?" 



To my mind, No ! 



There is in my possession a picture of Linnaeus kneeling 

 on the grass by the side of some plant whose beauties he 

 had just been investigating, with uplifted hands, in the act 



