10 INTEODUCTIOir. 



8. No ACCIDENT OB CAPRICE IN Natdrei. Muoh more in the living kingdoms 

 of nature may we look for an adequate purpose and end accomplished by every 

 movement and in every creature of the Divine hand. Each species is created and 

 sustained to answer some worthy end in the vast plan ; and hence no individuaJ, 

 animal or plant is to be regarded in science as insignificant, inasmuch as the indi- 

 vidual constitutes the species. , Nor is accident or caprice to be found in the form of 

 the leaf or the color of the flower. There is for each a special reason or adaptation 

 worthy of unerring wisdom. 



9. Object of natural Science. In the study of nature we are therefore 

 concerned in reasons and ends as well as in forms and appearances. That investi- 

 gation which ceases contented with the latter only is peurile. It may amuse, but 

 can scarcely instruct, and can never conduct to that purest source of the student's 

 enjoyment, namely, the recognition of Intelligence by intelligence. 



10. Design, a settled principle in Science. The end or purpose, it is 

 true, is not always as easily discerned as the form and fashion are. In a thousand in- 

 stances the end is yet inscrutable. Nevertheless it is. now a settled principle of 

 science that there is an end — a purpose — a reason, for every form which we contem- 

 plate ; and the adaptation to that end is as beautiful as the form itself That the 

 tendril of the vine and the runner of the strawberry were happily adapted to a 

 special purpose is readily admitted ; for that purpose is immediate and obvious to 

 all. Let us not then say that the spine, the stipule, or the varying tints of the rose, 

 were made merely in caprice, their uses being less obvious in the present state of 

 our knowledge. 



11. Design, as distinguished fkom; " Typical Forms.'' In addition to thia 

 sequence of cause and effect in nature, disclosing the Infinite Designer in aU 

 things, as early taught by Paley in his " Natural Theology," another class of prin- 

 ciples more recently developed are shown by the author of " Typical Forms" 

 (McCosh), to indicate with a stiE clearer hght the thoughts of the Omniscient Mind 

 in the operations of nature. A single observation often suffices for the discovery of 

 design, as in the down of the thistle, by means of which the, seed is wafted on the 

 winds to flourish in distant lands. But a typical form or plan requires a long series 

 of observations for its discernment, 



12. Typical Forms illustrated. The scientific world were slow to learn 

 that the numerous organs of plants so diversified in form and use are all modeled 

 f^om a single type, one radical form, and that form, the leaf I 



13. Results. This interesting doctrine, now universally admitted, sheds a new 

 light upon nature, making it aE luminous with the Divine Presence. It brings the 

 operations of the Great Architect almost within the grasp of human inteEigence, 

 revealiug the conceptions which occupied His mind before they were embodied in 

 actual existence by His word. 



14. Graduated Forms. Again, by continued observation, the principle of 

 graduated forms, aflied to the last, appeared as another grand characteristic of na- 

 ture. This principle implies that while natural objects vary to wide and seemingly 

 irreconcilable extremes, their differences are never abrupt, but they pass by insen- 

 sible gradations and shades from species to species in a continuous series. 



15. Illustration. Thus in magnitude, although the tiny moss is far removed 

 from the gigantic oak, yet a series connects them representing every imaginable in- 

 termediate, grade in size. So in number, from the one-stamened saltwort to the 

 hundred-stamened rose; there is a connecting series, representing every intervening 

 number. Moreover, in form and figwe, we pass fi-om the thread-leafed pine to the 

 broad-leafed poplar through a series of every intermediate degree of leaf-expansion ; 



