DISCOVERY OF THE PROGRAMME. 103 



the vertebrate type, beginning with the fish, has developed 

 into the reptile, the bird, the quadruped, and man. 



Nor does method end here ; nor the method which had 

 its first announcement on the morning of animal existence. 

 I have already alluded to the varied conditions under 

 which animal life presents itself — the various ends with 

 reference to which animals have been modified — some to 

 swim, some to fly, some to climb, some to burrow ; some 

 for exalted powers and active habits, others for a degraded 

 and sluggish existence. Each fundamental type has been 

 moulded, and warped, and adapted to these varied ends and 

 conditions of being. At the same time, the grand charac- 

 teristics of the type have been conserved even in the ex- 

 tremest modifications. The modifications of the funda- 

 mental plan to adapt it to these various ends are class- 

 characters ; and we thus find that Nature has herself 

 grouped the members of each branch into classes. This 

 method is as old as the animal creation. Not only did 

 each creature which played its part in the primordial fauna 

 conform to one of the four fundamental types of structure, 

 but it also conformed to the characteristics of one of the 

 preconceived class-modifications of that type. 



Lastly, each class-group is composed of different grades 

 of animals, constituting so many different orders within the 

 limits of the class. This gradation of ordinal types was 

 also recognized in the organization of the earliest animals. 



Thus the whole plan of creation was mapped out to the 

 mind of the Creator in the beginning. We shall see, as we 

 proceed with our sketches of the history of creation, that 

 every step in the evolution of continents, and the estab- 

 lishment of a home for the coming man, was a movement 

 in a definite direction, effected by forces chosen from the 

 first, and shaped always with reference to exigencies which 

 were to arise in the far-distant future. We shall see how 



