WILL THERE BE AN ANIMAL SUPERIOR TO MAN? 373 



CHAPTER XXXm. 



WILL THEEE BE AN ANIMAL SUPERIOR TO MAN? 



TTE that has glanced over the long line of organic his- 

 ■*--** tory, and observed how the ascent from the sea-weed 

 to man has been effected, step by step, in regular succession, 

 can not fail to start the inquiry, " Is man destined to be 

 the last term of this series of improving types ?" I reply 

 that, while this is peculiarly a question to be answered by 

 Revelation, science affords some intimations which tend to 

 assure us in the possession of the dignity which we now 

 enjoy as the archonts of terrestrial existence. 



In the first place, all geological preparations and ideas 

 converge in man. The world seems to have been designed 

 with the view of stimulating to activity the powers of a 

 thinking being. The universe is a rational product ; and 

 every department of it, and every isolated object, sustains 

 an intelligible relation to other parts and objects. We are 

 not left to infer, or even to know, that intelligent design is 

 locked up in the secret plans of creation ; but what is more 

 suggestive, as well as more satisfactory, is the fact that 

 this intelligence is patent before our eyes, so that we read, 

 as it were, a revelation of the thought embodied in the 

 works of the visible universe. And much of that which is 

 not at once manifest yields to investigation, while a stim- 

 ulus to investigation is found in the hints and suggestions 

 which Nature seems intentionally to have dropped along 

 the pathway of him who follows the beckoning of his 

 thoughts. Not only were these germs of thought planted 

 from time to time during the whole progress of the past 



