CONCLUSION. 451 



of extinct races of animals contained in and characterizing the 

 different strata of the earth's crust, and corresponding with as 

 many epochs in the earth's history, we make an important 

 step in advance of all preceding philosophies, and are able to 

 demonstrate that the same pervading, active, and beneficent 

 intelligence which manifests His power in our times, has also 

 manifested His power in times long anterior to the records of 

 our existence. 



But we likewise, by these investigations, gain a still more 

 important truth, viz., that the phenomena of the world do not 

 succeed each other with the mechanical sameness attributed 

 to them in the cycles of the epicurean philosophy ; for w T e are 

 able to demonstrate that the different geological epochs were 

 attended with corresponding changes of organic structure : and 

 that, in all these instances of change, the organs, still illustra- 

 ting the unchanging fundamental types, were, as far as we 

 could comprehend their use, exactly those best suited to the 

 functions of the being. Hence we not only shew intelligence 

 evoking means adapted to the end ; but, at successive times 

 and periods, producing a change of mechanism adapted to a 

 change in external conditions. Thus the highest generaliza- 

 tions in the science of organic bodies, like the Newtonian laws 

 of universal matter, lead to the conviction of a great First 

 Cause, which is certainlv not mechanical. 



