17 



spiritual part live and require this body of organs for its terres- 

 trial existence ?" 



It appears to me that in the answer to this question is in- 

 volved that of the former. The first, but least important answer, 

 is that I could not live without animals and vegetables : their 

 existence is essential to mine. But this obviously cannot be a 

 complete answer, for such a necessity applies to a very small 

 number of them. 



The question Why do I exist finds no satisfactory 

 answer from nature. We must turn to Revelation to be com- 

 pletely satisfied ; and no answer equals this : It was the will of 

 God that there should be a being who could be m.oral, and that, 

 he should pass through a period of probation before he be fitted 

 to enjoy that state to which his spiritual part is naturally best 

 adapted. 



Now turn to the former question, "Why do animals exist 

 or, " Why did the world see long series of developments,^' 

 successive types ascending the scale of life, each in turn gaining 

 its ascendancy, acquiring a maximum of development in some 

 direction or other, and then gradually subsiding, yielding its 

 position to its successor, until man entered upon the scene too, 

 and he in turn took his place at the head of the world and then 

 subdued it. A more complete reply will be obtained when we 

 have considered the fourth instance of design ; for it is only 

 when we take note of the fact that a large group of animals 

 (the vertebrates) are constituted on the same plan as man ; 

 conspicuously by their osteological characters ; that we see not 

 only a bond of union between him and them, but the design of 

 their existence only finds its end or climax in man, whose 

 bodily structures furnish the last links in the chain of animal 

 creation. Physiologists have shown beyond question that in 

 bodily structure he cannot be separated from the primates; 

 that the human foetus obeys the same laws of development and 

 differentiation which govern the foetuses of all other crea- 

 tures : that is, it passes through certain representative forms of 

 other vertebrates in succession upwards. Moreover, man has 

 rudimentary organs in an exactly similar manner to all other 

 animals. Now observe the consequence of this, lihe facts 

 upon which the doctrine of evolution rests in its application to 

 the animal kingdom thus become necessarily applicable to 

 man's bodily structure also. If, therefore, evolution be true 

 for the former, it must be true for man^s body also. Thus far, 

 then, at least, man cannot be severed from other animals. Away 

 with that contemptibly false pride which ridicules, ignores, or 

 falsifies these facts, facts which are real synonyms of truth. What 

 care I from what I may have been descended ? I am myself, 



VOL. VII. C 



