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representatives of a fish^ or even a hairy quadruped. As I have 

 said, I am Myself, and care not what I have been. If it be 

 truth, I am perfectly willing to abide by it ; but instead of, or 

 rather in that " bungling " recognize law, I refrain from pro- 

 nouncing subjectively what God might or ought to have done 

 with me, as well as from finding fault with what He did with 

 rae when " He fashioned me in the womb/^ (Job xxxi. 15.) 



Geology has greatly extended our knowledge of the forms of 

 beings, and has brought to light a vastly enlarged panorama of 

 organized creatures, so that the question of design of their ex- 

 istence becomes more and more pressing. We may add, too, 

 tliat we see a corresponding or somewhat analogous develop- 

 ment in the inorganic world; the crust of the earth changing 

 and elaborating itself seon after seon, fitting itself more and 

 more for our existence, by producing that immense variety of 

 substances, metals, marbles, &c., which are so invaluable to us."^" 

 When we consider all this, at which I have but here hinted, we 

 cannot shut our eyes to the fact that a great design or purpose 

 has been steadily maintained throughout, and that purpose was 

 Man. Man comes in at the right time, closes the series, and 

 the argument of design is furnished with its final cause. The 

 great doctrine of evolution thus throws a very di0*erent light 

 upon the matter to the old statement that "everything was 

 made for man, and is of some use to him." There was a truth, 

 no doubt, underlying it, but it expressed a far too limited and 

 presumptuous a view of the real state of things. 



Man alone can look out upon the world and understand his 

 position and destiny. He alone can recognize the broad line 

 which severs him from all other members of creation, while he 

 can yet recognize the links which unite him to them. He alone 

 can see Mind in all around him, and recognize his own as a feeble 

 image of the Creator's. 



Designs Nos. 4 and 5. — The earlier and later forms of teleology 

 may be called the " Creative Piat and the Creative Plan.-'^ 

 The second may be thus described : The organic world is part of 

 a general scheme, in which each species represents an idea in the 

 Divine Mind, and must be taken as an item in a plan conceived 

 from the first in all its details, although realized in successive 

 epochs. 



The diff'erence between them is not real, but apparent only, and 

 has arisen out of deference to geological discovery. In other 

 words, the fiat is transferred from one single period to a succession 

 of periods. Whatever objections can be raised against contempo- 



* This I considered as the 7th instance of design. I shall not, however, 

 dwell more upon it in this essay. 



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