364 



lormed. Man_, in fact^ was the consummation of the vertebrate 

 type. It is evident that there is a manifest progress in the 

 succession of beings on the surface of the earth. This progress 

 consists in an increasing similarity to the Hving fauna, and 

 among the vertebrata, especially in their increasing resemblance 

 to man. But this connection is not the consequence of a direct 

 lineage between the fauna of difiPerent ages. There is nothing 

 like parental descent connecting them. The fishes of the 

 Palaeozoic age are in no respect the ancestors of the reptiles of 

 the Secondary age, nor does man descend from the mammals 

 which preceded him in the Tertiary age. The link by which 

 they are connected is of a higher and immaterial nature ; and 

 their connection is to be sought in the view of the Creator 

 Himself, whose aim in forming the earth, in allowing it to 

 undergo the successive changes which Geology has pointed out, 

 and in creating successively all the different types of animals 

 which have passed away_, was to introduce Man upon its sur- 

 face. Man is the end towards which all the animal creation 

 has tended, from the first appearance of the first Palaeozoic 

 fishes.''^^ 



20. The succession of animals on the surface of the globe, 

 and their distribution, opens up to us a wonderful and magnifi- 

 cent idea of the Divine workmanship. Thousands of years 

 before that plan was developed, the minutest details of it were 

 foreseen, and, in some instances, announced. He, who alone 

 can see the end from the beginning, and in whose sight a thou- 

 sand years are as one day, is alone capable of understanding or 

 explaining the necessary relation of each part to the whole, and 

 the special ends which they fulfil. Por example — the vast stores 

 of coal, granite, marble, salt, iron, silver, and gold, thousands 

 of years ago were laid up in the bowels of the earth, and re- 

 mained there until the proper moment had arrived for their 

 utilization. Those inexhaustible provisions for the necessities 

 of man, and for the development of his inventive and intel- 

 lectual faculties, clearly betoken the providence of God ages 

 before the appearance of the human race upon the earth. 



21. The creation of man was not an afterthought. It was 

 one of the facts fixed in the counsels of the Most High, from 

 all eternity. And when the time came round in the revolution 

 of ages, for the entrance of man upon his predestined habi- 

 tation, he found that everything had been settled for him in 

 advance. No person can look into these arrangements without 

 seeing the clearest indications of design. The recognition of 



Agassiz and Gould's Comimrative, Anaiomy^ sections 689, 690. 



