864 
formed. 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 living 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 different 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 Palseozoic 
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 Comparative Anatomy, sections 689, 690. 
