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was estimated wioli reference to Ins needs and convenience. 
Even the motions of the sun, moon, and stars were partly- 
intended to afford him a pleasing spectacle. The sheep's wool 
was designed to clothe him, the dog to watch his flocks, the 
ox to plough his fields, the swine to feed him, wild animals 
to give him hunting exercise. Janet, in his masterly work 
on Final Causes, to which I acknowledge once for all my great 
obligations, has given some delicious instances of similar 
reasoning from Bernardin de St. Pierre (quoted by Biot, 
Melanges , tom. i.) : “ Dogs are usually of two opposite 
colours, the one light and the other dark, in order that 
wherever they may be in the house they may be distinguished 
from the furniture, with the colour of which they may be con- 
founded. Wherever fleas are, they jump on white colours. 
This instinct has been given them that we may the more 
easily catch them." It was very easy to ridicule this high- 
handed assumption ; the following passage of Montaigne 
(Essays, ii. 12) will serve as a specimen of such criticism: 
Why should not a gosling say thus : All the parts of the 
universe regard me ; the earth serves me for walking, the sun 
to give me light, the stars to inspire me with their influences. 
I have this use of the winds, that of the waters ; there is 
nothing which this vault so favourably regards as me, I 
am the darling of nature. Does not man look after, lodge, 
and serve me ? It is for me he sows and grinds : if he eat 
me, so does he his fellow-men as well; and so do I the 
worms that kill and eat him." Now, this “ exquisite 
fooling " of the great sceptic only assaults the exaggerated 
theory which sets man in the centre of the universe. It is no 
answer at all to the assertion that in the goose its eyes were 
made to see with, its lungs to breathe with, and its wings to 
fly with. Even now the primitive tendency to exalt man 
lingers in cultivated minds. People still confuse Design with 
our appreciation of it. Is it not possible for an animal or 
plant to have been planned solely with a view to its own well- 
being and without the slightest reference to man, as in the 
case of the deep-sea Fauna and Flora ? The marks of Intelli- 
gence are not the least affected by not being recognised. A 
book is not less a book for not being read. After these 
deductions, we may freely admit that there is an appreciable 
element of truth in the human point of view when limited by 
good sense. To say that the sun was made to give light to 
the world and man is an imperfect but not a false repre- 
sentation of solar activities. I am now confining myself to 
the platform of facts and inferences, and ignoring theological 
speculation. From a scientific point of view it is true that 
