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order • and then onwards to the highest forms of conscious 
being* at last. As to the manner and duration of these pro- 
cesses directed by the “ Maker of all . things vmible^ 
invisible,” much may remain for exegesis > but the pnne p 
of Gradual Progress onward to the present fixed Order 
th The Creative Power thus showed itself, not 
as one momentary ' forthgoing, but step by step, leaving traces 
in the past of all the marvellous advancements, each depen 1 g 
on the P supernatural (though some modally differ from others 
even in this), we have not here to inquire. Divine and moral 
reasons of it are abundant m the Christian Philosophy. 
XII (3 1 But in this Order of things, when finally reached, 
we recognize the indwelling Activity of some creatures, as an 
endowment distinct from the visible structure. It is called 
“ life and here we are told of “ movement as a primitive 
sifm of “ life '—the word being used genencaUij. Ihen next, 
tMs generic term is made specific in such phrases asy the 
living thing that hath seed within and acting after 
hind”- showing a localization of life, and difference of its kinds. 
Whether this created life was at first latent, whet er l s 
earliest activity was uniform and mechanical, whether p 
petual or intermittent, or liable to obstructions, and so on, 
are subjects of legitimate inquiry. We are ,0 )‘^ 
only, — -that both lifeless things, and things that have hte 
in every “kind,” and the special endowments of each, are 
equally creatures of God; their origin is Supernatural.— borne 
developments of this principle we may glance at by-an 7‘ 
XIII. (4.) But there is one further principle which seem, , 
unquestionably taught in the sacred Scriptures, and, indeed, 
it prevails throughout: viz., that among the many specific 
forms of life there is one, in the Kosmos which ■ 
inferior • and has the requirement laid on it by the hreato , 
thrt in’some things it ought to dominate In whatever 
degree the highest being created here, viz. Man, 1 ® se ™ 
invisible character the inferior creatures, yet a life Whed 
into him by the Creator was distinctly his own. He has the 
“image,” the “likeness” of God; is made » little lower 
V! io nno-pk 5 ’ He has cognizance of Hood as gooa, 
fnd ptsonaf^nscimisntss, wLh can compare with his own 
thoughts the matters which are presented. Man can choose, 
. . free, and others where it cannot be so. Ihis con 
WisfS S oious being, man, has power to investigate and 
rh£^ n ,i! he judge; that is, he is a thinking being. That 
