The Flarmony of Creation. 571 
well being, creatures more perfect in that part of the or- 
ganisation which is necessary for improvement in intelli- 
gence, have been added till man was formed as the head of 
the last creation. As if to signalize the creation of man, 
he alone was added to the orders of animals which were 
reproduced at the last epoch. At the close of each period 
it pleased the Creator, in his inscrutable wisdom, to doom 
to sudden destruction all animated creation, attaining this 
purpose by the secondary agency of geological convulsions, 
and the flood was probably some similar action upon the 
earth’s crust. The existing animated world will, according 
to the laws of periodicity, as exhibited in geological re- 
searches, be destroyed. There is nothing in the present 
creation which warrants us to presume that we shall be 
exempt from the category of the past, Volcanic eruption 
has lost none of its gigantic power, and has, both in past 
and present history, proclaimed, in certain localities, its 
terrific energy. Shakespeare says with his accustomed 
force and passion, 
“The cloud capp’d towers, the gorgeous plains, 
The solemn temples, the great globe itself, 
Yea, all that it contains shall dissolve, 
And like an unsubstantial pageant, faded, 
Leave not a rack behind.” 
And it will not be after the analogy of former epochs, if 
the earth itself be not destroyed. If the laws which ruled 
past periods shall still remain in force, a fresh creation will 
take place. New beings, superior to man in intelligence, 
will people the globe, and a fresh vegetation, adapted to 
the wants of animal life, will re-clothe the earth, when we 
and all our history are entombed in the underlying strata. 
In answer to the question, whether animals have under- 
gone any change in their structure since the first animali- 
sation of the globe, or whether geologica] research shows 
that birds and reptiles existed at the remotest periods, the 
reply is, that during the Triassic age, tortoises and birds 
appear, which, of all animals, have the pulmonary system 
the most developed. It must be inferred, therefore, that 
at these remote epochs, the medium in which birds and 
reptiles breathing the air by lungs lived, was little, if at all, 
different from the medium in which similar classes now 
live, which leads to the conclusion, that at this early period 
in the history of the globe, the composition of the atmo- 
sphere must have been nearly the same as at present. All 
