RECENT AND FOSSIL MAMMALIA. 395 
viz., to set forth the beneficence and intelligence of the 
Creative Power. 
se If I have been able to demonstrate a uniform plan per¬ 
vading the osteological structure of so many diversified 
animated beings, I must have enforced, were that necessary, 
as strong a conviction of the unitv of the Creative Cause. 
“ If, in all the striking changes of form and proportion 
which have passed under review, we could discern only the 
results of minor modifications of the same few osseous 
elements, surely we must be the more strikingly impressed 
with the wisdom and power of that Cause which could pro¬ 
duce so much variety, and at the same time such perfect 
adaptations and endowments, out of means so simple. 
“ For, in what have those mechanical instruments—the 
hands of the ape, the hoofs of the horse, the fins of the 
whale, the trowels of the mole, the wings of the bat—so 
variously formed to obey the behests of volition in denizens 
of different elements—in what, I say, have they differed from 
the artificial instruments which we ourselves plan with 
foresight and calculation for analogous uses, save in their 
greater complexity, in their perfection, and in the unity and 
simplicity of the elements which are modified to constitute 
these several locomotive organs. 
£ff Everywhere in organic nature we see the means not only 
subservient to an end, but that end accomplished by the 
simplest means. Hence we are compelled to regard the 
Great Cause of all, not like certain philosophic ancients, as a 
uniform and quiescent mind, as an all-pervading anima mundi , 
but as an active and anticipating intelligence. 
ei By applying the laws of comparative anatomy to the relics 
of extinct races of animals contained in and characterising the 
different strata of the earth’s crust and corresponding with 
as many epochs in the earth’s history, we make an important 
step in advance of all preceding philosophies, and are able 
to demonstrate that the same pervading, active, and benefi¬ 
cent intelligence which manifests His power in our times, has 
also manifested His power in times long anterior to the 
records of our existence. 
“ But we likewise, by these investigations, gain a still 
more important truth, viz., that the phenomena of the world 
do not succeed each other with the mechanical sameness 
attributed to them in the cycles of the epicurean philosophy ; 
for we are able to demonstrate that the different epochs of the 
history of the earth were attended with corresponding changes 
of organic structure; and that, in all these instances of 
change, the organs, as far as we could comprehend their use, 
