in the slow process of change, are hindrances to the animal, losses-not gains. They are not as germs, so that if we amputate a leg a new one buds out; nor do they possess power to form a limb or tail, where was no tail nor limb. A portion of the alimentary canal in birds is enlarged and indurated for trituration of food, and we think to explain it by saying "The gizzard is simply an exaggeration of certain structures and actions which characterise stomachs in general," but over-eating will not form a receptacle for the surplus, nor quick and ravenous devouring lead to the production of an internal grinding apparatus. Did the liver, pancreas, and smaller glands, grow up by the desire to eat, and was there then a co-operation to localise the excretions? Did the lungs expand themselves out of a hollow bud, and become an airchamber-simple or compound; and, in fish, form the swimbladder? To call them an integration or summing up of past adaptive processes, by which modifications were slowly acquired through many generations, is first to assume those modifications, and then to explain the lesser difficulty by a greater. If we say "The rudimentary limbs were the prophecies of quadrupeds, and that serpents with rudimentary limbs are aborted quadrupeds; these are evidence of atrophy, those a potentiality of advance "-why do the same things so greatly differ? Probably, they are marks of unity in all variety; a link between progress and retrogression; a mingling of potentiality and weakness, of natural adaptation with that ordination of general laws by which there shall be the utmost possible development of varied forms.

Many human emotions, probably all the sensual feelings, are found in the beast, and it is asserted, with some humour and much rashness, that the highest faculties of emotion and intellect are mere outgrowths from lower animal life. For example the mother sense of all senses is touch, and the parrot is the most sensible of birds because of its tactual power; but we may just as well say "The parrot has great tactual power because it is one of the most sensible birds, and by the same intelligence evokes speech from otherwise discordant tones." A hawk, a raven, a canary, may sometimes equal the parrot in intelligence. The elephant multiplies

Natural and Supernatural One splendid Unity. 279

experience through the tactual range and skill of his trunk; but the dog, with less tactual power, is sagacious enough to be the friend of man. Feline animals are said to be more sagacious, because of their paws, than hoofed animals; but the horse, though hoofed, excels all the feline animals in the world. If prehensile lips are the cause of sagacity, the cow ought to excel, for she has prehensile lips and a cloven hoof. No warrant, moreover, exists for believing that parrot, elephant, horse, dog, or cow, can educate itself to the surpassing of Nature, and extend brute powers into the domain of human reason. Men, however, who lose the knowledge of God, can and do go down into a low animal substratum of being, and suffer loss. Not distinguishing the nobler organs and functions, they use them as if only of animal species; but God knows the difference, and holds men responsible for use of that difference. He expects them to regard one another as rudimentary angels, rather than progressive beasts: for an angel may be called man incorporeal, and man an angel corporeal. He is animal in so far as he partakes of precedent forms; and in so far as an animal is a plant, and a plant is inorganic; but, as a reasonable creature clothed with body, and formed in the image of God, he is but little lower than the angel.1

The whole of Nature, thus viewed, is in every part interpenetrated by the Supernatural; or the Supernatural is Natural for all things blend in one splendid unity. God is not imprisoned in the laws of Nature, nor are they the grave of His omnipotent free will. That which we call miraculous may be the working of a law so fine, yet wide and intermittent, that only highest wisdom can comprehend and use it. We trace back animals, plants, and others which preceded them; our continents and mountain ranges, the solid rocks of which they are composed; aye, the very fabric of the solar system

1 Comenius said the same thing long ago—" Homo dici potest angelus eo sensu, quo homo ipse animal, animal planta, planta concretum, etc., dicitur id est. propter inclusam præcedentis formam, nova solum superaddita perfectione. Homo enim creatura est rationalis ad imaginens Dei condita, immortalis; est et angelus, sed majoris perfectionis ergo a corpore liber. Nihil igitur aliud est angelus quam homo a corpore nudus, nihil alind homo, quam angelus copore vestitus.”—John Amos Comenius, Physicæ ad Lumen Divinum Reformandæ Synopsis.

itself; to their own several origins at distinct points of timeso can maintain that since our earth began no succeeding year saw it precisely as it was the year before, yet all the variety blended in unity. The discoveries of science are true revelations of the Divine presence and work, are an explanation of God's usual way of doing things, are a psalmody in praise of Wisdom and Might. Our life, rooted in the Divine Life, is a mystery, a holy thing, part of a moral spiritual system. Mere animal minds die, human minds are immortal; this, their grandeur, ever growing into wider range, subordinates intellectual to moral perfection. Cosmical life, brought out like lower animal life, from simple elements by the Almighty, is springing, through strange interaction with things around, to complex powers; we are becoming involved, deeper and deeper, with great principles of moral government-with a future wherein holiness will be vindicated.

STUDY XV.

COMPARISON OF THE TWO DIVINE ACCOUNTS.

"Umbra in Lege; imago in Evangelio; veritas in Cœlo."-ST. Ambrose. "In the spiritual childhood of the world, outward signs were needed to make known God's power and rule. The secret springs of the machinery were displayed; but, when the fulness of time was come, men were no longer to walk by sight, but by faith."—Memorials of a Quiet Life.

THE world is that theatre on which the drama of our life is played. Possibly we should not trouble ourselves with what goes on behind the scenes, unless fresh influxes from the region beyond our own experience, and beyond our ancestors' experience, came in upon us as from an ocean surrounding our island world. Reflection on the nature of things also discloses that there are two modes of existence, and on two different planes Real existence, which we feel or perceive; and Ideal, that which is imaged in our consciousness, or of which we have intellectual and emotional conception. Conscious, in this manner, of existence, of co-existence, of pre-existence; the necessary movement of thought is with the flow of things, and we carry, so to speak, a universe within, and a measure for the universe without.

Deeply convinced as to the reality of a world behind the field of phenomena, we are astonished by statements that it stands in no relation to us, nor have we faculties by which to know it. We utterly deny that there is any truth in the statements. The educated man knows that the universe is a great machine worked by unseen energy. It is possible to reduce all phenomena to one cause, to see the many in the One, and the One in the many. The first law of all science is order, the second-everything serves an end. The ablest metaphysicians say "The phenomena we deal with are bi-polar, on the one side objective, on the other subjective, and these are the twofold aspects of reality:" a double-sided

ness which enforces the conviction that to the positive equation of the world must be added the subjective equation-the united meaning explains the whole. To say-the consciousness we possess of God, of Sin, of Responsibility, of Eternity, are creations out of nothing, utter fictions, is equivalent to supposing that the human race issued from Adam and the sons of Adam, without the co-operation of Eve and her daughters. We know these things not only through heredity, by revival in successive generations of our race's experience in former ages, but by our own fresh experiences of consciousness; and as all the parts of Nature are analogous, we learn that the world within man and the world without man are alike manifestations of realities.

This knowledge is by means of a faculty which, though restricted within the sphere of experience, is able to apprehend, though not comprehend, concerning the supra-sensible and supernatural: a faculty which, by means of successive reaches in symbolical procedure, as in mathematics, enables gifted men so to enlarge and elevate sensible experiences, that they attain a prevision in spiritual things like the astonishing previsions of exact science. The truth of this may be discerned in the character and works of Moses, and in the narratives of creation.

There are two separate accounts of creative work, which, through want of sufficient critical skill, have been wrongly considered as varying and erring records by two different writers. The former account (Gen. i.-ii. 3) is a brief summary or symbol of creative acts. The latter account (Gen. ii. 4-22), after reference, in verse 4, to the creation of the world, describes the planting of Paradise, and particularises the fashioning, temptation, fall of man. The former, in which the Divine name is Elohim, shows God's relation to all things as the Creator, Owner, Lord of the universe. The latter, where we find the name or names, Di Jehovah Elohim, represents the Lord, the eternal and infinitely powerful: the Father-God in His own Essence, Source and Foundation of all; the Son-Mediating Principle, Deliverer, Saviour; the Spirit the active Principle effectuating holiness in the redeemed creation; all included in Jehovah Elohim.