Creation a Divine Work. 233 millions of these demonstrations which took place on the earth when there were no intelligent beings to contemplate them? Did the Unknowable thus demonstrate His power to Himself?" Surely, unbelievers do not imagine that they only are cared for; fondly account themselves the greatest things in heaven and earth? that Nature and God, Space and Matter, Time and Energy, are superfluous; unless men look on and admire? If they want mental range as to other beings-other worlds; if they see only Nature's feet of clay; are they sure that there is no Godlike Head? Creation does not, naturally nor necessarily, imply an abrupt appearance; but affirms a Divine work. We think every type of life began with imperfect, and attained highest state by means of development. We know that organic form, whether of vegetable or animal, continues the same so long as inward conditions and outward circumstances remain unchanged. It was so in the past, it will be so in the future. Anything otherwise, except by Divine Power, would be impossible; or the jest and mad freak of Mephistopheles might be true "Wine grapes of the vine are born, Faust. Opponents of the Supernatural seem to forget that it is not enough for the auditory and optical nerves to awake sensation-the intellect must act. Material ear and eye give work for mental ear and eye. Everything visible conducts to the invisible. Every science, everything in every science, speedily passes beyond knowledge, enters the invisible and unknown. That the universe possesses a due correlative and complement in the unseen is a fact more and more forced upon physicists by the conservation of energy. It is gross presumption to bring up from the depths of ignorance the assertion-" All life, motion, intelligence in the world, are mechanical-as Vaucanson's duck which ate and digested its food; or as the flute-player of the same artist." Those mechanisms were the work of mind, and maintained by mind. Even so, the beautiful arrangements of Nature, in that which we understand and in that whereof we are ignorant, are a revelation of Mind. The modes of action according to natural law cannot be arranged in scientific form, have no ultimate explanation, until represented to our mind as the work of Intelligence. We naturally seek for, and are not satisfied till we find, tokens of Intelligence, like, but infinitely greater than our own, in the moving power. If our argument is badly worked To obtain a conception of order and will in creation, get view of the triple truth concerning Vitality: 1. Unity of Power, 2. of Form, 3. of Substance. 1. Unity of Power. All the physical activities of vitality are for maintenance of the body, changes in its positions and parts, continuance of the species. If we add activities of consciousness, intellect, volition, the scheme embraces the highest, and covers the lowest creatures. Activities are propagated and maintained by a rhythm of motion. Light consists of rhythmic undulations. Rays of heat, movements of electricity, motions of projectiles, are rhythmical. The rhythm is compound: solar, planetary, terrestrial. The most numerous are in the phenomena of life: rhythms in muscular action, in blood circulation, in contraction and expansion of the lungs, in periodic need of food and repose, in the increase and decrease of life, in successive changes of organic forms. Indeed, the whole life of plants and animals, in so far as it is physical, exhibits rhythmical transformations of energy. The rhythm of poetry and music are the outcome of rhythm in sensation, intelligence, emotion. This energy, so far as the earth and our physical life are concerned, centres in the sun; and from the sun, mechanically and chemically, come that aptitude and power by which atoms of salt crystallise, amorphous fragments arrange and rearrange themselves into special structures, and atoms of albumen, fibrine, gelatine, or the hypothetical protein-substance, take specific shapes. "The mass of nature's lives and wonders pulse tenfold at the sunrise." 2. Unity of Form. If a drop of human blood be taken, kept warm, examined Development by Continual Change. 235 under high microscopic power, there will be seen corpuscles in marvellous activity, capable of change as to form and individual movement they are minute portions of protoplasm. Not of the same shape or size in the human organism, as in beast or fowl, in reptile and fish, in worm and plant, but there is a general likeness in the peculiarity: "Traced back to its earliest state or form, the nettle arises as man does, in a particle of colourless protoplasm.” 1 So arising, life diverges into the different vital activities, balancing of functions, changes of condition, growth, adaptation, individuality, morphological and physiological development. Not by the development of individuality from the germ, as if the germ contained the perfect organism in miniature; but by that persistence of rhythmical force acting upon the living particles, and developing the intrinsic aptitude, or polarity, into the plant or animal, by what may be called special endowment. How strong the action is may be exemplified by the Bignonia. A fragment of the leaf, small as a hundredth-part of the whole, placed in fit soil and kept at suitable temperature, will become a complete plant. Other organisms have like power; a common polype may be cut into very small pieces, from every piece will grow a perfect animal; but scientific men do not say the polype made itself. No tongue as yet can figure and bring to conception all they know and feel. This development of form is subject to continual change, within definite limits; for, as no natural process works any difference in the properties of a molecule; this unchangeableness tends to that balancing of function which causes a return from developments to the original form or stock. "Further, the progress of Nature being mainly in the direction of differentiation of functions once combined, it has a limit backward in the most general forms and conditions, and forward in the most specialised. This is the history of the individual, and probably also of the type, of the world itself and of the universe; and for this reason material nature necessarily lacks the eternity of its Author." 2 Any living body, having diverged from the normal course, will, so soon as the accidental causes of deviation have expended their force, return to equilibrium by that power "Physical Basis of Life: " Prof. Huxley. "The Origin of the World," p. 342: J. W. Dawson, LL.D., F.R.S. which physicians call "vis mediatrix naturæ." Increase and decrease of species, their range and degree of perfection in likeness and unlikeness, are not by metamorphoses of confusion, but by a world-wide process shaping visions all about our sight. The process may be partly explained-"The first centre of sarcode, or indifferenced organic matter, however originated, yet with certain definite tendencies to formal character and course of growth (as in a Foraminifer, e.g.), buds forth a second centre of identical nature; this a third, and so on . . . such repetitions of a primal complexly organised whole. . . are suggestive of operance akin to that of inorganic polar growths, as in a group of crystals, wherein each exemplifies the characters of the mineral or crystalline species, but is subject, like vital growths, to occasional malformation. . . . Growth by repetition of parts rapidly gives place to the higher mode of development by their differentiation and correlation for definite acts and complex functions." 1 Hence, all organic matter has certain definite tendencies to formal character and development, the impress of energy, to bursts of spangly light, form and colour and wings. This startling fact takes the essential and distinctive facts of life far beyond any physical theory. The popular statement of Scripture covers accurate scientific reality: from primary" indifferenced" organic matter, proceeded undulations or rhythms, which progressing along straight or circular or various complex lines, culminated in life. Every organism being a complex system of forces, and the higher organisms are of almost infinite complication, for every similitude covereth a difference. 3. Unity of Substance. All the forms of protoplasm, hitherto examined, contain, when dead, carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and some sulphur. The flower of the field, and the blood which courses through our veins, the dense resisting mass of oak, and that transparent jelly which pulsates in the waters of a calm sea, are bound by one common tie, and are akin : "In wisdom God made them all" (Ps. civ. 24). The significance cannot be exaggerated; occult subtle influences make an essential distinction and difference where man finds none. When we think that the microscopic fungus, and the "Anatomy of Vertebrates," Pref. p. ix., x.: Richard Owen, F.R.S. The First Insect Music. 237 great Finner whale; all that wealth of foliage lying between the lowest plant, and those trees which endure while nations and empires rise and fall; that Shakespeare, the genius; and midges, evoked by the sun; are all knit together by unity of substance; and have community of faculty through one Divinely fashioned material; we stand in awe of that varied interaction which makes Nature beautiful as the robe of the Almighty. Life-energy inspires this unity of substance, of form, of power, with variety in mechanical, chemical, vital operation; plying the tongue with exquisite movements to modulate the voice; using the nerves and muscles to send forth volitions; and, by the intellect, conversing with things invisible. It introduces new objects and powers, overmasters recurring cycles of physical law, blends the welfare of sentient creatures with a plan going through all ages. It continually calls our moral sense and intellect to new functions. By use of memory, as to the past, carries hope forward to the future; renders bygone stages of existence platforms for that which is to come; so that we stand in the presence of the Creator, and rejoice in words spoken long ago-" My substance was not hid from Thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being imperfect; and in Thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them" (Ps. cxxxix. 15, 16). The Heavenly Guide benignant leads. Advance from unity of principle to the process of variety : "Let the earth bring forth creeping thing." Insects were in the Devonian forests. Ancestors of our modern dragon-flies flitted with broad-veined wings, and their larvæ dwelt in the stagnant waters. One marvellous Orthoptera had netted wings attaining an expanse of seven inches. A kind of grasshopper, with cricket-like chirp, raised the first insect music known. Cockroaches are of an old family, found in the Carboniferous age with insects belonging to three of the orders into which modern insects are arranged. Shad-flies, weevils, millipedes, scorpions, spiders, are also of the Carboniferous age. The compound faceted eyes of insects were as perfectly developed then as now. Of the |