aration of the organs of sight, hearing, breathing, nutrition, etc. for necessities still future ; but still more strikingly in the provision made for the support of young animals as soon as they are born. In the mammalia before the birth of the offspring, the breast or udder begins to swell ; it commences the secretion of milk, so that the moment the young animal enters the world he finds prepared the most nutritious and suitable food the world contains. The egg furnishes a still more instructive illustration. It consists of albu- men and the yolk. To the yolk is attached a minute germ or cell. When by heat the germ begins to develop, if nourishment were not provided and at hand, it would of necessity perish. But the yolk is there to supply the needed material out of which the future animal is fashioned. If this does not indicate a foreseeing mind and a providing power, then the most skilful productions of human skill and kindness do not prove the intelligence of man. Where then is this intelligence ? Not in the parent bird, for it understands nothing about it. Not in mere blind forces of nature. There may possibly be room for question where to place it ; but to deny that these provisions indicate an intelligent agency somewhere, is alto- gether irrational.
Vegetable Organisms.
5. The vegetable kingdom is as full of the indications of benev- olent design as the animal. Plants have their organism and their physiology. Their structure, in their organs for growth and repro- duction, is quite as marvellous as that of most species of the animal kingdom. They constitute an essential part in the great system of nature, without which there could be no sentient life on our globe. Animals cannot live on inorganic matter. It is the province of the plant to reduce this matter into such a state as to be fit for the sup- port of animal life. If it were not therefore for the functions of the leaf which transmutes the inorganic into the organic, there could be no sentient life on our earth. Is there no design here ? Is there no intelligent adaptation of one part of the great system of nature to another ?
From the Adaptations of Nature.
6. This leads to another department of the subject. The evi- dences of design are not confined to the separate organs of the plant or animal ; nor to the relations of these organs to each other; nor, in the case of animals, to the instinct which impels to the proper use of those organs ; they are to be found just as abundantly
222 PART 1. — THEOLOGY. [Ch. 11. — Theism.
in the adaptation of external nature to the necessities of animal and vegetable life. Neither plants nor animals could exist without light, air, heat, water, and soil, to produce the common food of all living things. Who created the light and heat and diffuses them over the whole earth ? Who made the sun from which they radi- ate ? Who constituted the atmosphere with its chemical adjust- ments, precisely what is necessary for the support of life, every- where and always the same, and poured it round our globe ? How is it that water at a certain temperature evaporates, rises in mist, is gathered into clouds, is carried everj^w^here by the winds, and falls in rain to fertilize the earth ? The eye supposes light, as the lungs suppose air ; the appetite of hunger supposes food, and the power of digestion. Food supposes soil, light, heat, and water. Surely this is one great system. There is unity and mutual rela- tion in all its parts. It must have had one author, and He must be infinite in intelligence and goodness.
All living Creatures on the Earth have Organic Relations. 7. The design indicated in nature is, however, not confined to the individual organisms and to their relations to the world around them, but it has in the progress of science been discovered, that the whole vegetable and animal world has been constructed on one comprehensive plan. As there is a relation of one organ of a given plant or animal to all others and to the whole, so the whole race of plants, and the whole race of animals are related. There are certain typical forms of which all the infinite variety of plants are modifications ; and certain other types of which the innumera- ble genera, species, and varieties of animals are only modifications ; and these modifications are precisely of the kind to suit each spe- cies for its end, and for the circumstances in which it is to live. So obviously is this the case tliat Professor Agassiz's " Essay on Classification," is, to say the least, as strong an argument for the being of God as any of the " Bridgewater Treatises." And it is so regarded by its illusti-ious author. On page 10 of his " Con- tributions to the Natural History of the United States," he says, *' I know those who hold it to be very unscientific to believe that thinking is not something inherent in matter, and that there is an essential difference between inorganic and living and thinking beings. I shall not be prevented by any such pretensions of a false philosophy from expressing my conviction that as long as it cannot be shown that matter or physical forces do actually reason, I shall consider any manifestation of thought as evidence of the existence