necessary to it, and that the creation as it is could not exist without them, although we are not, or not yet, able to understand what end they serve.

2

In the same way, no doubt, the primeval plants and animals have their end and meaning for the whole system of God's creatures, although we do not as yet clearly understand it, and are not able to point out what it is. It has been already shown that some of the organisms of the primeval world bear witness to the wisdom of the Creator,' and, as Lyell says: "The proofs now accumulated of the close analogy between extinct and recent species are such as to leave no doubt on the mind that the same harmony of parts and beauty of contrivance which we admire in the living creation, has equally characterized the organic world at remote periods." And we may gather also from the results of scientific inquiry that the different stages of development which the organic creation, and also the inorganic creation, i.e. the formation of the earth, have gone through, are so closely connected with one another, and there is so much harmony everywhere, both in their course of development and in their governing principles, that even savants like Burmeister cannot avoid recognising a distinct design, with distinct aims and objects in the history of organic nature. Agassiz expresses his enthusiastic belief that the natural science of the future "will point out with growing minuteness, and will describe more and more clearly and suitably, the manifold ties binding together all animals and

3

1 Especially by Buckland, Geology and Mineralogy considered with reference to Natural Theology, vol. i. p. 107. H. Miller, Testimony, p. 203. 2 Elements of Geology.

3 Ulrici, Gott und die Natur, p. 417.

plants into the one living expression of the gigantic conception of the Creator, which, like a grand Epic, has, in the course of centuries, attained its fulfilment."1

God has created all things for His glory, the unreasoning creatures in order that through them the reasoning creatures should recognise His might, wisdom, and goodness. We may therefore expect that a more perfect knowledge of the earth, of its condition, its fashioning, its organisms, and its history, will show us, with increasing grandeur, how wonderfully the might, wisdom, and goodness of the Creator have acted for the benefit of man in the widest sense of the word. The increased knowledge of the extinct forms of the earth and its organisms, which we shall obtain from the further progress of geological science, will show us more and more plainly the relation of the visible creation to reasoning creatures.

Geologists say, for example, that the luxuriant vegetation of the Carboniferous age served two purposes. First, by absorption, it removed from the air the excess of carbon, and of other substances injurious to animal life, and thus rendered possible the existence of airbreathing animals on the earth; and then it served to hoard up for future ages those mineral masses which provide us with means for warmth, and without which much of the progress of modern civilisation, steamboats, railways and the like, would seem hardly possible. In the same way, the bringing forth of other organic beings, and the formation of the strata in which they found their grave, may either have a direct bearing on Jahrbuch für Deutsche Theologie, vi. 678.

1

the good of man, or may form a necessary link in the chain of evolutions, through which God brought the earth to the condition in which it was fitted to be man's dwelling-place.' The progress of geological inquiry will no doubt show us more and more plainly, that there is a system in the geological developments, that a wise Being has sometimes by creating, sometimes by destroying, worked knowingly for a distinct object, and according to a fixed and clear, although complicated plan. No doubt God could have created any quantity of coal out of nothing, and He could have called forth the earth from nothingness, in the condition in which it was on the day when the first man was created on it. Revelation teaches us that He did not do this. If we read the Bible without any reference to the results of scientific inquiry, and if we take its account quite literally, we find that God did not create the earth in its completed form in one moment,

1 "We have seen that the infusoria lived and died in countless myriads, and furnished the tripoli and the opal; that river snails and sea shells elaborated the marble for our temples and palaces, and polyparia, the limestone of which our edifices are constructed; and that grass, herb, and tree have been converted either into materials to enrich the soil, or into a mineral which should serve as fuel in future ages when such a substance became indispensable to the necessities and luxuries of civi lised man. Thus it is that geology has thrown a new interest around every grain of sand and every blade of grass; and that the pebble rejected by the moralist and the divine, becomes, in the hand of the philosopher, a striking proof of infinite wisdom. But ought we to rest content in the assumption that all these wonderful manifestations of creative intelligence were solely designed to contribute to our physical necessities and gratifications? Say rather that this display of beauty, power, and goodness was designed to fill the soul with high and holy thoughts,—to call forth the exercise of our reasoning powers,—to excite in us those ardent and lofty aspirations after truth and knowledge which elevate the mind above the sordid and petty concerns of life, and give us a foretaste of that high destiny which we are instructed to hope may be our portion hereafter."-G. Mantell, Wonders of Geology, pp. 676 and 677.

but fashioned it, in six days, out of the chaotic condition in which He had created it. Therefore, from the Biblical point of view, we must admit that it is not unworthy of the Divine Being to choose the way of gradual formation instead of that of immediate creation; and the questions, why did God work in this way, and how did He thereby manifest His wisdom and might, were problems discussed even by the Fathers. They are merely modified, if, in consequence of the results of scientific inquiry, we consider the six days, together with the period of chaos, as a long period, and include the geological developments in the Mosaic record.

By this means a new and wide field is opened out to philosophical and theological speculation, and a new and grateful task is before us. In one of his lectures, Cardinal Wiseman shows very beautifully how the Church has pressed into her service the great spiritual developments of the different centuries, and how, without any change in her own being, she has displayed a wonderful understanding and appreciation of the intellectual tendencies of the separate centuries. But as in other ages philosophy, art, and classical literature were prominent in the intellectual life, so in our age, says the Cardinal, scientific inquiry might be pointed out as the characteristic tendency, and therefore it is unavoidable that this new phase of human endeavour should also leave an evident impression on the Church."

We are now on the threshold of this new development of science. Nature in its details and in its con

1 Essays on Religion and Literature, by various Writers, ed. by H. E. Manning, London 1865, p. 7.

nection, in its phenomena and its laws, has never been known at any time as it is in this century. It was only in our century that an effort could be made "to comprehend the manifold phenomena of the Cosmos in the form of a rational whole," and the author of the Cosmos who has made this effort, is modest enough to lay stress on the fact that only part of the problem is solved. Still less can we look at present for a complete solution of the higher problem, that of comprehending the manifold phenomena of the Cosmos as a divinely connected whole.

A humbler but a more urgent task is before theologians, that of proving that no contradiction exists between the teaching of the Book of Nature and the teaching of the Book of Revelation. It is to this task that I must confine myself in these lectures.

1 Humboldt, Cosmos, i. 65.

2 Ibid. p. 68.