premacy through his intellect. Brutes dominate through the physical forces belonging to matter; man, through the immaterial forces which are the attributes of Deity. The chasm which separates the intelligence of man from that of the brutes is broad. It is not simply a step in the easy gradations observed among the brutes themselves; it is a break in the chain of gradations. Even if not qualitatively superior to that of brutes, its sudden expansion is so great that its sphere of activity creates a new quality in the being. Man is the first being in all the history of the world that could contemplate creation, and abstract the intelligence displayed in it, and experience a glow of satisfaction in attaining to the thoughts first conceived in the mind of the Omniscient. Man is the first animal capable of contemplating Deity.. In these exalted endowments not only does he excel the brutes, but he excels them in so vast a degree as to suggest the belief that the gradations of animal existence had been concluded, and Nature had reached a full pause. The material part-the frame-work-of animality had been perfected by slow gradations; and now, on the creation of man, Nature superadded an unprecedented endowment—a spiritual organization which makes man both a prince and a masterpiece in creation. When we speak of man's moral nature we touch a subject which recalls all that has just been said of his intellect, and affirms it with redoubled emphasis. There are reasons for believing that this endowment differs in kind. from any thing in the nature of the brute. This, to the ability to understand God, adds the ability to sympathize in his moral attributes, and to enter into moral relations with him and with humanity. Man stands in contact with God. A farther approximation is impossible. He must be the limit, as he is the existing culmination of organic life. These various considerations, with others, seem to teach that the column of organic succession is complete in man. The lower forms, gradually and regularly ascending from base to summit, constitute the shaft of the column; but in man we have a sudden expansion, an ornateness of finish, an incorporation of new ideas, which designate him as the capital and completion of the grand column of organic existence. Consider, in the third place, man's unlimited geographical range. When the first animals were introduced upon the earth, they found the ocean encompassing it on every side, and creating a uniformity of physical conditions which enabled them to range through every latitude and longitude. In later ages, as the continents, with their mountain ranges, became differentiated from the terrestrial mass, and diverse climates were called into existence, we find that animals were restricted to successively narrower limits. Not only did the growing differentiation of the different regions of the earth lead toward the restriction of the faunas, but there is something in higher organisms themselves which specializes them in their adaptations, and unfits them for so wide a range, even with external conditions unchanged. Thus, as animal life advanced upward, it became more narrowed in the range of its species. The species in possession of the earth immediately previous to man were more restricted than any of their predecessors. It would certainly be expected from all these analogies that man, on his appearance, would be limited to the narrowest bounds of all. What is the fact? Man overleaps all barriers. "Climates, mountains, oceans, deserts, form no impediments to his migration. He, the first of all animals, has literally extended over the whole earth, and fulfilled the command to take possession, to use, and to enjoy. What does this signify, if not that man is the completion of the series? Animal existence, first narrowed to the smallest limits in its specific range, then suddenly expanded to the widest. Man occupies the whole earth; he is not only the finishing stroke, but he excludes a successor. Consider, lastly, man's erect attitude. When the fish, the earliest representative of the type which embraces man, was introduced into the waters of the Devonian seas, the vertebral axis was hung in a horizontal position, and the animal was not endowed with even the power to raise the head by bending the neck. Many of the Carboniferous fishes acquired this power, but they remained suspended in the element of lowest vital relations. The Triassic and Jurassic Enaliosaurs, while they continued to inhabit the water, breathed the air, and held the head habitually a little elevated. The Crocodilians to these endowments added the power to crawl upon the ground. The Deinosaurs of the Cretaceous Age walked upon the land with the body elevated above the ground, but the head remaining nearly horizontal. The birds assumed an oblique position of the spinal axis; and most of the Tertiary mammals, which followed them, could carry their attitudes from the horizontal to the semi-erect. The higher monkeys lived normally in a sub-erect position, but still supporting themselves by the four extremities. Man first and alone assumed a perpendicular attitude, and turned his countenance toward heaven, and talked with the Being who formed him. "Prona cum spectent animalia cætera terram, It is evident no farther progress can be made in this direction. The elevation of the spinal axis has reached a mathematical limit; the consummation of organic exaltation is attained. These various considerations concur in justifying the as sumption that the Author of Nature regards his work as completed. The universal belief of the Christian world, therefore, that the termination of the existence of the human race will mark the consummation of the history of the present order of things, seems to be founded equally in our mental constitution and in the philosophy of the material creation. CHAPTER XXXIV. POPULAR BELIEFS IN PERIODICAL CATASTROPHES TO THE WI UNIVERSE. HENCE come we, and whither are we tending? Whence this ponderous globe which we inhabit? What vicissitudes has it undergone? What is its final destination? And when the drama of the world is closed, what then? Whence this magnificent system of a visible universe? and of what inscrutable purposes does it form a part? What is that which is first of all—the cause of all -self-existent, uncreated, without beginning and without end? These are grand problems-the most stupendous with which the human mind can grapple. We can not presume to offer their final solution, but we may venture to inquire what light is thrown upon their solution by the converging rays of all the sciences. These are problems which have engaged the attention of thoughtful minds in every age of the world. If we look into the pages of ancient philosophy, we find it every where occupied with inquiries into the origin and destiny of the universe the different orders or kinds of existence-the absolute existence, on which all other being depends-the nature of Deity and of man, and their relations to each other and to other grades of existence. These have been the great, ever-present, obtrusive mysteries with which the human mind has always been grappling. On the shores of classic Greece we find Thales, Pythagoras, Zeno, Epicurus, Plato, and a long and brilliant line of thinkers ponder |