rogative of universal human thought; the unborn genius of that illustrious succession to whom Nature has surrendered her secrets and told out her oracles, till the bewildering chaos of the starry movements above, and the threadless labyrinth of living forms below, have each resolved themselves into a splendid harmony of Creative wisdom and beneficent design. When, after long years of racking and unrewarding toil, Kepler at last unlocked the problem of the heavens, his emotion, it is said, found memorable vent-"O God, I think Thy thoughts after Thee!" Many centuries before, the geometers of ancient Greece had reasoned on the properties of the figures attained by the various cuttings of the cone. By the discovery of the modern, the stars in their courses shone out a celestial diagram of those self-same curves; the veil was lifted from the face of space; and lo! the earth and her sisters swam in those very figures through the deep of the sky. The sun was environed by so many tracings of the Conic Sections, and Kepler saw it was so, and "thought God's thoughts after Him." In this his offspring, of a truth, thus binding into a unity planet, comet, and satellite, was Adam naming the creatures. He was naming them when Solomon studied vegetation, "from the cedar of

Lebanon to the hyssop on the wall." He was naming them when the penetrating genius of Aristotle first gave system to natural history. He was naming the creatures still in Linnæus and Cuvier. He is naming them to this hour in the labours of Richard Owen.

38. Indeed in the sense of their being accurately marshalled, compared, and ordinated, they are now almost named. The English explorer has placed the copestone on that fabric of classification of which the Stagirite traced the outlines and laid the foundations,78 and the Swede and the Frenchman built the walls.79

An undevout anatomist is mad.

So felt Galen when he described his work as a re

ligious hymn in honour of the Creator." The most exact knowledge of the nineteenth century has not parted company from the sentiment.

illumination has but brightened the

Nay, advancing proof of Divine

Forethought, not only as setting its print on special adaptations, but as stamping itself on the symmetry of the whole system of existence.

39. All Comparative Anatomy may be said to be tending towards the recognition and extrication of three supreme values, in the grouping of animals and the

graduation of life, past as well as present-the BACKBONE, the BREAST, and the BRAIN. To appreciate these

values aright is to read truly the Vestiges of Creation;" because it is to trace the unfolding plan and to follow the measured "Footprints of the Creator." It is not in astronomy alone that the mind of man has been enabled to "think God's thoughts after Him." And the result of those researches which have been thus rewarded, in the study of animal life and its assigned prerogatives, may be exhibited, if I mistake not, as a Contracting Leet. The key to the significance of which is not, and cannot be, Selective Development, but must be, and is, Elective Design. (Page 89.)

40. The first leet, in the ascending order, takes note of all animals as Vertebrates or Sub-vertebrates: for every individual organism endowed with a backbone. there are countless millions without it.80 Hence this first or exterior leet leaves a master-group, palpably supreme in framework and ground-plan, over three other groups-the Articulate, the Convolute,81 and the Radiate between which and the master-group the Barrier of Backbone stands impassable; at least till it is explained how a butterfly could become a bird, or a snail a serpent, or a star-fish acquire the skeleton of the

salmon or the shark. It is like the going forth of a Divine decree: "One shall be taken, and three shall be left."

41. The second leet, Sub-vertebrates out of view, takes account of Vertebrates themselves as Mammals or Sub-mammals. Among the elect it makes an inner election. Besides the Backbone it exacts the Breast ; shedding off, as before, three well-marked groups subordinate to the master-group of Mammals or Sucklers. Which breastless tribes are Birds, Reptiles, and Fishes; holding high, low, and medium rank among themselves, not so much on the principle of skeleton, or its specialized offshoots, as on that of characters which are correlated to the development of care for their young. In this the lungless and cold-blooded water-breather is almost or wholly wanting; and the instincts of the cold-blooded air-breather are also sluggish and dull. In this the warm-blooded air-breathing Bird becomes a prophecy of the unfailing devotion of the Mammal, and a parable for the Supreme Love Itself. "Under the shadow of Thy wings shall be my refuge."

"How often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen gathereth her brood under her wings!" Still the Mammal, by its endowment of the fostering