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in the fewest words the several divisions and important steps in the order of creation. We cannot suppose, however, the appearance of the different kinds of plants there briefly described, to have come in any single period of the world's historyonly that at this point the first of plants appeared.

Plants came

before

One point more, having some relation to the next lecture. Plant life is represented as preceding animal life. The truth is that fossil remains of animals are found as far back as those of plants. But there are good reasons for supposing them to have been a subse

quent creation.

briefly stated.

animals.

Two or three reasons may be

I. Plants will thrive in an atmosphere too highly charged with noxious gases, and probably in water too highly heated, for the maintenance of animal life. And one office of early vegetation probably was to absorb the gases and clear the atmosphere for animal respiration. Plants can live where animals cannot.

2. Plants are the natural food of animals. Plants feed chiefly on inorganic matter; animals on organic. There There are exceptions to this rule. Some plants consume organic matter. The mistletoe, indian-pipe, and other parasites derive their substance almost entirely from the plants to

which they are attached. A few plants also feed on animals. The Sundew for instance and the Venus'-flytrap capture insects and appropriate them to their own sustenance. But these excep tions are of comparatively small importance. It may be accepted as the general rule, that plants can live without animals; animals cannot thrive. without plants. The conclusion follows, therefore, that the first appearance of plants came before that of animals. The animal kingdom was the

later creation.

Still more conclusive reasons for this statement will be assigned when we come to read the geological record in the sixth lecture.

V.

ANIMAL LIFE.

"Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And .. let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind.”

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"See through this air, this ocean, and this earth,
All matter quick and bursting into birth.
Above, how high! progressive life may go !
Around, how wide! how deep extend below!"

V.

ANIMAL LIFE.

OUR subject is the Animal Kingdom.

Progress in

nature.

In tracing the history of the creation thus far, it must be obvious to every one that the order has been constantly from a lower toward a higher condition. A notable illustration may be found in the change from inorganic nature to a state of organism and life. The same fact appeared in the last lecture in the history of plant life; beginning with plants of spongy texture and the simplest structure, passing through the herbs bearing flower and seeds, and culminating in the fruit and nut-growing trees. The orderly development thus traced will be found. no less discernible in the animal kingdom. It is on such facts as these that Mr. Darwin and others base the doctrine of Evolution.

as

of

And to the doctrine of Evolution, The doctrine the development of an order and the

unfolding of a plan in nature, there can

Evolution.

be no reasonable objection. We frankly confess it

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