head before the infant can talk shows that it has inherited something through its very constitution which tends towards thought and reflection; while the receding forehead of the anthropoids as they grow towards maturity show that they inherit a constitution tending exactly in an opposite direction. This difference will doubtless forever remain.

M. Quatrefages, in his "Human Species," says (p. 379) : "In drawing comparisons between men and apes, the sphenoidal angle, discovered by M. Virchow, studied by M. Welker, and which, thanks to M. Broca, may be measured without making a section of the skull, presents special interest." These experiments and measurements show that in man the average sphenoidal angle measures, in infancy, 141 degrees, but in the average adult 134 degrees, showing a decrease of seven degrees in the size of this angle, from infancy to adult age.

But, on the contrary, in apes, - take the sajou for instance : At birth this angle measures 140 degrees, or one degree less than in the human infant; but at mature age it measures 174 degrees, or an increase of 34 degrees. In the orang, at birth this angle measures 155 degrees, and in the adult 174 degrees, or just the same as the sajou, but showing an increase of 19 degrees between infancy and adult life, giving an average increase of 263 degrees of this angle in the apes. But in the average human this angle decreases 7 degrees from infancy to mature age.

But, notwithstanding human superiority to the speechless animals, our domestic animals are entitled to kind and considerate treatment. Life even in the brutes is a wonderful thing. If life is merely a mechanical operation, as some suppose, why should a horse flee from a wild beast on account of fear? What other mechanical operation has fear?

WHENCE LIFE-GIVING POWER?

37

Who ever knew a steam-engine to turn out of its course for any beast from fear? Still, there are many things about a steam-engine that much resemble muscular action of animals. The active energies of each are supported by combustion. The combustion of a peck of oats in a horse develops power, just as really as a peck of coal burned under the boiler of a locomotive. But what a difference in the results! The oats are turned not only into muscular and motive power but into tissues and nerves that have sensations; and they also furnish food to repair wasted tissues. But the combustion of coal under a boiler repairs no wasted tissues, and builds up no body that can feel pain, or emotions of fear, joy, or sorrow. It takes the vital principle to make combustion perform this double duty.

As the physical system is supported through combustion, and largely receives its strength through this, several questions naturally arise.

First, Whence originates life-giving power? Can this power be derived from the purely mechanical laws of nature? Or is there a force, whether personal or impersonal, behind, or antedating the laws of nature, which originated and ordained these immutable natural laws, and from which comes this life-giving power in accordance with these immutable laws?

The varieties of plants and animals are almost infinite in number; and yet all these can be arranged in a few classes, and in some respects they are all constructed and developed upon one general plan. Every variety of living thing seems perfectly formed for the purposes of its existence. How does all this happen to be so? Did all this happen without purpose, or without what (for want of a better term) we call intelligent direction?

Notwithstanding all the dust thrown by those who repeat the statement that the theory of evolution annihilates the idea of design in creation, the fact still remains that some power has acted in a manner which we are accustomed to call intelligent, and this power lies back of all the phenomena of evolution, and the process of evolution is one manifestation of the way in which this power has been and is still working. If we deny purposive direction in this, we might as well assert that Handel's grand oratorios or Beethoven's sublime symphonies were composed and arranged by throwing mud-balls at random on a musical staff, and then writing the notes where these mud-balls struck. More than 1,900 years ago, Cicero, in substance, asked what would be thought of a man who should assert that a valuable book could be written by throwing lettered blocks into the air and allowing them to fall at random, with the expectation that they would so fall and arrange themselves as to compose a nice poem or a logical argument? Nice poems and logical arguments are not produced without careful, intelligent thought; nor is it likely that as wonderful and complex things occur in nature without purposive direction. In nature there is everywhere as much harmony, and as real an exhibition of intelligent methods, as is seen in the production of great musical compositions or in logical arguments. Everywhere not only harmonious arrangements are found but also the nicest mathematical proportions, whether we look among plants and animals, or to the planetary systems. As much care seems to be given to the construction of tiny insects as to the balancing of worlds and systems of worlds, which go on their ceaseless rounds through the immensity of space, and always in perfect order.

If we doubt that these nicely harmonious arrangements

DESIGN IN CREATION.

39

were made by an infinitely wise being, and suppose they do not indicate the intelligence and power of a creator, by what magical power do they happen to exist? Why may we not as well suppose that the telescope of Lord Rosse made itself, or that it was constructed without intelligent instruction, as to suppose that even the eye of a fly made itself, or was constructed by nature without a superintending, creative and intelligent power? Why may we not as well suppose that the finest coins ever struck off in a mint simply happened to fall in that shape without a die to give them shape or form?

There can never be an event under the laws of nature' without a cause, and this cause must of necessity be of a nature related to this event, and must be powerful enough to produce it; and no effect can be greater than its cause. The less (except through outside help) can never produce the greater; so, not the smallest insect lives which was not caused to exist by a power capable of producing life, and also by a power above our comprehension; for, if we could comprehend the full action of this power, we might ourselves originate life. Scientific research has not yet demonstrated how life originally came into existence on the earth. But every man knows it does exist on the earth, and this not without a cause, and a cause also that is equal to the event, viz., the production of life.

Those who believe in the mechanical and chemical theory of life think they find in nature alone all the power necessary to evolve life, or to raise inorganic matter to the plane of organic, or living matter. Though to my mind it is extremely unphilosophical to attempt to account for the origin of life without recognizing the existence of an almighty, eternal, and intelligent being

as the original

Creator, yet the Creator works so largely and so unerringly through secondary causes, or through the laws of nature, to such an extent, that in one sense I do not wonder that some never look beyond these secondary causes, but recognize them as existing eternally, and hence in their minds they dispense with any idea of an original great first cause. They do not recognize in this cause an acting, thinking, eternal intelligence.

The manifestations of life on the earth furnish us with all that we know for a certainty of any life. Vegetable life is largely dependent upon one of these secondary causes, viz., the sun. Blot out the sun, and all life on the earth would cease; nay, more, the planets would rush into space no one knows where, nor to what ruin. The rays of the sun falling upon trees and plants contribute to their growth, and in fact to a considerable extent feed them. Then plants and vegetables furnish food to herbivorous animals, and these in turn furnish food to carnivorous animals. But notice this: carnivorous animals and birds of prey prefer to feed upon plant and grain eating animals. (They like to take food one remove from vegetables, but seldom desire to take it two removes from vegetables.) animals are not generally accustomed to feed upon other exclusively flesh-eating animals.

Thus, flesh-eating

A singular and distinguishing trait or characteristic of nearly every species of birds of prey is that the female is considerably larger and stronger than the male. In almost every variety of hawks the spread of the wings of the female is from two to four inches greater than that of the male, and they are correspondingly stronger. The female eagles weigh, on the average, about a pound more than the male eagles, and they are in a corresponding degree more powerful. I