of the entire field at a glance, in order to give vividness, sharpness, locality, and permanence to the thoughts and images floating in his mind. There also other considerations which have been prominently before the mind of the author in drawing up some of the following chapters for publication. He can not resist the conviction that Nature is intended as a revelation of God to all intelligences. If it be so intended, Nature must be capable of fulfilling the offices of a revelation, and a knowledge of her phenomena and laws must afford the data of a theology. Despite the skepticism of a certain school of recent writers, the phenomena of the universe continue to inspire in the soul of man emotions of religious reverence and worship. To the mass of mind, as to the intelligence of Socrates, and Plato, and Kepler, and Newton, and Galen, and Paley, and Buckland, the order of the Cosmos proclaims an Infinite Intelligence. The author has no fear that the ultimate analysis of the grounds of this belief will result in showing them unreal or unsatisfactory to a critical philosophy. Imbued with such convictions, the author has made no effort to disguise them. He has not, however, entered into any formal attempt to set forth the relations of science to the system of Christian faith, though the way has been frequently opened. He hopes at no distant day to resume the consideration of these subjects. Besides the arguments made familiar by Paley, Whewell, and other writers on Natural Theology-to which, indeed, fourfold strength is added by the later developments of the physical sciences—there are new topics thrust before the world by the current of modern thought, upon which a flood of light is thrown by late discoveries, if, in fact, their discussion does not lie exclusively within the domain of Natural Science. Such are the Antiquity of the Human Race, the Unity of the Race, the Primeval -Condition of Man, Harmony of the Mosaic and Geologic Cosmogonies, the Mosaic Deluge, Natural Evil, Development, the Foreshadowing of Man's Birthplace, the Unity of Creation, Teleological and Homological Design in Nature. In the mean time, the suggestions thrown out in this work may be of service to some of those who may be seeking for the grounds of a rational religious belief. The elucidation of the great problems of philosophic or speculative theology is, indeed, the highest function of science. All our learning would, in reality, be but the "vanity” which it is sometimes reproached with being if it could reflect no light upon the origin, the nature, the duty, and the destiny of man. It is not for its facts, but for the significance of the facts, that science is valuable. To accumulate the data of science is good; to interpret them is the noblest prerogative of a thinking being. Science interpreted is theology. Science prosecuted to its conclusions leads to God. To all, then, who love to hold communion with the thoughts embodied in the "visible forms" of Nature; who delight to contemplate the sublime, persistent, allcomprehending, and beneficent plans of Deity unfolding hrough geological cycles toward definite and intelligible ends; in short, to all who love to “Look through Nature up to Nature's God," hese pages are respectfully submitted. THE AUTHOR. ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN, October, 1869. |