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Show GENERAL CONSIDERATION! ON THE niable of all the attributes of Omnipotence. It lowers him towards the level of our own humble intellects. M.uch tnore worthy of him it surely is, to suppose that all things have been commissioned by him from the first, th?ugh neither is he absent from a particle of the current ot n~tural affairs in one sense, seeing that the whole ~ystem IS continually supported by his providence .. Ev.e~ I~ hun1an affairs, if I may be allowed to adopt a fa~Ihar Il~ustration there is a constant proO'ress from specific achon for particular occasions, to arra~gements which, one~ estab lished, shall continue to answer for a great ~ulhtude of occasions. Such plans the enlight~ned readily form for themselves and conceive as being adopted by .all who have to att~nd to a multitude of affairs, while the Ignorant suppose every act of the greatest publie functionary to ~e the result of some special consideration and care on h1s part alone. Are we to suppose the Deity adopting p~ans "'-hich harmonize only with the modes of procedure.of the less enlightened of our r~ce? Thos~ who w~uld obJect to the hypothesis of a creation by the Intervention of.law, do not perh~ps consider ho~ powerful ~n a_rgum~nt In f~vor of the existence of God Is lost by reJechng th1s doctr1ne. "\Vhen all is seen to be the result of law, the idea of an Almighty Author becomes irresistible, for the creat~on of a law for an endless series of phenomena-an act of Intelligence above all else that we can conceive-could have no other imaginable source, and tells, moreover, as powerfully for a sustaining as for an originating powe!· On this point a remark of Dr. Buckland seems applicable: "If the properties adopted by Ute elements at the l~om~nt of their creation adapted them beforehand to the Infinity of complicated useful purpo~es which they have already answered, and may have still f~rther to answer, unde:r 1nany dispensations of the nwtenal wor~d, sue~ an a.bonginal constitution, so far from superseding an Intelligent agent, would only exalt our conceptwns of the consu~ .. mate skill and power that could com prehe~d such ~n. Infinity of future uses under future systems, In the ong1nal groundwork of his creation." . A· late writer, in a work embracing a vast amount of miscellaneous know ledge, but written in a dogl'l!atic st.yle, argues at great length for the d.oct~·inc of more Imm~diate exertions on the rart of the Dei tv 1n th~ wm·ks of h1s crea. tion. One of the most striking"' of his illustrations is a1 ORIGIN OF THE ANIMATED TRIBES. follows:-" The coral polypi, united by a common an.'.mal bond, construct a defined forn1 in stone; many kinde construct many forms. An allotted instinct may permit each polypus to construct its O\Yn cell, but there is no superintending one to direct the pattern, nor can the workers unite by consultation for such au end. There is no recipient for an instinct by which the pattern might be constructed. It is God alone, therefore, who is the architect; and for this end, consequently, he must dispose of every new polypus required to continue the pattern, in a new and peculiar position, which the animal could not have discovered by itself: Yet more, millions of these blind workers unite their works to form an island, which is also wrought out according to a constant general pattern, and of a very peculiar nature, though the separate coral works are numerously diverse. Still less, then, here is an instinct possible. The Great Architect himself must execute what he planned, in each case equally. He uses thes~ little and senseless animals as hands; but they are hand:, which himself must direct. He must direct each one everywhere, and therefore he is ever acting.'~* This is a most notable example of a dangerous kind of reasoning. It is now believed that corals have a general life and sensation throughout the whole mass, residing in the nervous tissue which envelopes them; consequently, there is nothing more wonderful in their determinate general forms than in those of other animals. It may hero be remarked that there is in our doctrine that harmony in all the associated phenomena which generally marks great truths. First, it agrees, as we have seen, with the idea of planet-creation by natural law. Secondly, upon this supposition, all ;~nat geology tells us of the succeslSion of species appears natural and i.nt<\Uigible. Organic life pres.~es in, as has been remarked, wherever there Wll.S· room and encouragement for it, the forms being always such ass ited the circumstances, and in a certain relation to them, as, for example, where the limestone- forming seas produced an abundance of corals, cri .. noidea, and shell-fish. Admitting for a moment a re .. 0r igination of species after a cataclysm, as has been surmised by some geologists, though the hypothesis is always becomjng less and less tenable, it harmonizes with nothing ~o well as the idea of a creation by law. The more soli- • Macculloch on tne Attributes of the Deity, iii. 569 |
