When we have in this manner traced back all kinds of mineral bodies, to the first and most simple condition of their component Elements, we find these Elements to have been at all times regulated by the self-same system of fixed and universal laws, which still maintains the mechanism of the material world. In the operation of these laws we recognize such direct and constant subserviency of means to ends, so much of harmony, and order, and methodical arrangement, in the physical properties and proportional quantities, and chemical functions of the inorganic

of one system of combinations to another system, under which every individual crystal has been adjusted by laws, acting correlatively to produce harmonious results.

Every crystal of Carbonate of Lime is made up of millions of particles of the same compound substance, having one invariable primary form, viz. that of a rhomboidal solid, which may be obtained to an indefinite extent by mechanical division.

The integrant molecules of these rhomboidal solids form the smallest particles to which the Limestone can be reduced without chemical decomposition.

The first result of chemical analysis divides these integrant molecules of Carbonate of Lime into two compound substances, namely, Quick Lime and Carbonic Acid, each of which is mac'e up of an incalculable number of constituent molecules.

A further analysis of these constituent molecules shews that they also are compound bodies, each made up of two elementary substances, viz. the Lime made up of elementary molecules of the metal Calcium, and Oxygen; and the Carbonic Acid, of elementary molecules of Carbon and Oxygen.

These ultimate molecules of Calcium Carbon, and Oxygen, form the final indivisible atoms into which every secondary crystal of Carbonate of Lime can be resolved.

Elements, and we further see such convincing evidence of intelligence and foresight in the adaptation of these primordial Elements to an infinity of complex uses, under many future systems of animal and vegetable organizations, that we can find no reasonable account of the existence of all this beautiful and exact machinery, if we accept not that which would refer its origin to the antecedent Will and Power of a Supreme Creator; a Being, whose nature is confessedly incomprehensible to our finite faculties, but whom the "things which do appear" proclaim to be supremely Wise, and Great, and Good.

To attribute all this harmony and order to any fortuitous causes that would exclude Design, would be to reject conclusions founded on that kind of evidence, on which the human mind reposes with undoubting confidence in all the ordinary business of life, as well as in physical and metaphysical investigations. "Si mundum efficere potest concursus atomorum, cur porticum, cur templum, cur domum, cur urbem non potest? quæ sunt minus operosa et multo quidem faciliora.”*

Such was the interrogatory of the Roman Moralist, arising from his contemplation of the obvious phenomena of the natural world; and the conclusion of Bentley from a wider view of more recondite phenomena, in an age remarkable for the advancement of some of the highest

*Cicero de Natura Deorum, lib. ii. 37.

branches of Physical Science, has been most abundantly confirmed by the manifold discoveries of a succeeding century. We therefore of the present age have a thousand additional reasons to affirm with him, that "though universal matter should have endured from everlasting, divided into infinite particles in the Epicurean way, and though motion should have been coeval and coeternal with it; yet those particles or atoms could never of themselves, by omnifarious kinds of motion, whether fortuitous or mechanical, have fallen, or been disposed into this or a like visible system."*-Bentley, Serm. vi. of Atheism, p. 192.

* Dr. Prout has pursued this subject still further in the third Chapter of his Bridgewater Treatise, and shewn that the molecular constitution of matter with its admirable adaptations to the economy of the natural world, cannot have endured from eternity, and is by no means a necessary condition of its existence; but has resulted from the Will of some intelligent and voluntary Agent, possessing power commensurate with his Will.

In the first Section of his fourth Chapter the same author has also so clearly shown the great extent to which several of the most common mineral substances e. g. lime, magnesia, and iron, enter into the composition of animal and vegetable bodies, and has so fully set forth the evidences of design in the constitution and properties of the few simple substances, viz. fifty-four Elementary principles, into some one or more of which the component materials of all the three great kingdoms of Nature can be resolved, that I deem it superfluous to repeat in another form, the substance of arguments which have been so well and fully drawn by my learned Colleague, from those phenomena of the mineral Elements, which form no small part of the evidence afforded by the Chemistry of Mineralogy, in proof of the Wisdom, and Power, and Goodness of the Creator.

CHAPTER XXIV.

Conclusion.

IN our last Chapter we have considered the Nature of the Evidence afforded by unorganized mineral bodies, in proof of the existence of design in the original adaptation of the material Elements to their various functions, in the inorganic and organic departments of the Natural World, and have seen that the only sufficient Explanation we can discover, of the orderly and wonderful dispositions of the material Elements " in measure and number and weight," throughout the terraqueous globe, is that which refers the origin of every thing above us, and beneath us, and around us, to the will and workings of One Omnipotent Creator. If the properties imparted to these Elements at the moment of their Creation, adapted them beforehand to the infinity of complicated useful purposes, which they have already answered, and may have further still to answer, under many successive Dispensations in the material World, such an aboriginal constitution so far from superseding an intelligent Agent, would only exalt our conceptions of the consummate skill and power, that could comprehend

such an infinity of future uses under future systems, in the original groundwork of his Creation.

In an early part of our Enquiry, we traced back the history of the Primary rocks, which composed the first solid materials of the Globe, to a probable condition of universal Fusion, incompatible with the existence of any forms of organic life, and saw reason to conclude that as the crust of the Globe became gradually reduced in temperature, the unstratified crystalline rocks, and stratified rocks produced by their destruction, were disposed and modified, during long periods of time, by physical forces, the same in kind with those which actually subsist, but more intense in their degree of operation; and that the result has been to adapt our planet to become the receptacle of divers races of vegetable and animal beings, and finally to render it a fit and convenient habitation for Mankind.

We have seen still further that the surface of the Land, and the Waters of the Sea have during long periods, and at distant intervals of time, preceding the Creation of our species, been peopled with many different races of Vegetables and Animals, supplying the place of other races that had gone before them; and in all these phenomena, considered singly, we have found evidence of Method and Design. We have moreover seen such a systematic recurrence of analogous Designs, producing various ends by