It lays down its own life that the organism, as a whole, may he sustained; and the individual organism, in turn, passes away, after contrihuting to the continuation of the species. In like manner, the dissolution of Saturn's rings, and even that of the solar system, may be only steps of a process by which the stability of some higher and more comprehensive system is secured. Although we cannot trace far the footprints of the Creator, backwards and onwards, still there is no difficulty in recognising those that mark the active progression of the plans of Divine wisdom and power.
While the tendency of astronomical science is to establish progressive phases in the evolution of the material world, it only brings out in more prominent relief the truth, that the introduction of life is a fact in itself unique. All attempts to detect a physical law uniting the successive steps have signally failed. There is, undoubtedly, an order and system by which successive forms of life have been introduced, but all discovery points to the conclusion, that the law is of a higher order than the physical laws of nature. It is simply the order in which a personal God exercises His creative energy.
No doubt, the order of the succession of various forms of life is correlated to the successive stages of material adaptation, but the bond is not of cause and effect. The successive acts of the farmer in ploughing, sowing, and reaping, are correlated to the order
