Page:Gods Glory in the Heavens.djvu/67

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LUNAR LANDSCAPE.
51

exposure. During the night we are agreeably cooled, and prepared once more to hail the genial light and heat of the sun. But were our summer days doubled in length, the heat would be intolerable, and all things would languish and die. How widely different must animal and vegetable life be in the moon, to bear the long scorching of a day, equal to fourteen of the earth's days. Did we discover living creatures adapted to these and the other strange conditions existing in the moon, we, no doubt, would be filled with adoring wonder at such manifestations of God's wisdom and goodness.

But is the survey of the moon's surface devoid of interest, and does it fail to point to a Divine intelligence, because we can discover none of these special adaptations that so abound on the surface of our globe? Paley would answer that it is barren in theological results, and that, unless we can establish a use, we cannot turn that strangely-diversified surface to any account, as proving a Divine intelligence. Natural theology has made an advance since Paley' s time, inasmuch as it more fully recognises as proofs of intelligence, order, symmetry, arrangement, type, as well as the adaptation of means to special ends. It is not necessary to prove a use in order to recognise intelligence. It is very much the fashion, at the present day, to disparage the argument of Paley, and to resolve all into mere order. But it is by no means necessary to do this, so that we may be able to recog-