universe, with what has happened, and with what will happen so long as it shall last.

When, therefore, we use the phrase, "The Laws of Nature," we only use a convenient form of speech for generalizing what we see of the operations of the universe; and a phrase often first cloaks a fact, then smothers it. But if Plato and Newton are right in their perception of those things which they specially perceived best, the laws of nature, in truth, are only statements of our perceptions of God's continued work. Hence, as a matter of theological concern, it matters not whether new species are brought into being by what we call specific creation," or by what we call "the laws of nature.' In either case it is equally immediately God's

own act.

One further remark will be all. Many scientific theories, when first broached, have to encounter not only arguments, but also prejudices.

Darwin's law is no exception. It is, indeed, at first view, at all events, sadly at war with our notions of the dignity of human nature. When Shakespeare says: "What a piece of work man is! How noble in reaIn form and moving

son! How infinite in faculties!

how express and admirable! In action how like an angel! In apprehension how like a God!" And when the Psalmist sings, "What is man, that Thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that Thou visitest him?

"For thou hast made him a little lower than he angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honor.

"Thou madest him to have dominion over the

works of Thy hands; Thou has put all things under his feet," every heart responds.

"We

Hence, we recoil from Darwin's statement: thus learn that man is descended from a hairy quadruped, furnished with a tail and pointed ears, probably arboreal in its habits, and an inhabitant of the Old World. This creature, if its whole structure has been examined by a naturalist, would have been classed among the Quadrumana, as surely as would the common and still more ancient progenitor of the Old and New World monkey. The Quadrumana and all the higher mammals are probably derived from an ancient marsupial animal, and this, through a long line of diversified forms, either from some reptile-like, or some amphibian-like creature, and this again from some fishlike animal. In the dim obscurity of the past, we can see that the early progenitor of all the Vertebrata must have been an aquatic animal, provided with branchiæ, with the two sexes united in the same individual, and with the most important organs of the body (such as the brain and heart) imperfectly developed. This animal seems to have been more like the larvas of our existing marine ascidians, than any other known form."

But when the first feeling of disgust abates, two suggestions present themselves. While it is true, there must be a difficulty in determining at what period of such a course of development man appeared with an immortal and responsible soul, it is equally true, that in the case of every individual man we are unable to say just at what time a soul was united to the body.

The other suggestion is this: The theory of Darwin

is based on the supposition that each step of positive improvement grows out of a struggle with the conditions of lite, in which the worthy succeed, and in which each success is only a terrace and coin of vantage for further progress. And further, if a mere senseless shell-fish can struggle up through diversified forms to such a being as man, what glorious visions of greatness yet to be attained does not the fact suggest!

The sum of these remarks, then, is this: Darwin does not propose to explain the origin and essence of life. He assumes that simple forms of animal life were originally created with certain powers and capabilities. He proposes to explain the manner in which more complex forms have since appeared. He claims that the action and reaction of these powers and capabilities, and of the conditions of life on each other, constitute a law of nature, which he calls the law of selection, and that all the diversified forms of life which have appeared on earth since the origin of life, have come into existence in accordance with this law.

This theory, however, can not as yet be accepted as a demonstrated law since there are confessedly phenomena which it does not account for.

Further, so far as it is consistent with actual phenomena, it can not be accepted as absolutely true, but only as provisionally true. For if true according to the present state of human knowledge, a larger acquaintance with the phenomena of nature may overthrow it, and require some new theory.

And further, as the development of no new species has ever yet been actually observed, there is no means of determining the duration of time required to produce,

in accordance with his theory, the slightest permanent variation in the forms of life. And as man, fully developed, existed at least in the later fossil period, his theory may require a greater immensity of time than is allowed by geology for entire formation of the earth.

And, in fine, if the law of selection be a true law of nature, yet it and all the laws of nature are only formulas, expressing human apprehensions of the way in which the Creator carries on the universe.

SOME CONSIDERATIONS ON THE

MOUND BUILDERS.

THE first explorers of this valley were surprised to find in the solitudes of the wilderness, overgrown with ancient forests, huge earthworks, concerning which the Indians had not even a tradition. Interest being once aroused, these works have become the object of amination and much study.

great ex

They have been found over a large part of the Mississippi Valley. They are so numerous that Ohio alone is estimated to contain some thousands, large and small. They vary greatly in magnitude. Some are trifling embankments scarcely rising above the surface of the ground, or little hillocks three or four feet high; while others, like the works of Newark and Portsmouth, in this State, embrace fourteen and sixteen miles of embankment; or, like the mound at Cahokia, Illinois, have a base of six acres, a summit platform of five acres, and a height of ninety feet, containing twenty million cubic feet of earth.

They vary as greatly in design as in size. The purpose of some is obvious; the intention of others has not yet been divined. Some are fortifications; some lookouts or signal stations. Some, filled with bones, are clearly burial mounds. The large conical mounds