But “WHAT IS MAN?” is the pregnant question of the royal Psalmist; and Dr Whewell gives an account of man, at once ennobling and solemnising; in strict accordance, moreover, with revelation, and with those views of his moral and intellectual nature universally entertained by the believers in revealed religion. We know of no man living entitled to speak with more authority on such subjects than Dr Whewell; and we think it impossible for any thoughtful person to read the portions of his _Essay_ relating to this subject, without feelings of awe and reverence towards our Maker. Not that any new conditions of human nature are suggested, or any peculiarly original views of it presented; but our knowledge on the subject is, as it were, condensed into a focus, and then brought to bear upon the question, What is man, that his Maker should be mindful of him, and visit him? and thereby render the earth, in a unique and special manner, the field of God’s providence and government. Lord Bolingbroke objected to the Mosaic account of the creation, and “that man is made by Moses as the final end, if not of the whole creation, yet at least of our system:” but let us remember, that Moses also tells us that God determined to “make _man in Our image, after Our likeness_;” that God did, accordingly, create man in His own image—with special significance twice asserting the fact that _in the image of God created He him_; and he tells us that, after the flood, God assigned this as a reason for visiting the crime of murder with death—Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God made He man. The full import of that awful and mysterious expression, the image and likeness of God, man, in his fallen state, may never know. Adam possibly knew originally; and his descendants believe that it consists in their Intellectual and Moral nature. The former is, in some measure, of the same nature as the Divine mind of the Creator:[34] the laws which man discovers in the creation must be laws known to God; those which man sees to be true—those of geometry, for instance—God also must see to be true. That there were, from the beginning, in the Creator’s mind creative thoughts, is a doctrine involved in every intelligent view of creation—a doctrine which has recently received splendid illustration by a living “great discoverer in the field of natural knowledge.”[35] Law implies a lawgiver, even when we do not see the object of the law; even as design implies a designer, when we do not see the object of the design. The laws of nature are the indications of the operation of the Divine mind, and are revealed to us, as such, by the operations of our mind, by which we come to discover them. They are the utterances of the Creator, delivered in language which we can understand; and being thus _Language_, they are the utterances of an Intelligent Spirit.[36]