Intellectually considered, man “has an element of community with God: whereupon it is so far conceivable that man should be, in a special manner, the object of God’s care and favour. The human mind, with its wonderful and perhaps illimitable powers, is something of which we can believe God to be mindful:”[9] that He may very reasonably be thus mindful of a being whom he has vouchsafed to make in his own Image, after His likeness—the image and likeness of the awful Creator of all things. “The privileges of man,” observes Dr Whewell, in a passage essential to be considered by those who would follow his argument,[10] “which make the difficulty in assigning him his place in the Vast Scheme of the universe, we have described as consisting in his being an _Intellectual, Moral, and Religious_ creature. Perhaps the privileges implied in the last term, and their place in our argument, may justify a word more of explanation.... We are now called upon,” proceeds the Essayist, after a striking sketch of the character and capacity of man, especially as a spiritual creature, “to proceed to exhibit the Answer which a somewhat different view of modern science suggests to this difficulty or objection.” —“The difficulty[11] appears great either way of considering it. Can the earth alone be the theatre of such intelligent, moral, religious, and spiritual action? Or can we conceive such action to go on in the other bodies of the universe?... Between these two difficulties the choice is embarrassing, and the decision must be unsatisfactory, except we can find some further ground of judgment. But this, perhaps, is not hopeless. We have hitherto referred to the evidence and analogies supplied by one science, namely, Astronomy. But there are other sciences which give us information concerning the nature and history of the Earth. From some of these we may perhaps obtain some knowledge of the place of the Earth in the scheme of creation; how far it is, in its present condition, a thing unique, or only one thing among many like it. Any science which supplies us with evidence or information on this head, will give us aid in forming a judgment upon the question under our consideration.” Thus the Essayist reaches the second stage of his inquiry, entering on the splendid domain of GEOLOGY. To this great but recently consolidated science Dr Chalmers made no allusion in his celebrated “Discourses on the Christian Revelation, viewed in connection with the Modern Astronomy,”[12] which were delivered in the year 1817, nearly thirty-seven years ago: and then he spoke, in his first Discourse, of Astronomy as “the most certain and best established of the sciences.” Dr Whewell, however, vindicates the claims of Geology, in respect of both the certainty and vastness of her discoveries, in a passage so just and admirable, that we must lay it before our readers.