Many of the more noteworthy instincts lead us from manifestations of purpose directed to the maintenance of the individual, to no less plain manifestations of a purpose directed to the preservation of the race. But a careful study of the interrelations and interdependencies which exist between the various orders of creatures inhabiting this planet shows us yet a more noteworthy teleology--the existence of whole orders of such creatures being directed to the service of other orders in various degrees of subordination and augmentation respectively. This study reveals to us, as a fact, the enchainment of all the various orders of creatures in a hierarchy of activities, in harmony with what we might expect to find in a world the outcome of a First Cause possessed of intelligence and will[64]. [64] _On Truth_, p. 493. Having read this much, a Darwinian is naturally led to expect that Mr. Mivart is about to offer some examples of instincts or structures exemplifying what in the margin he calls the "Hierarchy of Ministrations." Yet the only facts he proceeds to adduce are the sufficiently obvious facts, that the inorganic world existed before the organic, plants before herbivorous animals, these before carnivorous, and so on: that is to say, everywhere the conditions to the occurrence of any given stage of evolution preceded such occurrence, as it is obvious that they must, if, as of course it is not denied, the possibility of such occurrence depended on the precedence of such conditions. Now, it is surely obvious that such a "hierarchy of ministrations" as this, far from telling against the theory of natural selection, is the very thing which tells most in its favour. The fact that animals, for instance, only appeared upon the earth after there were plants for them to feed upon, is clearly a necessity of the case, whether or not there was any design in the matter. Such "ministrations," therefore, as plant-organisms yield to animal-organisms is just the kind of ministration that the theory of natural selection requires. Thus far, then, both the theories--natural selection and super-natural design--have an equal right to appropriate the facts. But now, if in no one instance can it be shown that the ministration of plant-life to animal-life is of such a kind as to subserve the interests of animal-life without at the same time subserving those of the plant-life itself, then the fact makes wholly in favour of the naturalistic explanation of such ministration as appears. If any plants had presented any characters pointing prospectively to needs of animals without primarily ministering to their own, then, indeed, there would have been no room for the theory of natural selection. But as this can nowhere be alleged, the theory of natural selection finds all the facts to be exactly as it requires them to be: such ministration as plants yield to