11. The great energies of nature. To suppose the existence of _powers_ as the cause of the operations of nature—powers destitute of life, and, at the same time, self-moving, and acting upon matter without the intervention of extrinsic agency, is just as irrational as to suppose such a power in a machine, and is a gross absurdity and a self-contradiction. But to suppose that these lifeless energies, even if possessed of such qualities, could, void of intelligence, produce _such_ effects as _are_ produced in the universe, requires credulity capable of believing anything. 12. The whole universe, whether considered in its elementary or its organized state. From the simple grass to the tender plant, and onward to the sturdy oak; from the least insect up to man, there is skill the most consummate, design the most clear. What substance, useless as it may be when uncompounded with other substances, does not manifest design in its affinity to those substances, by a union with which it is rendered useful? What plant, what shrub, what tree has not organization and arrangement the most perfect imaginable? What insect so minute that contains not, within its almost invisible exterior, adjustment of part to part in the most exact order throughout all its complicated system, infinitely transcending the most ingenious productions of art, and the most appropriate adaptation of all those parts to its peculiar mode of existence? Rising in the scale of sensitive being, let us consider the beast of the forest, in whose case, without microscopic aid, we have the subject more accessible. Is he a beast of prey? Has the God of nature given him an instinctive thirst for blood? Behold, then, his sharp-sighted organs of vision for descrying his victim afar, his agile limbs for pursuit, his curved and pointed claws for seizing and tearing his prey, his sharp-edged teeth for cutting through its flesh, his firm jaws for gripping, crushing, and devouring it, and his intestines for digesting raw flesh. But is he a graminivorous animal? Does he subsist on grass and herb? Behold, then, his clumsy limbs and his clawless hoofs, his blunt teeth and his herb-digesting stomach. So perfect is the correspondence between one part and another; so exactly adapted are all the parts to the same general objects; so wonderful is the harmony and so definite and invariable the purpose obtaining throughout the whole, that it is necessary to see but a footstep, or even a bone, to be able to decide the nature and construction of the animal that imprinted that footstep or that possessed that bone. Ascending still higher in the scale, we come at last to man—man, the highest, noblest workmanship of God on earth—the lord of this sphere terrene—for whose behoof all earthly things exist. In common with all animals, he has that perfect adaptation of part to part, and of all the parts to general objects, which demonstrate consummate wisdom in the Cause which thus adapted them. His eyes are so