3. The Bible recognizes purpose, use, and special adaptation in nature. It is, in short, full of natural theology, akin in some respects to that which has been so elaborately worked out by so many modern writers. Numerous passages in support of this will occur to every one who has read the Scriptures. It is necessary here, however, to direct attention to a distinction very obvious in Scripture, but not always attended to by writers on this subject. The Bible maintains the true "final cause" of all nature to be, not its material and special adaptations or its value to man, but the pleasure or satisfaction of the Creator himself. In the earlier periods of Creation, before man was upon the earth, God contemplates his work and pronounces it good. The heavenly hosts praise him, saying, "Thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created." Further, the Bible represents intelligences higher than man as sharing in the delight which may be derived from the contemplation of God's works. When the earth first rose from the waters to greet the light, "the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy." There are many things in nature that strongly impress the naturalist with this same view, that the Creator takes pleasure in his works; and, like human genius in its highest efforts, rejoices in production, even if no sentient being should be ready to sympathize. The elaborate structures of fossils, of which we have only fragmentary remains, the profusion of natural objects of surpassing beauty that grow and perish unseen by us, the delicate microscopic mechanism of nearly all organic structures, point to other reasons for beauty and order than those that concern man, or the mere utilities of human beings; and though there are now naturalists who deny absolutely that beauty is an object in nature, and assign even the colors of flowers and insects to utility alone, and this of a very low order, this doctrine is so repulsive to our higher sentiments that there is little danger of its general acceptance; while the slightest consideration shows that the utilities referred to could have been secured without any of this consummate beauty associated with them, and our perception of and delight in which mark in a way beyond the ability of skepticism to cavil at our own spiritual kinship with the Author of all this profusion of beauty. Yet man is represented as the chief created being for whom this earth has been prepared and designed. He obtains dominion over it. A chosen spot is prepared for him, in which not only his wants but his tastes are consulted; and, being made in the image of his Maker, his aesthetic sentiments correspond with the beauties of the Maker's work, and he finds there also food for his reason and imagination. This view of the subject, as well as others already referred to, is finely represented in the address of the Almighty to Job.[26]