Now, if such a creature, like this terrestrial nature, be of a mixed constitution, composed of a principle of destruction as well as of a principle of productive development and progression--if its life be a constant struggle with death, then it is manifest that only by the same hand which first formed it, gave it laws, and prescribed its order, can its wise and divine economy be preserved, and the permanence of the organic evolution of its whole system be secured, and the outbursts of elementary dissolution, which are perpetually menacing it, held in check and averted. If this restraint be once relaxed, if the destructive energy of the wild elements be once let loose, and free scope given to their fury--and this globe presents the manifest traces of one such catastrophe, at least--then this, too, must be regarded as an exception, and is only explicable by the higher principle of divine permission. Viewed, however, as the retribution of divine justice on a guilty world, it forms an exception and a miracle of a peculiar kind, and must be distinguished from those other extraordinary operations properly called miracles, wherein, with some saving or quickening purpose, the Almighty, as it were, raises nature above herself, and takes her out of her usual course. In this way, then, we ought unquestionably to refer every thing in the world to its author and preserver, whether it be conformable to the usual course and order of nature, or, as an extraordinary phenomenon, bespeak a higher and more immediate operation of divinity. But, at the same time, we must never forget that nature itself is a living force endowed with a capacity of self-development. Nature, indeed, is not free in the same sense that man is, possessed and conscious of a power of self-determination and choice; but as all life contains in itself the germ of a free movement and expansion, and while it expands itself a hidden and slumbering consciousness begins to stir and awake, so also in nature, an initiatory or preparatory grade of it, if not fully out-spoken, is at least indicated. In this respect it may be regarded as the vestibule of that temple of freedom which in man, the crowning work of this earthly creation, and made after the divine image and likeness, stands forth in its full dimensions and proportions. Considered from another point of view, the sensible world may be looked upon as a veil thrown over the spiritual world--the light-flowing and almost transparent robe, and, as it were, in all its parts the significant costume of the invisible powers. But in no point of view can we rightly consider nature as properly self-subsisting, or independent of its Creator, and, therefore, in no case as isolated by itself and apart from all reference to a superior being. Rather is it a living force, and one, too, doubly significant, both from within and from without; to which property an allusion is contained in the simile already employed, of a