3. This is a striking reflection, and is put by Chalmers in a very
striking manner; and it is well fitted to remove the scruples to which
it is especially addressed. If there be any persons to whom the
astronomical discoveries which the telescope has brought to light,
suggests doubts or difficulties with regard to such truths of Natural
Religion as God's care for and government of the inhabitants of the
earth, the discoveries of the many various forms of animalcular life
which the microscope has brought to light are well fitted to remove such
doubts, and to solve such difficulties. We may easily believe that the
power of God to sustain and provide for animal life, animal sustenance,
animal enjoyment, can suffice for innumerable worlds besides this,
without being withdrawn or distracted or wearied in this earth; for we
find that it does suffice for innumerable more inhabitants of this earth
than we were before aware of. If we had imagined before, that, in
conceiving God as able and willing to provide for the life and pleasure
of all the sentient beings which we knew to exist upon the earth, we had
formed an adequate notion of his power and of his goodness, these
microscopical discoveries are well adapted to undeceive us. They show us
that all the notions which our knowledge, hitherto, had enabled us to
form of the powers and attributes of the Creator and Preserver of all
living things, are vastly, are immeasurably below the real truth of the
case. They show us that God, as revealed to us in the animal creation,
is the Author and Giver of life, of the organization which life implies,
of the contrivances by which it is conducted and sustained, of the
enjoyment by which it is accompanied,--to an extent infinitely beyond
what the unassisted vision of man could have suggested. The facts which
are obvious to man, from which religious minds in all ages have drawn
their notions and their evidence of the Divine power and goodness, care
and wisdom, in providing for its creatures, require, we find, to be
indefinitely extended, in virtue of the new tribes of minute creatures,
and still new tribes, and still more minute, which we find existing
around us. The views of our Natural Theology must be indefinitely
extended on one side; and therefore we need not be startled or disturbed
at having to extend them indefinitely on the other side;--at having to
believe that there are, in other worlds, creatures whom God has created,
whom he sustains in life, for whom he provides the pleasures of life, as
he does for the long unsuspected creatures of this world.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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