Picture - Cosmic Polymath

232 DESIGN IN NATURE
show that many of the lower and higher plants and animals were co-existent at a much earlier period than is
generally supposed, or even from the first. The subjects of atmosphere, climate, food, &c., have here to be con-
sidered, and these involve changes necessitating time for their production. Air, water, and soil had to be pro-
Naded as a necessary pabulum for plants, and plants as a necessary pabulum for animals. Plants and animals hve
upon each other : generally (but not necessarily) the higher and stronger upon the lower and weaker. Thus the
parasites, the most debased of plants and animals, infest the highest plants and animals in large numbers. In a
sense the highest plants and animals are as necessary to the lowest as the lowest are to the highest. A completed
scheme of creation requires the co-existence at the same time, and in the same place, of the higher and highest
and the lower and lowest plants and animals. Man certainly requires the lowest and highest plants and animals
as auxiliaries of his existence.
The presence of the simplest and most complex plants and animals in the same place and at the same time
goes against the behef that the more complex plants and animals are manufactured directly or indirectly from the
more simple and rudimentary ones. It also goes against the idea that plants and animals are capable of indefinite
improvement. If this were so, and creation was non-progressive and confined to one period, such is the extreme
age of the earth, the stock of rudimentary plants and animals would long ago have been exhausted—only the most
perfect plants and animals remaining. As a matter of fact, however, the rudimentary plants and animals existing
at the present day are enormously in excess of the complex ones. The rudimentary plants and animals are in
reahty a necessity. They form the food of the higher ones ; a circumstance which is strangely overlooked in dis-
cussing the doctrine of evolution. Inorganic and organic matter may be said to prey upon each other. The soil
forms the chief food of the plant, and a decomposing plant nourishes the soil. The same is true of plants and
animals. The animal devours the plant, and both when dead enrich the soil. Sooner or later plants and animals
return to the earth from which, under divine guidance, they originally sprang. Inorganic matter and rudimentary
plants and animals are absolute requirements of the higher plants and animals, and the converse.
While plants, as a rule, subsist on inorganic matter, a certain proportion of them (the insectivorous plants) subsist
largely on animals. Certain animals (the Herbivora, for example) subsist exclusively on plants. Others again (the
Carnivora) hve exclusively on animals. Man, as an omnivor, devours all. As a matter of fact, life swarms upon
hfe, and everything largely lives upon every other thing directly or indirectly.
The gradation in plants and animals is practically unUmited, but this circumstance does not necessarily afford
irrefragable proof of evolution and descent in the usual acceptation of these terms. It rather points to the in-
exhaustible resources and infinite constructive sldll of the Creator. There are main types and sub-types, a general
plan and detailed plans, but all are necessary to a perfect scheme of creation. There is nothing in geology to show
that the various substances composing our planet were originally manufactured out of one homogeneous sub-
stance :
neither is there anything to prove that the great races of plants and animals are the products of a primordial
speck of homogeneous protoplasm. All that geology reveals is that certain physical conditions obtained when
certain plants and animals hved, and that the physical conditions and the plants and animals changed, up to a point,
from time to time in the past as they are doing in the present.
ORDER IN WHICH PLANTS AND ANIMALS APPEARED ON THE EARTH
In considering the problem of creation in relation to the inorganic and organic kingdoms it is necessary to take
into account certain of the physical changes which have occurred and are occurring in inorganic matter, and all the
vital changes which have occurred and are occurring in organic matter. It is here that the geologic record becomes
so important as an instructor and guide. A reference to the geological chart given above discloses the fact that
m the oldest rocks (Primary or Palaeozoic) the traces of organic remains are comparatively few ; that in the
secondary or Mesozoic rocks they are more plentiful ; and that in the Tertiary or Ceenozoic and Post- Tertiary (which
are comparatively recent rocks) they greatly abound.
It is a remarkable circumstance that even in the oldest known rocks organic remains are found. Thus in the
Lower Laurentian rocks, in an interstratified bed of hmestone 1000 feet thick, what was once thought to be a
forammifer (Eozoon Canadense) has been discovered. Its antiquity is such that the distance of time which separated
It from the Upper Cambrian period, or that of the Potsdam sandstone, may, says Sir W. Logan, be equal to the
time which elapsed between the Potsdam sandstone and the Nummuhtic limestones of the Tertiary period.
The occurrence in the oldest known rocks of organic remains fUls the mind with wonder. It shows that Hfe
appeared on the earth untold ages ago. Nor is it quite certain that the earUest fossiliferous rocks have yet been
discovered. Indeed some are of opinion that these have been destroyed by volcanic and other action If so