ues. As civilisation extends
they are doomed to be gradually destroyed off the face of the earth
as useless consumers of cultivated produce. I infer that slight
differences in natural dispositions of human races may in one case
lead irresistibly to some particular career, and in another case may
make that career an impossibility.

THE OBSERVED ORDER OF EVENTS.

There is nothing as yet observed in the order of events to make us
doubt that the universe is bound together in space and time, as a
single entity, and there is a concurrence of many observed facts to
induce us to accept that view. We may, therefore, not unreasonably
profess faith in a common and mysterious whole, and of the laborious
advance, under many restrictions, of that infinitely small part of
it which falls under our observation, but which is in itself
enormously large, and behind which lies the awful mystery of the
origin of all existence.

The conditions that direct the order of the whole of the living
world around us, are marked by their persistence in improving the
birthright of successive generations. They determine, at much cost
of individual comfort, that each plant and animal shall, on the
general average, be endowed at its birth with more suitable natural
faculties than those of its representative in the preceding
generation. They ensure, in short, that the inborn qualities of the
terrestrial tenantry shall become steadily better adapted to their
homes and to their mutual needs. This effect, be it understood, is
not only favourable to the animals who live long enough to become
parents, but is also favourable to those who perish in earlier life,
because even they are on the whole better off during their brief
career than if they had been born still less adapted to the
conditions of their existence. If we summon before our imagination
in a single mighty host, the whole number of living things from the
earliest date at which terrestrial life can be deemed to have
probably existed, to the latest future at which we may think it can
probably continue, and if we cease to dwell on the miscarriages of
individual lives or of single generations, we shall plainly perceive
that the actual tenantry of the world progresses in a direction that
may in some sense be described as the greatest happiness of the
greatest number.

We also remark that while the motives by which individuals in the
lowest stages are influenced are purely self regarding, they b