he bramble hurts man, it makes all the better hedge"; and
that, "if it chances to prick the owner, it tears the thief." "Weasels,
kites, and other hurtful animals induce us to watchfulness; thistles and
moles, to good husbandry; lice oblige us to cleanliness in our
bodies, spiders in our houses, and the moth in our clothes." This very
optimistic view, triumphing over the theological theory of noxious
animals and plants as effects of sin, which prevailed with so much force
from St. Augustine to Wesley, was developed into nobler form during the
century by various thinkers, and especially by Archdeacon Paley, whose
Natural Theology exercised a powerful influence down to recent
times. The same tendency appeared in other countries, though various
philosophers showed weak points in the argument, and Goethe made sport
of it in a noted verse, praising the forethought of the Creator in
foreordaining the cork tree to furnish stoppers for wine-bottles.

Shortly before the middle of the nineteenth century the main movement
culminated in the Bridgewater Treatises. Pursuant to the will of the
eighth Earl of Bridgewater, the President of the Royal Society selected
eight persons, each to receive a thousand pounds sterling for writing
and publishing a treatise on the "power, wisdom, and goodness of God, as
manifested in the creation." Of these, the leading essays in regard
to animated Nature were those of Thomas Chalmers, on The Adaptation of
External Nature to the Moral and Intellectual Condition of Man; of Sir
Charles Bell, on The Hand as evincing Design; of Roget, on Animal and
Vegetable Physiology with reference to Natural Theology; and of Kirby,
on The Habits and Instincts of Animals with reference to Natural
Theology.

Besides these there were treatises by Whewell, Buckland, Kidd, and
Prout. The work was well done. It was a marked advance on all that had
appeared before, in matter, method, and spirit. Looking back upon it
now we can see that it was provisional, but that it was none the less
fruitful in truth, and we may well remember Darwin's remark on
the stimulating effect of mistaken THEORIES, as compared with the
sterilizing effect of mistaken OBSERVATIONS: mistaken observations lead
men astray, mistaken theories suggest true theories.

An effort made in so noble a spirit certainly does not deserve the
ridicule that, in our own day, has sometimes been lavished upon it.
Curiously, indeed, one of the most contemptuous of these