Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1859-10-07 00:00:00

PROFESSOR, OWEN'S CONCLUDLNG

LECTURE.

Last night, Professor Owen, of Landon, delivered
his fourth and concluding lecture on Natural History,
the subject being—" On the peculiar species of recent
and fossil quadrupeds of Australia, with the concluding
remarks on the succession and extension of species."
The hall of the Collegiate was well and respectably
filled. The learned lecturer commenced by recapitu-
lating the leading points in his former lectures, and
proceeded to say that he was about to give them a short,
and, he hoped, lucid and interesting account or history
of the mammalian objects in Australia which indicated
other and extensive formations of mammalia, indigenous
to the soil, and distinct from that of all other genera.
He concluded by the subjoined summary.
In the survey taken in the present brief course on the
characters, succession, and geographical distribution of
the mammalian classes, if I have succeeded in demon-
strating the adaptation of each varying form to the
exigencies and habits and well-being of the,species, I
have fulfilled one object I had in view, namely, to set
forth the intelligence and beneficence of Creative Power.
So far as I have shown the uniformity of plan pervading
the osteological structure of so many diversified animated
forms, I must have enforced, were that necessary, as
strong a conviction of the unity of the Creative Cause.

If, in all the striking changes of form and proportion
which have passed under review,_ we could disc

em the

results of minor modifications of the same few osseous
elements, we must be the more strikingly impressed with
the wisdom and the power of that Cause which could pro-
duce so much variety, and at the same time such perfect
adaptations and endowments, out of means so simple.
For in what have those mechanical implements—the
hands of the ape, the hoofs of the horse, the wings of
the' bat, the trowels of the mole, the uprooting
the mezatherium-
. paws of
.__ . _

—so various

Cey the

behests of volition in denizens Of different elements

what, I say, have they differed from the artificial instru-
ments which we ourselves plan with fbresiocrlit and cal-
culation for analagous uses, save in their greater
perfection, and in the unity and simplicity of the elements
which are modified to constitute those several locomotive
or prehensile organs. Everywhere, in organic nature,
we see the means not only subservient to an end,
but that end accomplished by the simplest means.
Hence we are compelled to rezard the Great Cause of

all, not like certain philosophic ancients, as a uniform
and quiescent-mind--as an all pervading anirna ntundi—
but as an active and anticipative intelligence. By apply-
ing the laws of comparative anatomy to the relics of
extinct races of animals found in different strata of
the earth's ernst, and corresponding with as many
epochs in the earth's history, we make an important
step in advance of all preceding philosophies, and
are able to demonitrate that the same active and
beneficient intelligence which mauifest His power
in our times, has also manifested His power in
times long anterior to the records of our existence.
But we likewise by these investigations gain a still
more important truth, namely, that the phenomena
of the world do not succeed each other with the
mechanical sameness attributed to them in the cycles of
the Epicurean philosophy, for we are able to demon-
strate that the different epochs of the earth were
attended with corresponding changes of organic struc-
ture ; and that in all these instances of chang
organs, as far as we could comprehend their- use, were
exactly those best adapted to the functions of the being.
Hence, we not only show intelligence evoking means
suited to the end, but at successive times and periods
producing a change of mechanism adapted to a change
of extinct condition. Thus the highest generalisations
derived from the science of organic bodies, like the
Newtonian laws of physical matter, pointed unequivo-
cally to the Great First Cause, which, in the language
of Sir Isaac Newton, was certainly not mechanical.
(Loud applause, during which the professor left the
platform.)

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