The Ashland union. [volume] (Ashland, Ashland County, Ohio) 1854-1868, 1858-10-27
THE METHOD OF NATURE.


| Years ago a man carried an old bon
| from New Zealand TO London, where b,
offered il fo: sale at museums, aud final
ly at the College of Surgeons II pass
cd under the notice of one saran apc
another, each of whom had different
opinion to give, this pronouncing il al
old marrow bone from a heap of cffal
sought to be imposed upon him, and
that deciding it TO be bit of Kangaroo
At last it attracted the attention oi
Professor Owen, who, after narrawly
examining it, declared it to be the bone
! of bird, and not only of bird, but oi
gigauric bird and not only of gigan
tic bird, but of bird without wings
At this announcement, q roar of laughter
went up from every scientific body in
Europe. In few years, however the
tables were turned, fer whole skeleton
was brought over TO England, when it
was found that the Professor had been
right in every one Of his assertions. The
bird, which belonged to an extinct
species, was called by the name of the
DiDorDis, and skeletons of il, as we'll as
of similar extinct birds, known as the
Palapterix, Notornis, &c, are now to be
found in all first class collections
But, how, it may be asked, had Owen
discovered the mysteryr By the sim
pie fact, with which his peculiar studies
had mado him familiar, that, through
out all creation, method was the law of
nature. Every skeleton reveals in eve.
ry bone the purposes for which the ami
NAL was made, the life it led and the
climate il inhabited. To common eve,
the leg of this Dinornis seemed not un.
like that of an OK. But Owen recogni-
zed, in the Impressions which the nerves
and blood vessels had left on the bone
the habits and character of the original
possessor, and knew that, instead of be.
ing Illuminating animal, it was bid,
and bird that fed without flying. Gu.
vier, the great French sauan, had pre-
ceded him in the study of comparative
anatomy, and in some of the wonderful
results to which it leads. But Owen
had carried his researches further, had
employed new tests, and had consequent
ly arrived at more brilliant discoveries
By the pursuit of this science, and thro'
a process strictly inductive, comparative
anatomists have been able to determine,
after an examination of fossil bones, the
character of animals that lived during
early geological epoohs, and the quail
ties of the contemporary climate aud soil
Nature, in word, never works by
freaks but invariably follows a fixed
method. Not only this, but every hing
that has been created follows certain
arche,ype which, doubtless, existed in
the mind of Omnipotence before chaos
had ceased to be. The order of created
beings rises, by almost infinite grada-
tioDs, from the simplest forms to the
most complex-from the lowest organi-
cation up to man; and in man, tho sum
as it were of all, may be traced resem.
blances, in different stages of his devel-
opment, to each and every one of these,
bis interiors. A brilliant but shallow
writer few years ago attempted to
found, on this fact, theory that man
was only a lower animal in a higher
state of development. But the study
of comparative anatomy refutes this no
ton, confirming the declarations of Holy
Writ and the traditions of all nations
that man was created by himself and af-
ter the other animals, aud that, while
all preceding orders of living things
pointed to and ioreshadowed him, he is
yet distinct from and superior to each
Thus, science, instead of running count
er to the great truths of revealed reli-
yion, sustains them. Thus, science by
every new discovery, furnishes fresh
proofs that Nature works by method
and not by mere freaks--in other words,
that we live under benignant Deity
who governs by law, and not under a
selfish, despotic Jehovah.--PhiA Dollar
Times.