Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/45

Rh ? Is it reason? You answer that it is. But if by reason is meant (and nothing else can be meant by it) the power of adapting means to the production of ends, skill and success in scientific contrivances, or in the beautiful creations of art, then the exclusive appropriation of reason to man is at once negatived and put to shame by the facts which nature displays. For how far is human intelligence left behind in many things by the sagacity of brutes, and by the works which they accomplish! What human geometer can build like a bird its airy cradle, or like the bee her waxen cells? And in exquisite workmanship, how much do natures still more inanimate than these transcend all that can be accomplished even by the wisest of men? "Behold the lilies of the field, they toil not, neither do they spin; yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." Perhaps you may say that these things are entirely passive and unintelligent in themselves, and that in reality it is not they, but the Creator, who brings about all the wonders we behold; that the presiding and directing reason is not in them, but in Him. And this may readily be admitted; but, in return, it may be asked home, Is man's reason vested in the Creator too?

Do you answer Yes? Then look what the consequences are. You still leave man a being fearfully and wonderfully made. He may still be something more than what many of his species at this moment are, mere hewers of wood and drawers of water. He