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Show 162 UNIFORMITY OF TIIE SYSTEM. d tl horse to labour for om· labours. 'V e force the. ox ahn b leof his store; but, on the d depnve t e ce f advantage, an w~ he rich harvest with the sweat o our other hand, we raise dt d by myriads of insects, and we d b h ld it evoure . f brow' an e .o able of arresting their depredatiOns as o are often as mcap th ake or the course of a stream . 1 h k of an ear q u ' . staymg t 1e s oc h 1 o-es caused by other species, as b . 1 va T e c lano . ~ . of urnmg a ·. h 1 es over the globe, are m1enor they grad~ally di~us~: ~~:e :re yet extremely analogous to probably m magmtu . ' The lion for example, and the h. h e occaswn. ' · tho. se w IC1 w t must necessa 1•1·1y ' when they first made t.h eir migratory ocus ' · d by them have committed d' · t now occupie ' way into Istric s h nimals and plants which became im~ense havo~ amo;~st ~a:ea caused many species to diminish, their prey· 'I hey d' Y . but they must also have enabled perhaps wholly to ISappear' nt l'n number by removing the h ·eatly to augme ' some ot ers ?I b h. h they had been previously kept down. natural enemies£ y wthic nd many other considerations, that I · b ble rom ese, a tIS pro a k l dge of the system, we shall become large our now e d b h as we en . d that the alterations cause y t e d more convmce ' f h ~ore an deviate far less from the analogy o t ose mffiter£tcerdenbcye o~~e~a:nimals than we usually suppose~ Wke are e ec . h : ns by our now· often m~sle~, w?;n ~~!~::~~~~e;;:e~~~~:~:;~ti;cts of an.imals ledge o t e w~ e f man . and we are apt hastily to ~nd the reasomng pow7 o ration~l and an irrat~onal species, mfer, that the effects o a . t ·n differ almost as 'd d l as physwal agen s, Wl consl ere mere l. b hich their actions are directed. A much as the facu ties ybw d th t we can only command h'l pher has o serve , a · great P 1 oso . h 1 and this principle is true even ~n nature by obeymg :r . awsh hich are superinduced m regard to the astom~hmg .c arges ; plants by domestication the qualities of certam amma s an 1 ffi ct such surprising and garden cult';lr~. We can 1 on y ~ ~f certain instincts, alterations by assisting the deve opmen . I w of their . . l f that mystenous a . or b~ a~rulmbg ourl~~~e~n~vidual peculiarities are transmts· orgamzat1on, Y w sible from one generation to an~t.her .th t a real departure from W c are not, however' con ten mg a t b traced in f h ical events canno e . the antecedent course o p ys 1 't d of action whtch the introduction of . man. If that atl u e RECENT ORIGIN OF MAN, 163 enables the brutes to accommodate themselves in some measure to accidental circumstances, could be imagined to have been at any former period so great, that the operations of instinct were as much diversified as are those of human reason, it might perhaps be contended, that the agency of man did not constitute an anomalous deviation from the previously established order of things. It might then have been said, that the earth's becoming at a particular period the residence of human beings, was an era in the moral, not in the physical world-that our study and contemplation of the earth, and the laws which govern its animate productions, ought no more to be considered in the light of a disturbance or deviation from the system, than the discovery of the satellites of Jupiter should be regarded as a physical event in the history of those heavenly bodies, however influential they may have become from that time in advancing the progress of sound philosophy among men, and in augmenting human resources by aiding navigation and commerce. The distinctness, however, of the human, from all other species, considered merely as an efficient cause in the physical world, is real, for we stand in a relation to contemporary species of animals and plants, widely different from that which other irrational animals can ever be supposed tQ. have held to each other. We modify their instincts, relative numbers, and geographical distribution, in a manner superior in degree, and fn some respects very different in kind from that in which any other species can affect the rest. Besides, the progressive movement of each successive generation of men causes the human species to differ more from itself in power at two distant periods, than any one species of the higher order of animals differs from another. The establishment, therefore, by geological evidence of the first intervention of such a peculiar and unprecedented agency, long after other parts of the animate and inanimate world existed, affords ground for concluding that the experience during thousands of ages of all the events which may happen on this globe would not enable a philosopher to speculate with confidence concerning future contingencies. If an intelligent being, therefore, after observing the order of events for an indefinite series of ages had witnessed at last so wonderful an innovation as this, to what extent would his belief in the regularity of the system M2 |