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Show 84 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE tary commencements of species, wl~ich woul? ·have. Qeen the most inconceivably paltry exercise for an unmediat~ly creative power, are sufficiently worthy of one operating by laws. . It is also to be observed, that the thing to be accounted for is not merely th~ ori~inatio~ of or~ani~ being upon this little planet, thll'd of a ser1es whtch Is b~t one ?t hundreds of thousands of set·ies, the whole of which again form but one portion of an apparently infinitE:\ globe-peopled space, ·whete all seems analogou3. We haye ~o suppose that every one of these numberless globes Is e.tther a theatre of organic being? or in the \V~J: of becoming so. This is a conclusion which every addihon to our knowledge makes only the mor~ irresistibl~. ~s it c.oncei vable, as a fitting mode of exercise for creative Intelligence, that it should be constantly moving from one sphere to another, to form and plant ~he various. specie~ which may be required in each si~uatwn at particular tu!les? Is su.ch an idea accordant With our general conceptwn. of the dtgn: cy, not to speak of the. power, of the Gr~at Author? Yet such is the notion which we must form, If we adhere to tho doctrine of special exercise. Let us see, on the other hand how the doctrine of creation by law agrees V\rith this e~panded view of the organic world. Unprepared as most men may be for such an announcement there can be no doubt that we are able, in this limited sphere, to form some satisfactory conclusi?ns as to the plants and animals of those other spheres wluch move at such immense distances from us. Suppose that the first persons of an early nation who m~de a ship and ventured to sea in it, observed, as they sailed along, a set ot objects which they had never before seen-:-na!Dely~ a fleet of ot er ships-would they not have_ bee~ J ushfi~d In f:Upposing that those ship_s were occupied, hke their o·~·n, by human beings possessing hands. t ro.w and steer~ eyes to watch the sio-ns of the weather, In elhgence to gu1de them from one pl~ce to another-in .short, bei~gs in all respects like themselves, or only showing such differences as th~y knew to be producible by difference of climate and habits of life. Precisely in this manner 've can speculate on the in habitants of remote spheres. We see th~t. matter has originally been diffused in one ma~s, ~f "":"hich the spheres are portions. Consequently, Inorganic matter must be presumed to be everywhere the same, although ORIGIN OF rHE ANIMA TED TRIBES. 85 probably with differences in the proportions of ingredients in different globes, and also some difference of conditions. Out of a certain number of the elements of i'norganic matter are composed organic bodies, both vegetable and animal; such r.nust be the rule in .Jupiter and in Sirius, as it is here. We, therefore, are all but certain that herbaceous and ligneous fibre, that flesh and blood, are the ~onstituents of the organic beings of all those spheres which are as yet seats of life. Gravitation we see to be an allpervading principle: therefore there must be a relation between the spheres and their respective organic occupants, by virtue of which they are fixed, as far as necessary, on the surface. Such a relation, of course, involves details as to the density and elasticity of structure, as well as size, of the organic tenants, in proportion to the gravity of the respective planets-peculiarities, however, which may quite well consist with the idea of a universality of general types, to which we are about to come. Electricity we also see to be universal; if, therefore, it be a principle concerned in life and in mental action, as science strongly suggests, life and mental action must every~here be of one general character. We come to comparatively a matter of detail, when we advert to heat and light; yet it is importaRt to consider that these are universal agents, and that, as they bear marked relations to organic life and structure on earth, they may be presumed to do so in other spheres also. The considerations as to light are particularly interesting, for, on our globe, the structure of one important organ, almost universally distributed in the animal kingdom, is in direct and precise relation to it. Where there is light there will be eyes, and these, in other spheres, will be the same in all respects as the eyes of tellurian animals, with only such differences as may be necessary to accord with minor peculiarities of condition and of situation. It is but a small stretch of the argument to· suppose that, one conspicuous organ of a large portion of our animal kingdom being thus universal, a parity in all the other organs-species for species, class for class, kingdom for kingdom-is highly likely, and that thus the inhabitants of all the other globes of space bear not only a general, but a particular resemblance to those of our own. Assuming that organic beings are thus spread over all space, the idea of their havjng all come into existence by the operatil)n of laws evervwhere applicable, is only con- |
