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Show 278 EXPLAN ATI-QNS. cia! creation. First, we should have to suppose, ag pointed out in my former volume, a most startling diversity of plan in the divine workings, a great general plan or system of law in the leading events of world-making, and a plan of minute nice operation, and special attention in some of the mere details of the process. The discrepancy between the two conceptions is surely overpowering, \Vhen we allow ourselves to see the whole matter in a steady and rational light. There is, also, the striking . fact of an ascertained historical progress of plants and animals in the order of their organization; marine and cellular plants and invertebrated animals first, afterwards higher examples of both. In an arbitrary system, we had surely no reason to expect mammals after reptiles; yet in this ol'der they came. The Edinburgh reviewer speaks of the animals as coming in adaptation to conditions ; but this is only true in a limited sense. The groves which formed the coal beds might have been a fitting habitation for reptiles, birds, and mammals, as such groves arc at the present day; yet we see none of the last of these classes, and hardly any trace of the two first in that period of the earth. Where the iguanodon lived, the elephant might have lived; but there was no elephant at that time. The sea of the Lovver ilurian era was capable of supporting fish ; but no fish existed. It hence forcibly appears that theatres of Z~(e m.ust have lain unserviceable, or in the possession of a tenantry inferior tfJ what might have enjoyed them,, for 11~any ages ; there surely would have been no such waste allowed, in a system where Omnipotence was working upon the plan of minute attention to specialties. The fact seems to denote that the actual procedure of the peopling of the earth was one 'lf a natural kind requiring a long space of time for its evolution. In this supposition, the lonO' exi tence of land without land animal , abel more particularly, without the noble ·t cla. ses and ord r , is only analogous to the fact, not nearly nough pres nt to the minds of a civilized people, that to this day the bulk of the earth is a waste as fat as man i~ concerned. · Another startlino- objection is in the infinite local v~riation of or,ranic form . Did the vc6etable and an1mal kincrdoms consist of a definite number of species aclapt~d to peculiariti s of soil and clim· te, and U!liversa1.ly dis· tributcd, the fact ~ould be in harmony \Vlth the 1dea of PREDOMINANT THEORY EX A. MINED. 279 ~pecial exertion. But the truth is, that various regions exhibit variations altogether without apparent end or purpose. Professor 1-Ienslow enumerates forty-five distinct floras, or sets of plants, upon the surface of the earth, notwithstanding that many of these would be equally suitable elsewhe1:e. The ani1nals of different continents are equally various, few species being the same in any two, though the general character may conform. The inference at present drawn from this fact is, that there must have been, to use the language of the Rev. Dr. Pye Smith, "separate and original creations, perhaps at different and respectively distant epochs." It seems hardly conceivable that rational men should give an adherence to such a doctrine when we think of what it involves. In the single fact that it necessitates a special fiat of the inconceivable Author of this sand-cloud of worlds to produce the flora of St. Helena, we read its more than su~cient condemnati'on. It surely harmonizes far better wtth our general ideas of nature to suppose that, just as .all else in this far-spread scene was formed by the laws Impressed on it at first by its Author, so also was this. An exception presented to us in such a light appears admissible only when we succeed in forbidding our minds to follow out those reasoning processes to which, by another law ,)f the Almighty, they tend, and for which they are adapted. I feel that I have dwelt long enough on this part of ~he •1uestion, and yet there are a few geological facts which here carl for special comment, and I am loath to ov~rlook them. As is well known, most of the large carnivores and pachyderms of the late tertiary formations very closely resemble existing species; but they are,' nevertheless, determined to be distinct species by Professor Owen and other eminent authorities, in consideration of certain ·peculiarities. The peculiarities are, in gener~l, trifling, such as differences in the tubercles or groov1ngs of the ~urface of teeth, or greater or less lengt.h of body or ~xtremities; but no matter of what the differences cons1st. Enough for the present that they are held ?Y Mr. Owen and his friends to be of that character which are never passed in generation, but necessarily imply a ~ew creation, a separate effort of Divine power. Now It so h~ppens that all the tertiary species, or so-ca.ll8d species, have not been chano-ed or extirpated. There is a Badger of the Miocene, wl.J.ch cannot be distinguished from the : |