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Show UNIFORMITY OF TilE SYSTEM. 158 . . th l 1 WI'ng descr1pt1ons, ose h 'venus suc1 g 0 whereof the poets ave gi . ld ntancously an annual supply sandy tracts h ad b eg un to y.i ed sdp o . '11 1 e fancied alterations st1 of grain, we m1. g1 1 t then m ec ' Jav d d ' f nature to have atten e more remar k ab le in the econ.o m·y to tlle planet. Or 1'f , wh e n a . f ur spectes m o the first commg 0 0 h' .L'or the first time brought . . 1 d l' ke Isc m was, 11 G k volcamc Is. an . I the enterprise and industry of a ree under cult1vat10n by h d b orne dormant, and the earth-h . t 1 fire a ec colony, t e m e;na . tive violence, there would then quake bad remitted 1~ ~::t:u:culating on the debilitation of have been some groun h Pthe earth was first placed under the subterranean forces, Bw tenfter a long interval of rest, the the domm· 1· 0n of man · .u a . th renewed energy, anm' h'1l at es volcano bursts forth agam wdl mpels the remainder to emi-h · h bitants an co one-half oft em a 1' dern natives of Cumana, Cala-h 'l like t1e mo grate. Sue exl es, h di'stricts habitually convulsed by bn.a , S urn b awa, and obt berl £ m no' very exalted esti.m ate of earthquakes, would pro al ~ olrtheorists who, contrasting the . f those geo ogiCa ' . . h the sagacity o h have characterized 1t as t e human with antecedent epoc s, period of repose. f the globe immediately before In reasoning on the ~tate 0 • t nee we may assume that all . lied mto exts e ' . our species was ~a . tion with the exceptiOn of man, the present causes were m opera ' be adduced to the con- I · 1 arguments can . until some geo ogiCa . d d b the same rules of inductiOn as trary. We must be guhl e t ty f America in the interval that 1 t on t e s a e o . when we specu a e . d f the introduction of man mto elapsed between the peno o d l t of the arrival of the first Asia, the cradle of our rac;,t~: N :.:World. In that int.erval, adventurers on the shore; o h. t have gone on accordmg to we imagine the state o t ~~gs o. unoccupied by man. b d m reg10ns the order now o serve k nd the great ocean, Even now, t h e wa t ers of la es ' se'das , t a have no I. mme dt' a te which teem with life, may be bsal ~· ons of the terrestrial relation to t h e h uma n race-to t kee np orn o1r ever can ta ke , pos· system of which man has never ~ th: inhabited surface of the session, so that th.e gre~ter P~~~e oto our presence, as before any planet remains still as ms:nsl t be our residence. isle or continent was appomted o fi uration of the earth, and The variations in the external con fg . ls and plants inha· the successive changes m· the races o amma RECENT ORIGIN OF MAN, 159 biting the land and sea, which the geologist beholds when he restores in imagination the scenes presented by certain regions at former periods, are not more full of wonderful or inexplicable phenomena, than are those which a traveller would witness who traversed the globe from pole to pole. Or if there be more to astonish and perplex us in searching the records of the past, it is because one district may, in an indefinite lapse of ages, become the theatre of a greater number of extraordinary events, than the whole face of the globe can exhibit at one time. However great the multiplicity of new appearances, and however unexpected the aspect of things in different parts of the present surface, the observer would never imagine that he was transported from one system of things to another, because there would always be too many points of resemblance, and too much conncxion between the characteristic features of each country visited in succession, to permit any doubt to arise as to the continuity and identity of the . whole plan. "In our globe," says Paley, "new countries are continually ''discovered, but the old laws of nature are always found . "in them: new plants perhaps, or animals, but always in "company with plants and animals which we already know, "and always possessing many of the same general properties. " We never get amongst such original, or totally different modes " of existence, as to indicate that we are come into the province "of a different Creator, or under the direction of a different " will. In truth, the same order of things attends us wherever "we go*·" But the geologist is in danger of drawing a contrary inference, because he has the power of passing rapidly from the events of one period to those of another-of beholding, at one glance, the effects of causes which may have happened at intervals of time incalculably remote, and during which, nevertheless, no local circumstances may have occurred to mark that there is a great chasm in the chronological series of nature's archives. In the vast interval of time which may really have elapsed between the results of operations thus compared, the physical condition of the earth may, by slow and insensible modifications, have become entirely altered, one or more races • Natural Theology, Chap. xxv. |