32 Geographical Distribution of Animals. 



ourselves, where have all these fishes been created, there can be but 

 one answer given which will not be in conflict and direct contradic- 

 tion with the facts themselves, and the laws that regulate animal 

 life. The fishes, and all other fresh-water animals of the region of 

 the great lakes, must have been created where they live. They are 

 circumscribed within boundaries over which they cannot pass, and to 

 which there is no natural access from other quarters. There is no 

 trace of their having extended further in their geographical distribu- 

 tion at any former period, nor of their having been limited within 

 narrower boundaries. 



It cannot be rational to suppose that they were created in some 

 other part of the world, and were transferred to this continent, to 

 die away in the region where they are supposed to have originated, 

 and to multiply in the region where they are found. There is no 

 reason why we should not take the present evidence in their distri- 

 bution as the natural fact respecting their origin, and that they are, 

 and were from the beginning, best suited for the country where they 

 are now found. 



Moreover, they bear to the species which inhabit similar regions, 

 and live under similar circumstances in Europe and Asia, and the 

 Pacific side of this continent, such relations, that they appear to the 

 philosophical observer as belonging to a plan which has been carried 

 out in its details with reference to the general arrangement. The 

 species of Europe, Asia, and the Pacific side of this continent, cor- 

 respond in their general combination to the species of the eastern 

 and northern parts of the American continent, all over which the 

 same general types are extended. They correspond to each other on 

 the whole, but diff'er as to species. 



And again, this temperate fauna has such reference to the fauna 

 of the arctic, and to that of the warmer zones, that any trans- 

 position of isolated members of the whole plan would disturb the 

 harmony which is evidently maintained throughout the natural dis- 

 tribution of organized beings all over the world. This internal 

 evidence of an intentional arrangement, having direct reference to 

 the present geographical distribution of the animals, dispersed over 

 the whole surface of our globe, shews most conclusively, that they 

 have been created where they are now found. Denying this posi- 

 tion were equivalent to denying that the creation has been made 

 according to a wise plan. It were denying to the Creator the inten- 

 tion of establishing well-regulated natural relations between the beings 

 he has called into existence. It were denying him the wisdom which 

 is exemplified in nature, to ascribe it to the creatures themselves, — 

 to ascribe it even to those creatures in which we hardly see evidence 

 of consciousness, or, worse than all, to ascribe this wonderful order to 

 physical influence or mere chance. 



As soon as this general conclusion is granted, there are, however, 

 some further adaptations which follow as a matter of course. Each 



