Facta and Suppositions. 7 



persed and finally to become confined to those countries 

 where their remains are found in a fossil condition, and if the 

 animals now living had also spread from a common origin over 

 the same districts, and had then been circumscribed within 

 equally distinct limits, we should be led to the unnatural 

 supposition, that animals of two distinct creations, differing 

 specifically throughout, had taken the same lines of migra- 

 tion, had assumed finally the same distribution, and had be- 

 come permanent in the same regions, without any other 

 inducement for their removal and final settlement tlian the 

 mere necessity of covering more extensive ground after they 

 had become too numerous to remain any longer together in 

 one and the same district. This were to ascribe to the ani- 

 mals themselves, or to the physical agents under which they 

 live, and by which they may be influenced, as much wisdom, 

 as much providential forethought, as is evinced throughout 

 nature, both in the distribution of animals, and in their special 

 adaptation to particular portions of the globe in which they 

 are closely circumscribed at present, and to which they were 

 limited under similar circumstances during those periods 

 which preceded immediately the present arrangement of 

 things. Now these facts in themselves leave not the shadow 

 of a doubt in our mind, that animals were primitively created 

 all over the world, within those districts which they were 

 naturally to inhabit for a certain time. The next question is — 

 were these organized beings created in pairs, as is generally 

 thought and believed ? The opinion, that all animals must 

 he referred to one single, primitive pair, is derived from evi- 

 dence worthy of consideration, no doubt, but the value of 

 which may fairly be questioned by naturalists ; since this 

 point, at least if we except Adam and Eve, is entirely of 

 human construction, and only assumed because it is thought 

 to shew a wise economy of means in the established order of 

 things which exists. It is supposed, that, if one pair were 

 sufficient, there is no reason why the Creator should have 

 introduced at one time a greater number of each kind, as 

 economy of means is always considered an indication of high 

 wisdom. But are not these human considerations % And if 

 they are, and if we are entitled to question their value, let us 



