12 REVIEWS. 



hath from the first instituted the plau to which all individual things and 

 events have ever since been conformed." 



Every object and every event must be the effect of some creative or im- 

 pulsive power. Chance and Design are, of themselves, equally inefficient to 

 produce any effect. They are merely words used to express the presence or 

 absence of Intelligence and Intention in the Being by whom that power is 

 exerted. The existence of the Power must be admitted : to deny it would 

 be a contradiction in tenns. The only question remaining is whether or 

 not that Power is connected with intelligence, and has been directed to an 

 End. But the argument drawn from the special adaptation seems to 

 a fford a conclusive answer to this question. By means of this, we are 

 able, in a way of induction, to arrive at a ratio of probability, indefinitely 

 increasing, until this may be considered equivalent to a moral certainty. 

 The study of the Eye alone would go far to establish a probability of this 

 degree. Its exquisite construction, as an optical instrument, the contriv- 

 ances by which that delicate organization is protected from contingent 

 dangers, and by means of which it can be instantaneously turned in every 

 direction, and adapted to near or distant vision, might alone convince us of 

 the highest degree of wisdom and benevolence in the Maker. And this 

 argument becomes immeasurably enhanced when we find various species 

 of animals possessing organs of vision, formed on the same grand type, but 

 with differences adapted to their different habits, and to the conditions in 

 which they are placed. The authors give numerous illustrations of the 

 manner in which the wants and instincts and organs of various animals 

 are adapted to each other and to the circumstances of their existence ; and 

 a reference to the most ancient fossils shows that the prevailing adaptation 

 which we perceive in existing animals is not to be explained by the lapse 

 of time having brought about the extinction of other races in which this 

 adaptation had not place : — 



" It is seldom that the geologist finds a fossil plant or animal entire; 

 most commonly he falls in with only a fragment, yet this fragment, if it be 

 a significant one, enables him to reconstruct the whole. The process of 

 theoretical reconstruction is conducted on those very principles of homology 

 and teleology which we have shown to pervade all organic nature. The 

 palaeontologist supposes that there were answerable parts in the genus or 

 species, and a series of homotypes in the individual ; and he goes on con- 

 fidently to supply the wanting parts on the principle of homology. He 

 proceeds, too, on the principle of final cause ; he supposes that the part 

 had an end to serve, and that there would be a conformity of every other 



