STUDY I. 



93 



the opinion of thofe who believe, that the works 

 of Nature, being the refults of all poffible combi- 

 nationsj muft prefent every poffible mode of exift- 

 ence. *' You will find in them," fay they, 

 " order, and, at the fame time, diforder. Throw 

 " about the charadlers of the alphabet, in an in- 

 '* finite variety of manners, and you fhall form of 

 '* them the Iliad, and poems fuperior even to the 

 ** Iliad ; but you will have, at the fame time, an 

 " infinity of formlefs aflemblages." We adopt 

 this comparifon, obferving, however, that the 

 fuppofition of the twenty-four letters of the alpha- 

 bet fuggefts a previous idea of order, which it was 

 neceffary to admit as a foundation even to the 

 hypothefis of chance. If, then, the multiplied 

 throws of thefe twenty-four letters gave, in fad, 

 an infinite number of poems, good and bad, how 

 many muft principles, much more numerous, of 

 exiftence in itfelf, fuch as the elements, colours, 

 furfaces, forms, depths, movements, produce of 

 different modes of exifting, were we to take but 

 a fingle hundred of the modifications of each pri- 

 mordial combination of matter ! 



We ftiould have, at leaft, the general tranfitions 

 of the different kingdoms. We fhould fee plants 

 walking on feet like animals ; animals fixed in the 

 eiirth by roots like plants ; rocks with eyes ; herbs 



which 



