INTRODUCTION. 3 



Was the ethereal principle originally infused while the matter receiv- 

 ing it lay in an embryonic state, and thereby awakened to life, or was it 

 the substance of the adult that the spirit first animated ? 



If conjecture may be permitted — it is but conjecture — the earth was 

 not then in its earUest condition : it was in some advance. Man enjoyed 

 his fullest powers and faculties : the soil yielded its produce ; its fruits 

 grew spontaneously. Man, an adult, could discharge his functions, con- 

 verting what surrounded him to satisfy his o^vn exigencies. 



But, although reaping the means of subsistence, he could not know 

 the arts. Naked and unprotected, he could only occupy his place among 

 the other tenants of the earth, doubtless of cotemporary existence. 



Unless secured by distance, he may have had to contend with some 

 of those monsters which became extinct before the opening of the record of 

 history, and which have been revealed to modern generations as the 

 relics of a former world. 



The extu'pation of the largest and most imposing of Nature's crea- 

 tures is thus established. Many among the whole subjects of creation 

 have ceased to exist for ages ; myriads seem to have been involved in one 

 common ruin, never to be revived again ; and numbers have perished in 

 detail. 



Neither presumption nor fact has afforded a relevant inference of 

 more creations than one, or that the total animal world was not framed 

 at once, or at least so as to be co-exLstent. Nothing has hitherto shewn, 

 as some maintain, that successive creations followed at different long 

 intervals after the first ; or that others arose and may yet be formed 

 from unknown materials down to the present day. 



If it does appear that the entire host of creatures occupying the 

 universe was never recognised as cotemporary, this may be truth ; for that 

 secret property which involves the living principle may lie dormant for 

 ages, but when aroused shall be ushered into the world, combined 

 with matter in sensible form and substance. 



Thus many animals, whose existence no annalist has recorded, may 

 be actually brought into notice, and supposed of later creation. The ex- 

 tent of modern research, especially among the waters, and amidst remote 



