128 ON EQUIVOCAL GENERATION. 



different manner. Is it at all probable that lions, horses or ele- 

 phants, were ever any other than they now are ? Were they 

 originally microscopic ? And if they come to be what they 

 now are by successive generations, why does not the change 

 and improvement go on ? Do we ever see any small animal be- 

 come a larger of a different kind ? Do any mice become rats, 

 rats become dogs, or wolves, wasps become hornets, &c. and 

 yet this is precisely the analogy that the hypothesis requires. 



In order to obviate the prejudice against this doctrine of 

 spontaneous production, as favouring atheism, Dr. Darwin 

 says of the objectors, p. 1. " They do not recollect that 

 " God created all things which exist, and that these have 

 " been from the beginning in a perpetual state of improve- 

 " ment, which appears from the globe itself, as well as from 

 " the animals and vegetables which possess it. And lastly, 

 " that there is more dignity in our idea of the Supreme 

 " Author of all things, when we conceive Him to be the 

 " cause of causes, than the cause simply of the events 

 " which we see, if there can be any difference in infinity of 

 " power." 



The Supreme Being is, no doubt, the cause of all causes; 

 but these causes have a regular connexion, which we are able 

 to trace; and if any thing be produced in any different man- 

 ner, we say it is not according to the course of nature, but a 

 miracle. The world is, no doubt, in a state of improvement; 

 but notwithstanding this, we see no change in the vegetable 

 or animal systems, nor does the history of the most remote 

 times favour the hypothesis. The plants and animals descri- 

 bed in the book of Job are the same that they are now, and 

 so are the dogs, asses, and lions &c. of Homer. 



Vegetables and animals do not by any improvement, natural 

 or artificial, change into one another, or into vegetables and 

 animals of other species. It is, therefore, contrary to analogy, 

 or the established course of nature, that they should do so. 

 If miracles; which imply an omnipotent and designing power 

 (and which to the generality of mankind are the most stri- 

 king proofs of the existence of such a power, and a power 

 distinct from the visible parts of nature, the laws of which 



