Lead: aI 
his creatéve power, when the formation of a firft pair would 
have been fufficient to effe@ the fame end? Secondary caufes, I 
-allow, and what are called the eftablifhed laws of Nature, are but 
more remote or more regular exeftions of the divine omnipo- 
tence. But experience and reafon teftify that the divine omni- 
potence will thus regularly operate by thofe fecondary caufes, 
and according to the eftablifhed laws of Nature, except where- 
thofe regular operations are inadequate. If men were formerly 
created, who might as well have been produced by geveration, 
why is not the immediate fiat of the Deity ftill fimilarly inter- 
pofed? And if not interpofed now, becaufe it need not, why 
fhould we imagine that it has been at any former period, when 
its interpofition. was unneceffary ? Thus then the inutility of the 
fuppofition, and its repugnance to analogy are fufficient to make 
us reject it, and conclude that the whole human race are defcend- 
ants of but one man and one woman. 
Bur there is a ftill ftronger argument in fupport of the fame 
conclufion. To maintain the contrary hypothefis is to maintain 
that the power of the Deity in man’s creation was exerted in a 
manner not only ufelefs, but pofitively hurtful. Human fociety, 
at the fame time that it affords us means of fupplying our 
wants with facility, encreafes their number. In the catalogue of 
our neceflities, by far the greater part will be found to originate 
in our connection with others. That connection fupplies the 
neceflities which it creates. But how does it fupply them? By 
the reciprocation of advantages acquired in the gradual advance- 
ment of fociety. By the commutation of good offices between 
the wealthy, the fkilful, the experienced, and the powerful ; 
which 
