214 Dr Daubeny on the Writings and 



, Out of deference foi' the opinions of his fellow men, or pei'- 

 liaps from some latent sentiment of religion at variance with 

 his philosophical dogmas, he admitted, that the order of na- 

 ture emanated from the D^ity, but supposed that it proceeded 

 to do its work, by blind and imperfect, and merely mechani- 

 cal eiforts, productive at first of only rough and abortive 

 draughts of what, in the course of an infinite succession of 

 ages, ripened itself into its present wonderful complexity, and 

 perfection of form and structure. 



. So even Epicurus, out of respect for the common opinions 

 of mankind, the innate ideas, as it were, which existed in the 

 minds of others, admitted that there were gods, but removed 

 them from all share in the concerns of humanity, by suppos- 

 ing the whole structure of the universe to result from a for- 

 tuitous concourse of atoms. 



How different in these respects was the proceeding of M. 

 Decandolle ! 



He did not indeed attempt to deny the existence of rudi- 

 mentary organs, from seeing the use which others had made 

 of the doctrine — to have attempted this indeed would have 

 been as hopeless a task, as to deny the deductions arrived at by 

 geologists with respect to the age of the world, because some 

 pei'sons may have perversely availed themselves of such facts 

 as a handle against revelation — but, boldly admitting their 

 reality, and skilfully availing himself of this principle as a clew 

 whereby to trace the affinities between plants, he vindicated 

 it from the imputation of being in any degi*ee inconsistent 

 with the existence of design, or of lending any countenance to 

 the doubts of the sceptic. 



According to his views, all organized beings, when compared 

 one with another, present groups of gi'eater or lesser extent, 

 which themselves form parts of groups embracing a still wider 

 range, and are divisible into others of a subordinate descrip- 

 tion. Each gi'oup is subject to two classes of laws ; the first 

 producing that regular order in which its organs are disposed, 

 or in other words the symmetry of its organization ; the second 

 regulating the action of the processes of vitality, from which 

 often results such a degree of derangement in the symmetry 

 of its parts, that their natural dispositioii may thereby be com- 

 pletely disguised. 



