362 Dr Daubeny's Speculations as to the 



lective amount of the animal and of the vegetable matter in existence > 

 lias taken place, from the first period at which they were called into 

 being, up to the present time. Unless all these three postulates be as- 

 sumed, it seems difficult not to attribute to gases evolved from inorganic 

 sources, the first origin of those organic matters of which both plants and 

 animals consist. 



Now, it will perhaps to some of my hearers appear futile, and even almost 

 presumptuous, to go back, as it were, to the dawn of creation, and to 

 speculate on events that may have occurred at the first commencement 

 of organic life. Nevertheless, I may be permitted to observe thus much, 

 namely, that analogy seems to favour the supposition of each species of 

 plant having been originally formed in one particular locality,* from 

 whence it spread itself gradually over a certain area, rather than that 

 the earth was at once, by the fiat of the Almighty, covered with vegeta- 

 tion in the manner we at present behold it. 



The human race, as we are informed by the highest authority, is de- 

 scended from a single pair, and the distribution of plants and animals 

 over a certain definite area, would seem to imply that the same was the 

 general law. Analogy would also lead us to suspect, that the extension 

 of species over the earth originally took place on the same plan on 

 which it is conducted at present, when a new island starts up in tlie 

 midst of the ocean, produced either by a coral reef or by volcanic eleva- 

 tion. In these cases, we do not find the whole surface at once overspread 

 with plants, but we can trace the gradual progress of vegetation from the 

 chance introduction of a single seed, perhaps, of each species, floated to 

 it by currents, or wafted by winds. Nor, indeed, does it seem pro- 

 bable, that a preternatural cause should have operated in covering the 

 earth with plants, when natural ones are supposed to have been instru- 

 mental in the formation of the strata upon which they grew. Since these 

 latter have been built up gradually through the successive accumulation 

 of mineral and organic deposits, in which act Omnipotence did not di- 

 rectly interpose, we should be disposed to refer the full development of 

 the former to a slow dissemination of individuals in conformity with na- 

 tural laws, and to ascribe to the immediate hand of the Deity only the 

 first introduction of a species. 



Such an exertion of creative power as is implied by suddenly calling 

 into existence all the plants of a particular period, seems the more im- 

 probable when we recollect that it must have been repeated at several 

 successive epochs, since wc cannot suppose that the whole globe would 



* Mr Lyell proposes the following hypothesis, as heing reconcilahle with known 

 facts, viz. " That each species may have had its origin in a single pair or individual, 

 where an individual was suflicient, and that species may have heen created in suc- 

 cession, at such times and in such places as to enahle them to multiply and endure 

 for an appointed period, and occupy an appointed space on the globe." Principles 

 of Geology, vol. ii. chap. 8. 



