OF THE PERSONALITY OF THE DEITY. 245 



A piece of animated matter, for example, that was endued 

 with a propensity to jiy, though ever so shapeless, though 

 no other we will suppose than a round ball, to begin with, 

 would, in a course of ages, if not in a million of years, 

 perhaps in a hundred millions of years, (for our theorists 

 having eternity to dispose of, are never sparing in time,) ac- 

 quire wings. The same tendency to locomotion in an 

 aquatic animal, or rather in an animated lump which might 

 happen to be surrounded by water, would end in the pro- 

 duction o^ Jins ; in a living substance confined to the solid 

 earth, would put out legs and/ce^ ; or, if it took a different 

 turn, would break the body into ringlets, and conclude by 

 crmoling upon the ground. 



Although I have introduced the mention of this theory 

 into this place, I am unwilling to give to it the name of an 

 utlmstic scheme, for two reasons ; first, because, so far as 

 I am able to understand it, the original propensities and 

 the numberless varieties of them (so different, in this re- 

 spect, from the laws of mechanical nature, which are few 

 and simple) are, in the plan itself, attributed to the ordina- 

 tion and appointment of an intelligent and designing Creator : 

 secondly, because, likewise, that large postulatum, which is 

 all along assumed and presupposed, the faculty in living 

 bodies of producing other bodies organized like themselves, 

 seems to be referred to the same cause ; at least is- not at- 

 ten»pted to be accounted for by any other. In one impor- 

 tant respect, however, the theory before us coincides with 

 atheistic systems, viz. in that, in the formation of plants and 

 animals, in the structure and use of their parts, it does 

 away final causes. Instead of the parts of a plant or ani- 

 mal, or the particular structure of the parts, having been 

 intended for the action or use to which we see them appli- 

 ed, according to this theory they have themselves grown 

 out of that action, sprung from that use. The theory, 

 therefore, dispenses with that v/hich we insist upon, the ne- 

 cessity in each particular case, of an intelligent, designing 

 mind, for the contriving and determining of the forms 

 which organized bodies bear. Give our philosopher these 

 appetencies ; give him a portion of living irritable matter 

 (a nerve, or the clipping of a nerve,) to work upon ; give 

 also to his incipient or progressive forms, the power in ev- 

 ery stage of their alteration, of propagating their like ; and, 

 if he is to be believed, he could replenish the world with 

 all the vegetable and animal productions which we at pres* 

 ent see in it. 



X 



