106 



quoted are proofs indubitable of the operation of waters, who shall 

 say whether these several effects, which we allow to exist every 

 where, occurred every where at the same time, or by partial and 

 successive acts, or changes, which have been wrought in an 

 infinity of ages? It is obvious that, up to this point, proofs are 

 entirely wanting ; and though I am aware that a great deal has 

 been said with something like a design of fixing the antiquity of 

 the earth, and that a great deal more might, in the way of dis- 

 cussion, be said on both sides upon the same subject; yet all that 

 has been said, or may be said, is so entirely conjectural and con- 

 tradictory, that I chuse to say nothing more about it. Let us en- 

 deavour to find some better security for our proceedings; a 

 sanction which shall be founded on some part of our own experience. 



13. As, by the order of procreation, the species is multi- 

 plied, so by inverting this order it is diminished ; arid by continu- 

 ing to trace succession from children to parents, it appears that 

 we should at last arrive at such a simplification as that which is 

 denominated one common origin in first parents. Thus much. we 

 may affirm, so far as respects our general experience in population; 

 but we are not to concede the universality of such a result with- 

 out a little further examination. 



14. The animal creation exist on so large a scale, that it is 

 difficult to illustrate the question clearly, by a reference to the 

 aggregate of species. We will then make an imaginary reduction 

 of their numbers, and suppose the condition of mankind, for 

 example, to be this, viz. there are one hundred inhabitants in each 

 of the quarters of the earth. We will suppose these, as we may, 

 without affecting the argument, to be divided into families consist- 

 ing often in each, viz. two parents and eight children; it is then 

 obvious that eighty drew their origin from twenty. If we inquire 

 the origin of these twenty? the answer will involve alternatives 

 which we should not at first sight suspect. 1st, These twenty 

 might have derived their existence from forty parents, viz. a father 

 and mother to each one, and these forty from eighty; or, 2nd, 

 they might have originated from four parents, and these four from 

 two, &c. So that we cannot, by the inverse succession of the 

 general tendency of procreation, arrive necessarily at that simpli- 

 fication which it appears at first sight to promise, for the rate of 

 population is liable to fluctuate from many causes. To state this 

 matter more plainly : 



15. It is possible, from a gradual decline of population, that 

 a thousand inhabitants of any part of the earth may, by many 

 fluctuations, be reduced to a hundred; that this number might be 

 doubled, and then reduced to fifty, to four; or the race might 

 become extinct. Hence, if any people should have preserved a 

 record of two or four or twenty ancestors furnishing the originals 

 often tribes, it does not absolutely follow that these first were in- 

 stances of the origin by formation or constitution, or but that many 

 generations might have preceded those who are regarded as originals. 



