109 



$ 19. It seems scarcely necessary to examine in detail these 

 questions, which are excepted against the principle : for it appears 

 to follow, demonstratively, that if there is no possible example of 

 existence which is not dependent for such existence upon a pro- 

 cess of causation, there can be no example of an existence 

 which has not at some period begun to be. But, if the topic 

 should be resolutely pursued, the substance of the investigation 

 would be thus comprised. Although we have seen that the pheno- 

 mena of nature are in many acts which are visible, and in many 

 more which are inferred, accomplished by a process of causation, 

 which fixes the era of their being; is it not possible that there 

 may be some eternal monuments, which have preserved through 

 numberless ages the characters by which they are now recognized 1 



20. To suppose that any such monument existed would in- 

 volve the following objections, the last of which is not easily 

 obviated: 1st, it would leave its existence unaccounted for; and, 

 2nd, it would imply an existence according to some other mode 

 than by a combination of its constituents. Thus, the peculiar 

 instance in question is shewn to rest upon the same grounds as 

 those general ones which have been before spoken of: and the 

 truth of the general principle referred to in the chapter on Causa- 

 tion will give precisely its own credit alike to general instances 

 and to every particular application. Upon this authority, then, 

 the proof of the origin of man by constitution is rested ; but 

 whether this origin took place only once and in one place, from 

 which single act of primitive causation the present aggregate of 

 the species have proceeded, or whether the same constituent 

 powers have been at various times and in various places exerted, 

 giving rise to many primo-genitors, it has been seen that neither 

 record nor physical testimony, so far as we have examined it, has 

 been adequate to determine. 



21. In a matter so intricate, it is no mean acquisition with 

 respect to a general design, to have come thus near to a settle- 

 ment of one leading point: and having by the help of our notions 

 on causation advanced one step, it remains for us, availing our- 

 selves if we can of the same help, to consider what other condi- 

 tions are implied by this origin of man by constitution. It is once 

 more to be premised that our present occupation consists in 

 making an experiment, the design of which is to ascertain how far, 

 and to what results, mere unaided reason is disposed to carry us. 



22. Here again our choice of the mode of the first formation 

 of man seems to lie between the two following alternatives: 1st, 

 whether he was at once formed and perfected in this state; or, 

 2nd, whether he arrived at it by numerous changes, which would 

 furnish the materials of a long history of approximations? 



1. That the entire man* was at once formed by a congregation 



* Man is taken here merely as a specimen of the animal creation, the 

 Other parU of which are to a considerable extent governed by the same laws. 



