TRANSMUTABLE. 243 



ther, vast groups of animals, all specially provided 

 for, according to their position in the scale, with 

 man at the head, endowed with reason and con- 

 sciousness. I exercise my inductive faculties, arid 

 I have proof that the gilled and finned fish was 

 formed to live in water, that the winged bird 

 was specially created for flying, that the various 

 animals in the scale of mammals, have all a 

 structure adapted to the climate in which they 

 exist, to their means of procuring food, provision 

 for their safety, and propagation of their kind. 

 Am I to be told that my induction of a special 

 creation here is false? 



Is such a proof to be placed in comparison, 

 for a moment, with the mythical dreams of a 

 human intellect, producing a system of creation, 

 which acts neither by miracle or law, which 

 has everything to assume from its primordial 

 germ, down to the vast living world around us ! 

 which has to create anti-silurian worlds, sup- 

 posed to exist for billions of years before thi 

 oldest geological formation ! which compares th< 

 operation of Nature's laws, to those -of the pigeon- 

 fancier! and her beautiful and perfect organisms, 

 to his abnormal deformities ! which destroys every 

 vestige of a shadow of belief in a watchful Pro- 

 vidence, and adaptive creation, and which strikes 

 deeply and irrecoverably at the root of both 

 natural and revealed religion? 



God forbid that I should allow such a doctrir. ; 

 as this to be placed, for one moment, in com- 

 parison with that, which the highest intellects 



