442 VARIETIES, PRIMITIVE AND CONTEMPORANEOUS. 



nature they could not all have been created in pairs ; * 

 and, third. That from the general analogies of animal 

 life throughout successive geological epochs, they must 

 have been created at different and in successive times. 

 And he strongly states his belief, that &quot; the view of a 

 unique centre of origin and distribution rests chiefly on 

 the supposed authority of the Mosaic record, and is no 

 way sustained by evidence derived from investigations 

 in natural history,&quot; while the idea of animals being 

 created in pairs, with the exception of Adam and Eve, 

 &quot; is entirely of human construction.&quot; 



His own view he states to be &quot; that most animals and 

 plants have originated primitively over the whole extent 

 of their natural distribution, &quot; and u that varieties are 

 primitive and contemporaneous.&quot; He instances the lion, 

 which has still a wide range over nearly the w T hole of 

 Africa and a great part of Southern Asia. In this range 

 the lion of the East Indies differs somewhat from the 

 lion&quot; of North Africa, and this again from the lion of 

 Senegal. These differences, which are sufficient to mark 

 them as varieties, but not to distinguish them as so 

 many species, he believes to be primitive. The lion, 

 therefore, had a multiple origin, was originally created, 

 and simultaneously, over these several districts, with 

 peculiarities suited to the districts. He does not admit 

 that climate and other differences have the power of 

 modifying the species and producing the varieties. 

 This, he says, &quot; would be ascribing to the animals, or to 

 physical influences, the wisdom and power of adaptation, 

 which are the province of the Creator.&quot; 



But he takes up, also, the origin and unity of the 

 human race. Applying the same reasoning to man as 



* &quot; A bee-hive never consists of a pair of bees, and never could such 

 a pair preserve the species with their habits Was the primi 

 tive pair of lions to abstain from food till the gazelles and other ante 

 lopes had sufficiently multiplied, to preserve these races from the per- 



