180 Natural Theology. 



thousands, with such diverse appearcji^e and pro- 

 perties, we should infer that the kirjds of matter 

 composing them were very numerous. But these 

 varied substances are merely combinations. The eye, 

 with all its curious mechanism ; the brain, the organ 

 of the mind ; the feather of the ostrich, the count- 

 less shells of the ocean and the land ; the fruits and 

 flowers, the healing balsams and deadly poisons are 

 all formed from but few of the elements that, under 

 the control of chemical affinity, modified by the vital 

 principle, produce these varied compounds. 



Not seventy elements are yet known ; and of these, 

 not more than twenty make up the great mass of 

 the earth's crust, and four of them constitute the 

 greater portion of all organic beings. When we 

 learn the small number of simple substances, we 

 are at once impressed with the vast number of 

 conditions under which they can appear in pro- 

 ducing every inorganic and organic object upon the 

 globe. 



There is a wonderful fitness in the elements to 

 produce results ; and this fitness is secured both by 

 their nature, and the quantity in which they were 

 created. They give the solid framework of the 

 earth, the water and the air, the plants and ani- 

 mals. This globe is what it is, not only because 

 the elements are what they are, but because of their 

 relative quantity. If the hydrogen which forms 

 one-ninth of all the water on the globe had been 

 much increased, there would have been more water ; 

 but no free oxygen would have been left, and animal 



