MATERIAL UNIVERSE. 73 



strengthened with their strength. Then, the 

 materials were abundant, and the changes rapid. 

 All was change, no death. The dissolution 

 of organized matter furnished food for new or- 

 ganizations, (even as the food taken into the ani- 

 mal stomach is carried to the laboratory in the 

 blood, and thence to the part requiring it, where 

 it again becomes a part of the living system;) 

 and the uniform temperature of the waters and 

 the atmosphere contributed to the rapid develop- 

 ment of every kind of combination adapted 

 to it. 



The higher animals seem, in some instances, 

 to have been a combination of inferior organiza- 

 tions ; and each species, or class, to have been 

 perfected through a successive, and progressive, 

 but regular, gradation, from the lowest to the 

 more perfect of their kind. 



But the prolific waters were the medium of 

 generation of huge aquatic vegetables ; monsters 

 of the deep, animals long since extinct, (or, if 

 7 



