PRELDIINARY OBSERVATIONS. 19 



and throughout all their changes, involves the 

 question, as to why any were created. But 

 life teems on the globe, and wherever it can 

 be, there, animating some body, some form, 

 it will be ; and if we can conceive of a single 

 purpose only, to be effected by the existence 

 of one living thing, we are bound to acknow- 

 ledge that it is because of our feeble com- 

 prehension we cannot trace it throughout 

 organic creation. David of old, in meditation 

 upon the works of God, exclaimed, " O Lord, 

 how manifold are thy works ! in wisdom hast 

 thou made them all : the earth is ftdl of thy 

 riches. So is this great and wide sea, wherein 

 are things creeping innumerable, both small 

 and great beasts." And truly in the structure 

 of every creature, and in its adaptation to a 

 peculiar line of habits aijd manners, we discern 

 clearly the wisdom and power of the Creator. 

 This structure, varying in its modifications to 

 meet certain exigencies, involves the doctrine 

 of final causes ; unless, indeed, we are to take 

 the atheists' creed, and ascribe organic life to 

 a fortuitous concurrence of atoms under incom- 

 prehensible conditions — a theory as weak and 

 puerile as it is low, vile, and abominable. But 

 it is thus that man too often attempts to veil 



