1 6 ORGANIC LIFE IN THE OCEAN. 



nature, that it appears unable to fully eliminate the 

 idea that because it would be impossible for any beings 

 personally known to ourselves to exist under certain 

 conditions, that therefore it is improbable that others, 

 differently constituted, could do so. This is a very 

 short-sighted view. 



Our inference, as we respectfully suggest, ought on 

 the contrary rather to be, that The Great Creator, who 

 has filled all regions familiar to our cognizance with 

 infinite numbers and varieties of living and beautiful 

 creatures, is therefore not likely to have left far greater 

 regions barren, and void of equally wondrous, though 

 perhaps different forms of life. To doubt that this is 

 so, is surely to unwittingly set bounds to the creative 

 power of Omnipotence ; and besides, scientific analogy, 

 we venture to think, tends all the other way for 

 whenever, and wherever fresh discoveries are made re- 

 specting regions previously unknown, invariably and with- 

 out exception they are found replete with new and here- 

 tofore unnoticed living organisms. It is so, whether 

 we treat of the atmosphere above us, or of the depths 

 of the earth beneath us. A good instance, if the reader 

 will kindly pardon us for suggesting it, of the fallacy 

 of this narrow-minded reasoning, that because a matter 

 appears to be impossible, that therefore it must be so 

 in fact, may be briefly illustrated thus: If we did not 

 know that life existed in the sea, and a scientific com- 

 mission was appointed to report upon its possibility, 

 they would be obliged, in the absence of evidence of the 

 existence of marine life there, to report that no land 

 animal known to ourselves could exist there, and that life 

 thus appeared to be impossible beneath the ocean waves. 



This however brings us face to face with the ques- 



