xvi INTRODUCTION. 



This is the matter of feeling which Natural History draws forth in a manner different 

 from any other science ; and in which truth and error are the very extremes of mental 

 . happiness and mental misery. The system has no assignable bounds, yet it is one ; the parts 

 are countless, yet they are all in concert ; they are ever perishing, yet they are ever renew- 

 ing ; th^y are ever changing, yet they are still the same. Can we, therefore, believe that a 

 system so vast yet so united, so changeful yet so constant, can be without a Maker aiid 

 Governor more mighty than it all ? Can we by possibility doubt that there is ONE who 

 '' sitteth upon the zone" of this mighty structure, and to whom, infinite space is the same as 

 a mere point, and eternal duration as a single moment ? 



The proofs do not require to be reiterated, or even stated ; they are felt irresistibly by 

 all who enter upon the study of nature without prejudice or bias. But the distinction of 

 species, which holds against all circumstances, is an irresistible demonstration that matter is 

 under the government of that which is not material. Were that not the case, we should have 

 those deviations, which may be called circumstantial, taking place as readily in the one 

 direction as in the other; because, if the inherent properties of mere matter did it, there is 

 no reason why a deviation to superiority should not take place as well as one to inferiority. 

 But all the instances of deviation from the specific models with which we meet, are stoppages 

 on the way to the perfect form, and not efforts beyond it. The animal never becomes in 

 any degree a plant, or the plant an animal ; neither does one of the more simply organised 

 become one of the more complex, though the complex organisation is often so imperfect in 

 some of its parts as to have a considerable resemblance to the more simple. Thus it ap- 

 pears, that all which the direct interference of the common laws of matter can do for an 

 organic being is to injure or destroy it; and that, though all are flexible to those in- 

 terferences for a certain length, there is, in all cases, a point at which destruction is the 

 result. But if the organised and living being the plant or the animal, were produced by 

 the mere properties of that matter of which its body is composed, it is not easy, nay, it is 

 not possible, to see how the same laws that gave it organisation could disorganise it ; for 

 that would be making the same principle both itself and its opposite ! 



There are many instances in which we are not able to trace the law ; and in all cases it 

 is a nice and difficult point ; but though we cannot always obtain knowledge so complete 

 as to make it a perfectly satisfactory ground of argument, surely we should not better 

 ourselves by grounding argument upon our utter ignorance ? It has been already mentioned 

 that the three kingdoms of nature are a little obscure upon their confines ; but that very- 

 obscurity is sufficient reason why we should draw no conclusion from what we may half dis- 

 cern, half imagine there. Whenever there is light enough, the distinctions are plain ; and 

 sound philosophy merely demands, that where we must grope, we ought to grope according 

 to our knowledge, and not in opposition to it. We never find the mould of our. gardens 

 changed into roses without the vegetable action of the rose-tree ; or the leaves of our trees 

 changed into caterpillars without the action of animal life in the insects ; and as little do we 

 find the caterpillars changed into warbling songsters without the specific action of animal 

 life in the birds. But, till one or other of these occur in some one instance, we have no right 

 to presume, as some have unguidedly presumed, that, in those obscure cases where we have 

 little or no knowledge, the very same matter may, according to circumstances, become either 

 animal or vegetable, without the parent and the germ. 



