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Chapter IV. 



UNITY OF DESIGN. 



The inquiries on Animal and Vegetable Physi- 

 ology in which we have been engaged, lead to 

 the general conclusion that unity of design and 

 identity of operation pervade the whole of nature ; 

 and they clearly point to one Great and only 

 Cause of all things, arrayed in the attributes of 

 infinite power, wisdom, and benevolence, whose 

 mighty works extend throughout the boundless 

 regions of space, and whose comprehensive plans 

 embrace eternity. 



In examining the manifold structures and 

 diversified phenomena of living beings, we can- 

 not but perceive that they are extensively, and 

 perhaps universally connected by certain laws of 

 Analogy ; a principle, the recognition of which 

 has given us enlarged views of a multitude 

 of important facts, which would otherwise have 

 remained isolated and unintelligible. Hence 

 naturalists, in arranging the objects of their 

 study, according to their similarities and ana- 

 logies, into classes, orders and genera, have but 



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