THE ARaUMENT APPLIED. 51 



animals and vegetables, and the distribution and subdistri- 

 bution of each into genera and species, which distribution is 

 not an arbitrary act of the mind, but founded in the order 

 which prevails in external nature, appear to me to contra- 

 dict the supposition of the present world being the remains 

 afar, indefinite variety of existences — of a variety which re- 

 jects all plan. The hypothesis teaches, that every possible 

 variety of being hath, at one time or other, found its way 

 into existence — by what cause or in what manner is not 

 said: — and that those which were badly formed perished ; but 

 how or Avhy those which survived should be cast, as we see 

 that plants and animals are cast, into regular classes, the 

 hypothesis does not explain ; or rather the hypothesis is in- 

 consistent with this phenomenon. 



The hypothesis, indeed, is hardly deserving of the con- 

 sideration which we have given to it. What should we 

 think of a man who, because we had never ourselves seen 

 watches, telescopes, stocking-mills, steam-engines, etc., made, 

 knew not how they were made, nor could prove by testimo- 

 ny when they were made, or by whom, would have us be- 

 lieve that these machines, instead of deriving their curious 

 structures from the thought and design of their inventois 

 and contrivers, in truth derive them from no other origin 

 than this ; namely, that a mass of metals and other mate- 

 rials having run, when melted, into all possible figures, and 

 combined themselves in all possible forms and shapes and 

 proportions, these things which we see are what were left 

 from the incident, as best worth preserving, and as such are 

 become the remaining stock of a magazine which, at one 

 time or other, has by this means contained every mechan- 

 ism, useful and useless, convenient and inconvenient, into 

 which such like materials could be thrown ? I cannot dis 

 tinguisli the hypothesis, as applied to the works of nature, 

 from this solution, which no one would accept as applied to 

 a collection of machines 



V. To the marks of contrivance discoverable in animal 



