PERSONALITY OF DEITY. 279 



Another system wliich has lately been brought forward, 

 and with much ingenuity, is that o^ appetencies. The prin- 

 ciple and the short account of the theory is this. Pieces ot 

 soft, ductile matter, being endued with propensities or ap- 

 petencies for particular actions, would, by continual endeav- 

 ors, carried on through a long series of generations, work 

 themselves gradually into suitable forms ; and at length 

 acquire, though perhaps by obscure and almost impercepti- 

 ble improvements, an organization fitted to the action which 

 their respective propensities led them to exert. A piece 

 of animated matter, for example, that vvas endued with a 

 propensity to Jly, though ever so shapeless, though no other 

 we will suppose than a round ball to begin with, would, in 

 a course of ages, if not in a million of years, perhaps in 

 a hundred millions of years — for our theorists, having eter- 

 nity to dispose of, are never sparing in time — acquire icings. 

 The same tendency to locomotion in an aquatic animal, or 

 rather in an animated lump, which might happen to be 

 surrounded by water, would end in the production of Jins; 

 in a living substance confined to the solid earth, would put 

 out legs and feet ; or, if it took a diflerent turn, would break 

 the body into ringlets, and conclude by crawling upon the 

 ground. 



Although I have introduced the mention of this theory 

 into this place, I am unwilling to give to it the name of an 

 athcisti: scheme, for two reasons : first, because, so far as I 

 am abie to undei stand it, the original propensities and the 

 numberless varieties of them — so difTerent, in this respect, 

 from the laws of mechanical nature, which are few and 

 simple — are, in the plan itself attributed to the ordination 

 and appointment of an intelligent and designing Creator; 

 secondly, because, likewise, that large postulatum, which is 

 all along assumed and presupposed, the faculty in living 

 bodies of producing other bodies organized like themselves, 

 seems to be referred to the same cause ; at least, is not at- 

 tempted to be accoimted for by any other. In oik; impor- 



