PERSONALITY OF DEITY. 281 



L-een said, lluit the alterative process is too slow to be per- 

 ceived ; that it has been carried on through tracts of im- 

 measurable time ; and that the present order of things is the 

 result of a gradation of which no human records can trace 

 the steps. It is easy to say this ; and yet it is still true, that 

 the hypothesis remams destitute of evidence. 



The analogies which have been alleged are of the fol- 

 lowing kind. The hunch of a camel is said to be no other 

 than the eflect of carrying burdens ; a service in which the 

 species has been employed from the most ancient times of 

 the M^orld. The first race, by the daily loading of the back, 

 would probably find a small grumous tumor to be formed in 

 the flesh of that part. The next progeny would bring this 

 tumor into the world with them. The life to which they 

 were destined would increase it. The cause which first gen- 

 erated the tubercle being continued, it would go on, through 

 every succession, to augment its size, till it attained the 

 form and the bulk under which it now appears. This may 

 serve for one instance : another, and that also of the passive 

 sort, is taken from certain species of birds. Birds of the 

 crane kind, as the crane itself, the heron, bittern, stork, have, 

 in general, their thighs bare of feathers. This privation is 

 accounted for from the habit of wading in water, and from 

 the effect of that element to check the growth of feathers 

 upon these parts ; in consequence of which, the health and 

 vegetation of the feathers declined through each generation 

 of the animal ; the tender down, exposed to cold and wet- 

 ness, becam.e weak, and thin, and rare, till the deterioration 

 ended in the result which we see, of absolute nakedness. I 

 will mention a third instance, because it is drawn from an 

 active habit, as the two last were from passive habits ; and 

 that is the i^uch of the pelican. The description which 

 naturalists give of this organ is as follows : " From the lower 

 edges of the under chap hangs a bag, reaching from the whole 

 length of the bill to the neck, which is said to be capable 

 of containing fifteen quarts of water. This bag the bird has 



