INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. 3 



dulge conjecture ; but when we attempt to penetrate the 

 darkness of primitive ages, and pretend to trace the 

 first causes of such things, we wander in regions from 

 which human knowledge is excluded. He alone, that 

 great First Cause, " by whom all things were made 

 that are made/' is alone master of this impenetrable 

 secret. 



(3.) Let us now look to the animal world. Here we 

 may see thousands of beings, endowed with powers of 

 locomotion which have been utterly denied to man. 

 The swallow, darting- like an arrow through the air at 

 the rate of sixty miles an hour, seems to mock the com- 

 paratively snail-like pace of our swiftest vessels ; the 

 curlew runs rapidly on the ground, mounts on the 

 breaking surge, or swiftly flies from one continent to 

 another, thus traversing, with perfect ease, three ele- 

 ments, the earth, the air, and the sea. Thousands, 

 in short, of little tiny birds perform journies, every 

 spring and autumn, any one of which, to us, would be 

 the occupation of a year. Now the theoretical conclusion 

 we should make, on considering these facts, would be, 

 that animals, so peculiarly gifted with the powers of 

 locomotion, would use it to wander in every clime, 

 that they would spread their races in every region of 

 the earth where food could be procured, or where they 

 could enjoy a fit temperature. These deductions, 

 theoretically, cannot be deemed otherwise than just. 

 Yet they are diametrically opposed and contradicted by 

 facts. The swallow of England might reach America 

 or China in as short a space of time as it would travel 

 to Africa, and in either country would find food and 

 warmth congenial to its nature ; but it has been ap- 

 pointed to pursue a certain course; and from that course, 

 whether to the right or to the left, it never deviates. 

 This is only one out of a thousand instances, to prove 

 that the limits of every animal have been fixed by 

 an Almighty fiat " Hither shalt thou come, but no 

 further." Man may do much with those animals which 

 B 2 



