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Chapter IV. 



UNITY OF DESIGN. 



The inquiries on Animal and Vegetable Physiology 

 in which we have been engaged, lead to the gene- 

 ral 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 diver- 

 sified phenomena of living beings, we cannot 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 analogies, into classes, orders and genera, have 

 but followed the footsteps of Nature herself, who in 

 all her operations combines the apparently opposite 

 principles of general resemblance, and of specific 

 variety ; so that the races which she has united in 

 the same group, though possessed of features indi- 

 vidually different, may easily be recognised by their 

 family likeness, as the offspring of a common 

 parent. 



" Facies non omnibus una ; 

 Nee diversa tamen ; qualem decet esse sororum." 



