PREFACE. 



I PROBABLY never should have ventured to engage 

 in the composition and publication of a work like the 

 present, had not that task been assigned me by my 

 nomination as one of the writers of the series of 

 Bridgevvater Treatises, and had I not deeply felt the 

 honour done me by that appointment, as well as the 

 importance of the duty which it imposed. The hope, 

 in which I have indulged, that my labours might even- 

 tually be useful, has been my chief support in this 

 arduous undertaking; the progress of which has • 

 throughout been seriously impeded by the various in- 

 terruptions incident to my profession, by long pro- 

 tracted anxieties and afflictions, and by the almost 

 overwhelming pressure of domestic calamitv. 



The object of this treatise is to enforce the great 

 truths of Natural Theology, by adducing those evi- 

 dences of the power, wisdom, and goodness of God, 

 which are manifested in the living creation. The 

 scientific knowledge of the phenomena of life, as they 

 are exhibited under the infinitely varied forms of or- 



