CREATION OF ANIMALS. 9 



inhabitants of the water, of the air, and of the 

 earth ; and the divine image, in which he was to 

 be created, was rendered complete. 



Now, the generations of the world were perfect 

 and healthful, and God saw every thing that he 

 had made, and behold it was very good. That 

 is, every individual essence, whether inanimate 

 or animate, was fitted in every respect to answer 

 the end of its creation, and perform its allotted 

 part in contributing to the general welfare. The 

 entire machine was now in action, every separate 

 wheel was revolving, and the will of Him who 

 contrived and fabricated it had full and unin- 

 terrupted accomplishment. The instincts of the 

 whole circle of animals urged them, by an irre- 

 sistible impulse, to fulfil their several functions ; 

 I mean those that were necessary to the then 

 state of things : for if the instinct of the pre- 

 daceous ones was not restrained, they would soon 

 have annihilated the herbivorous ones, even if, 

 as Lightfoot supposes, they were at first created 

 by sevens. 1 They must, therefore, originally have 

 eaten grass ,or straw like the ox, and neither 

 injured nor destroyed their fellow-beasts of a 

 more harmless character ; this, indeed, appears 

 clearly from the terms of the original grant, 

 " To every beast of the earth, and to every fowl 

 of the air, and to evert/ thing that creepeth upon 



1 See Appendix, note 4. 



