42 CREATION OF ANIMALS. 



in others much diminished in fertility, so that the 

 general productiveness of the globe must have 

 been considerably diminished, and the permission 

 to eat flesh must have been extremely useful in 

 increasing the amount of food, and diminishing 

 that of labour. Such a change having taken 

 place, both in the heavens and the earth, and 

 vast countries being essentially altered both in 

 the temperature of the atmosphere, from what- 

 ever cause, and the productions of the soil, the 

 extinction of many of the original animal forms, 

 that were extra-tropical, or at least were inhabi- 

 tants of high latitudes, and were incapable of 

 bearing the changes, whether it was ante-diluvial 

 or post-diluvial, would necessarily follow; and 

 again as man was become by his nature prone to 

 sin, he as necessarily was made subject to evil. 

 Hence he became exposed, from the new consti- 

 tution of the earth and atmosphere, to various 

 diseases and sundry kinds of death, the term of 

 his existence was shortened, and it was chequered 

 with days of darkness as well as of light : and 

 he was infested by various animals, either newly 

 created, or then first let loose against him and 

 his property. 



All these things indicate a change in the me- 

 chanical as well as other original powers set and 

 kept in action by the Creator, and a certain 

 dependence of two distinct classes of events upon 

 each other. If a great alteration generally takes 



