20 TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS. 



tween some fixed measure of time or space, traced 

 in the lifeless and in the living world ; where 

 creatures are constructed on a certain plan, or a 

 certain scale, and this plan or this scale is exactly 

 the single one which is suited to their place on 

 the earth ; where it was necessary for the Creator 

 (if we may use such a mode of speaking) to take 

 account of the weight of the earth, or the density 

 of the air, or the measure of the ocean, and where 

 these quantities are rightly taken account of in 

 the arrangements of creation. In such cases we 

 conceive that we trace a Creator, who, in pro- 

 ducing one part of his work, was not forgetful or 

 careless of another part ; who did not cast his 

 living creatures into the world to prosper or perish 

 as they might find it suited to them or not ; but 

 fitted together, with the nicest skill, the world and 

 the constitution which he gave to its inhabitants; 

 so fashioning it and them, that light and dark- 

 ness, sun and air, moist and dry, should become 

 their ministers and benefactors, the unwearied 

 and unfailing causes of their well being. 



We have spoken of the mutual adaptation of the 

 organic and the inorganic world. If we were to 

 conceive the contrivance of the world as taking 

 place in an order of time in the contriving mind, 

 we might also have to conceive this adaptation as 

 taking place in one of two ways : we might either 

 suppose the laws of inert nature to be accommo- 

 dated to the foreseen wants of living things, or 



