74 TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS. 



will probably see something admirable in itself 

 in this vast variety of created things. There is 

 indeed something well fitted to produce and con- 

 firm a reverential wonder, in these apparently 

 inexhaustible stores of new forms of being and 

 modes of existence ; the fixity of the laws of each 

 class, its distinctness from all others, its relations 

 to many. Structures and habits and characters 

 are exhibited, which are connected and distin- 

 guished according to every conceivable degree of 

 subordination and analogy, in their resemblances 

 and in their differences. Every new country 

 we explore presents us with new combinations, 

 where the possible cases seemed to be exhausted ; 

 and with new resemblances and differences con- 

 structed as if to elude what conjecture might 

 have hit upon, by proceeding from the old ones. 

 Most of those who have any large portion of 

 nature brought under their notice in this point 

 of view, are led to feel that there is, in such a 

 creation, a harmony, a beauty, and a dignity, of 

 which the impression is irresistible ; which would 

 have been wanting in any more uniform and li- 

 mited system such as we might try to imagine ; 

 and which of itself gives to the arrangements 

 by which such a variety on the earth's surface is 

 produced, the character of well devised means to 

 a worthy end. 



