140 TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS. 



Of each of these substances there is a certain 

 unalterable quantity in the universe ; when com- 

 bined, their compounds exhibit new chemical 

 affinities, new mechanical laws. Who gave these 

 different laws to the different substances? who 

 proportioned the quantity of each? But suppose 

 this done. Suppose these substances in existence ; 

 in contact ; in due proportion to each other. Is 

 this a world, or at least our world? No more than 

 the mine and the forest are the ship of war or the 

 factory. These elements, with their constitution 

 perfect, and their proportion suitable, are still a 

 mere chaos. They must be put in their places. 

 They must not be where their own properties 

 would place them. They must be made to 

 assume a particular arrangement, or we can have 

 no regular and permanent course of nature. 

 This arrangement must again have additional 

 peculiarities, or we can have no organic portion 

 of the world. The millions of millions of particles 

 which the world contains, must be finished up in 

 as complete a manner, and fitted into their places 

 with as much nicety, as the most delicate wheel 

 or spring in a piece of human machinery. What 

 are the habits of thought to which it can appear 

 possible that this could take place without design, 

 intention, intelligence, purpose, knowledge? 



In what has just been said, we have spoken 

 only of the constitution of the inorganic part of 

 the universe. The mechanism, if we may so 



