72 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



variety wliich rejects all plan. The hypothesis 

 teaches, that every possible variety of being hath, 

 at one time or other, found its way into existence 

 (by what cause or in what manner is not said,) and 

 that those which were badly formed perished ; but 

 how or why those which survived should be cast, 

 as we see that plants and animals are cast, into regu- 

 lar classes, the hypothesis does not explain; or rather 

 the hypothesis is inconsistent with this phenomenon. 

 The hypothesis, indeed, is hardly deserving of 

 the consideration which we have given to it. What 

 should we think of a man who, because we had 

 never ourselves seen watches, telescopes, stocking- 

 mills, steam-engines, &c.,made, knew not how they 

 were made, nor could prove by testimony when 

 they were made, or by whom, would have us be- 

 lieve that these machines, instead of deriving their 

 curious structures from the thought and design of 

 their inventors and contrivers, in truth derive them 

 from no other origin than this : viz., that a mass of 

 metals and other materials having run, when melt- 

 ed, into all possible figures, and combined them- 

 selves in all possible forms, and shapes, and pro- 

 portions, these things which we see are what were 

 left from the accident, as best worth preserving, 

 and, as such, are become the remaining stock of a 

 magazine, which, at one time or other, has by this 

 means contained everv' mechanism, useful and use- 

 less, convenient and inconvenient, into which such 

 like materials could be thrown ? I cannot distin- 

 guish the h}7)othesis, as applied to the works of 



