70 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



million of years, perhaps in a hundred millions of 

 years (for our theorists, having eternity to dispose 

 of, are never sparing in time,) acquire wings. The 

 same tendency to loco-motion in an aquatic ani- 

 mal, or rather in an animated lump, which might 

 happen to be surrounded by water, w ould end in 

 the production of fins ; in a living substance, con- 

 fined to the solid earth, would put out legs and 

 feet ; or, if it took a different turn, would break 

 the body into ringlets, and conclude by crawling 

 upon the ground. 



Although I have introduced the mention of this 

 theory into this place, I am unwilling to live to it 

 the name of an atheistic scheme, for two reasons : 

 first, because, so far as I am able to understand it, 

 the original propensities and the numberless vari- 

 eties of them (so different, in this respect, from the 

 laws of mechanical nature, which are few and 

 simple,) are, in the plan itself, attributed to the 

 ordination and appointment of an intelligent and 

 designing Creator : secondly, because, likewise, 

 that large postulatum, which is all along assumed 

 and pre-supposed, the faculty in living bodies of 

 producing other bodies organized like themselves, 

 seems to be referred to the same cause ; at least 

 is not attempted to be accounted for by any other. 

 In one important respect, however, the theory be- 

 fore us coincides with atheistic systems, viz. in that, 

 in the formation of plants and animals, in the 

 structure and use of their parts, it does away final 



