76 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



But it is the less necessary to controvert the 

 instances themselves, as it is a straining of ana- 

 contrivance could alter the shape of beasts, which it most certain- 

 ly cannot, as daily experience in regard to most domestic animals 

 shows. No change of form produced immediately and directly, 

 as by cutting, compressing, rubbing, can be perpetuated in the 

 breed. All we can do with regard to animals, and all that any 

 animals can do with regard to themselves, is indirectly, as by af- 

 fecting their health, to affect the proportions of their parts, as 

 bone, fat, muscle ; the effects of which changes will be perceived 

 in the progeny. 



We have here been observing only upon the fact ; but suppose 

 the fact to be as the theory of appetencies assumes, — suppose the 

 camel's bunch has been formed by weight and friction, and the 

 pelican's pouch by the food distending the underchap, — in other 

 words, suppose (contrary to what we have shown is the fact,) that 

 the changes induced in one animal or race at a given time, are 

 propagated and continue in their descendants, — it is plain that 

 the skeptical argument gains nothing by this concession. For 

 how are such changes continued ? Only by the process of gene- 

 ration. Nay, how arc they at first effected ? By the operation of 

 physical laws, — that is, by the constitution of matter. The quad- 

 ruped's bunch and the bird's pouch, allowing the whole facte to 

 be as the argument assumes it, are both originally formed and pro- 

 pagated afterwards by the means of the qualities with which mat- 

 ter is endowed ; and the inference of design is not affected by the 

 step thus added to the process of reasoning. It can manifestly 

 make no difference to that inference, whether we hold that the 

 bird's pouch is provided for its ncessitics by a conformation at all 

 times belonging to it according to the constitution of the world, or 

 by one superinduced according to that same constitution. The 

 utmost that the skeptical hypolliesis can gain by such concessions 

 as we have been supposing to be made, is that the form of the 

 world was at one time less perfect than it now is. A similar re- 

 mark arises upon the conjecture of Laplace (in which others have 

 followed him,) respecting the original arrangement of the motions 

 and longitudes of Jupiter's three first satellites, treated of in an- 

 other note. — (See notes to Chap, xxii.) 



