96 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS RESPECTING THE 



have with each other. The greater part of the genera are the 

 same : a great part of the species are very closely allied and 

 easily confounded. [Referring to two of these sub-forma- 

 tions,] is it probable that the albian fauna had been completely 

 annihilated, and then, by a new and independent creation, 

 replaced by a fauna altogether new, and so similar to it ? I 

 am aware that these facts may be referred to the general plan 

 of creation [that is, a supposed plan, according to which the 

 divine power had operated in its special successive creative 

 operations] ; but is the mind entirely satisfied with this expla- 

 nation ?" I cannot but echo the last question. Can we be 

 content to assume for, after all, it is assumption that a 

 series of miraculous creations was invariably to be in the 

 manner of a piecing on and blending from one to another, when 

 we have the alternative of presuming (grant it were to be 

 left to presumption alone) that these connexions are only 

 memorials of a natural law presiding over the development 

 of the whole organic creation, and making it one and not 

 many things ? I can only wonder that a man learned in the 

 subject can see such a difficulty as he has here stated, and find 

 it more easily passed over than the bare fact that certain mam- 

 malia have not changed for three thousand years, for such 

 is the only difficulty he states on the other side. 



It must further be recollected that we are not only to 

 account for the origination of organic being upon this little 

 planet, third of a series which is but one of hundreds of 

 thousands of series, the whole of which again form but one 

 portion of an apparently infinite globe-peopled space, where 

 all seems analogous. We have to suppose, that every one 

 of these numberless globes is either a theatre of organic 

 being, or in the way of becoming so. This is a conclusion 

 which every addition to our knowledge makes only the more 

 irresistible. Is it conceivable, as a fitting mode of exercise for 

 creative intelligence, that it should be constantly paying a 

 special attention to the creation of species, as they may be 

 required in each situation throughout those worlds, at parti- 

 cular times? Is such an idea accordant with our general 

 conception of the dignity, not to speak of the power, of the 



