4 INTRODUCTION. 



territories of the earth, has rendered some, which were previously un- 

 known, familiar to the moderns. 



Yet we are compelled to reject the theory of successive creations as 

 an unsound doctrine resulting merely from imagination unsupported 

 by evidence. 



The cotemporary origin of mind and matter is a question infinitely 

 more abstruse. 



We cannot pretend to enquire whether after first conception of each 

 of the vast variety of the animal frame, any or all individually received 

 additions or improvements ; to say they did not would be to limit the 

 divine intelligence. Neither can we conjecture whether they were pre- 

 ceded by any model of their form. 



Though rejecting the theory of some recent philosophers, that if 

 animals laboured under inconvenience from positive deficiency of mem- 

 bers, the plastic powers of Nature would shoot forth still one or another, 

 or a second pair, some modification of the creative faculty was perhaps 

 exercised. A multitude of similar organs might be actually augmented, 

 reduced, or improved in the species, as the necessities and the benefit of 

 the genus required. 



It is true, that if an animal with numerous feet be mutilated of a 

 portion of them, another portion will originate to supply the loss, and 

 hence, from superficial views, the theory has arose. But it is alike true, 

 that if many animals, entirely deficient of external organs, undergo 

 mutilations, reproductive energies will restore the defective body though 

 unfurnished with limbs. 



Nothing can be more vague and imperfect than our ideas of the 

 incidents of the creation, for all our reasoning must be bounded by the 

 narrowest circle ; therefore resolving into simple conjectures regarding a 

 subject too intricate and obscure to be compassed by the highest facul- 

 ties of mortals. 



That Nature does undergo some temporary or permanent modifica- 

 tions is undoubted, though to what extent is unknown. If animals and 

 vegetables were from the first adapted for special climates, and if living 

 beings required sustentation to support life, it is beyond human compre- 



