OF CREATION. 385 



groups into which we collect similar beings, organized 

 with the same characteristic peculiarities. Every- 

 thing in nature speaks of substitution and repre- 

 sentation a permanence of idea, but a ceaseless 

 change in the individual. 



Analogy, therefore, would teach us to expect that 

 there has always been and must always be this 

 amount of change. But does analogy go no farther ? 

 In the case of some animals, the young is first brought 

 into the world perfect in its kind, and filling a defi- 

 nite place among created beings, but not adapted to 

 the habits, and apparently not possessing the struc- 

 ture and peculiarities of the parent animal. But the 

 young becomes at length more perfectly developed, 

 acquiring a greater variety of wants and of powers, and 

 gradually seeming to exhibit a more complex, or, as 

 we are in the habit of considering it, a higher organi- 

 zation, but only seeming to do so. Here, therefore, 

 we have analogy of a remarkable kind, not with- 

 out its meaning, and worthy of being referred to as a 

 key in explaining difficulties. We know not why or 

 how it is that the egg of a butterfly, when it has 

 existed for a certain time, and has been exposed to 

 a certain temperature, becomes a worm, greedily de- 

 vouring green food, rapidly increasing in size, and 

 performing the important part it is known to do in 

 the economy of nature. Still less, if possible, can we 

 judge of the cause why this worm, after a time, build- 

 ing for itself a warm coat of silky fibre, burying 

 itself, as it were, in a shroud of its own manu- 

 facture, ceasing to feed, and scarcely remaining 

 alive, at last bursts forth in the form of the parent 

 animal, and lives for a short time on the tender juices 



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