FOSSIL MAMMALIA. DINOTHERIUM. 109 



animal nutrition, from whence the materials of its body 

 have been derived. Thus the great drama of universal 

 life is perpetually sustained ; and though the individual 

 actors undergo continual change, the same parts are ever 

 filled by another and another generation ; renewing the face 

 of the earth, and the bosom of the deep, with endless suc- 

 cessions of life and happiness. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



pToofs of design in the Structure of Fossil Vertehrated 

 Animals. 



SECTION I. 



FOSSIL MAMMALIA. DINOTHERIUM. 



Enough has, I trust, been stated in the preceding chapter, 

 to show the paramount importance of appealing to organic 

 remains, in illustration of that branch of physico-theology 

 with which we are at present occupied. 



The structure of the greater number, even of the earliest 

 fossil Mammalia, differs in so few essential points from that 

 of the living representatives of their respective Orders, that 

 I forbear to enter on details which would indeed abound 

 with evidences of creative design, but would offer little that 

 is not equally discoverable in the anatomy of existing 

 species. I shall, therefore, limit ray observations to two 

 extinct genera, which are perhaps the most remarkable of 

 all fossil Mammalia, for size and unexampled peculiarities 

 of anatomical construction ; the first of these, the Dinothe- 



vol. I. — 10 



