42 



[NTRODUCTION. 



t ermine the most important habits of the animal, are called 

 natural systems." 



Now this passage, and numerous others which I might 

 quote from the works of other modern writers, both popular 

 and scientific, to the like effect, appear to me to result either 

 from very incorrect ideas of the system of nature, or from a 

 carelessness of expression which leads us to imply the exist- 

 ence of such incorrect ideas. Let me not be misunderstood. 

 These passages seem to imply that, in the opinion of the 

 writers, a certain formation being bestowed upon an animal, 

 certain peculiarities of habit dependent thereupon are ac- 

 quired. Observe the result : — If we adopt this mode of 

 looking at the operations of nature, do we not immediately 

 fall into one of the worst errors of some of the worst of the 

 French philosophers ? Do we not at once virtually deny the 

 existence of design in the creation ? It was upon this very 

 point that our great philosoi^her, John Ray, contended with 

 such eloquence in his " Wisdom of God in the Works of the 

 Creation." Against the doctrine, that the bodies of men and 

 all other animals were the effects of the wisdom and power 

 of an intelligent and Almighty agent, and the several parts 

 and members of them designed to the uses to which now they 

 serve, the atheist, he observes, has one subterfuge in which 

 he most confides, viz., that all these uses of parts are no 

 more than what is necessary to the very existence of the 

 things to which they belong, and that things made uses, and 

 not uses things; and in this spirit Lucretius says, 



Nil ideo natum est in corpore ut uti 



Possumus, sed quod natum est, id procreat usum : 



And again — 



Omnia dcnique membra 



Antefuere, ut opinor, eorum quam fuit usus. 



So that, in the o})inion of the atheist, all this admired and 



