STRUCTURE DEPENDENT ON HABITS. 



43 



applauded usefulness of their several fabrics is but a neees- 

 saiy contiition and consequence of their existence and pro- 

 pagation. 



If it could be proved that the doctrine contained in such 

 passages as those I have quoted, ought not to be identified 

 with the atheistical doctrines above alluded to, and refuted 

 so ably by Ray^ I would not have noticed the subject in this 

 manner ; but when it cannot be denied that the only inter- 

 pretation to be put upon the former coincides so exactly with 

 the latter, I think it my duty to guard my readers, and es- 

 pecially my younger readers, from unheedingly falling into 

 a train of thought in which the fore-knowledge and har- 

 monious contrivances of an all-wise Creator, with reference 

 to })reconceived and intended uses, are virtually denied ; at- 

 tributes which it is expressly 

 within the duty of the zoo- 

 logist to hold up to con- 

 templation and admiration, 

 and which the objects of his 

 study so continually present 

 to his view. I have pur- 

 posely abstained from en- 

 tering into the arguments 

 adduced by Ray in refuta- 

 tion of these atheistical 

 opinions, the opposite view 

 being fortunately too clear 

 to need much argument in its support. He would be but a 

 sorry architect who, having completed the building of a 

 splendid palace, had not, previously to its erection, planned 

 the uses of its various apartments, and adapted the size 

 and situation of each to its intended uses. 



We have thus seen that it is l)y the continual accumulation 

 of facts, and by noticing the adaptation of structure to habits, 



A, fore leg of the mole cricket, formed for 

 digging under ground, tlie articulated tarsus, 

 a, being lodged in the groove, 6,when in action. 

 B, fore leg of a sand-wasp, formed for burrou- 

 ingin loose sand ; the ciliae, ri a, being employed 

 in orushing away the loose particles. 



