



168 



DEVELOPMENT OF OEGANIC LIFE 



[Ch. IX 



may 



possessed by the lower animals. It 



whether the passage from an irrational to a rational animal 



is not a phenomenon of a distinct kind from the passage from 



sation and instinct. 



e more perlect lorms of animal ore 

 Without entering at rvmspm+, W^ 



discussion of this and other cognate questions which lie almost 



3 , we may endeavour 

 made to the doctrine 



uniformity 



human 



such a deviation from the antecedent course of physical events 

 that the knowledge of such a fact tends to destroy all our 

 confidence in the uniformity of the order of nature, both in 

 regard to time past and future ? If such an innovation could 

 take place after the earth had been exclusively inhabited for 



anim 

 d tut 



changes as extraordinary and 



time to time ? If one new cause was permitted to supervene, 



differing in kind and energy from any before in operation, 



may not others have come into 



may 



And if such be the case, how can the experience of one period, 

 even though we are acquainted with all the possible effects 

 of the then existing causes, be a standard to which we can 



nomena 



Now 



'6 



b 



uniformi 



time of the succession of sublunary 



-^ 



exam 



— -»- o JL -»- 



reveries of some Egyptian and Greek sects, who represented 



b 



moral and material 



peated at distant intervals, so as to follow each other in their 

 former connection of place and time. For they compared the 

 conrse of events on our globe to astronomical cycles ; and not 

 only did they consider all sublunary affairs to be under the 

 influence of the celestial bodies, but they taught that on the 

 earth, as well as in the heavens, the 



same 



mena recurred « o- a in and a<min 



t> 



in a 



same individual men were doomed 



perpetual vicissitude. 







p. 



id 



rfom 



111 





X 



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ll 





com 



bat 



surd.^ 

 that tli« 

 nniforffl 



format 



lave nc 

 of asm 



its phji 



never b 



: : lers 

 st - 

 it hi 



a ml 



tttremi 

 abrit 



tan 



»it 



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5 





am 



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