172 



DEVELOPMENT OF OKGANIC LIFE 



[Ch. IX. 



to convey tlie idea, that a real departure from the ante- 

 cedent course of physical events cannot be traced in the 

 introduction of man. If that latitude of action which enables 



to accommodate 

 circumstances cot 



former 



were as much diversified as are those of human reason it 

 might, perhaps, be contended, that the agency of man did 



m 



tablished order of things. It might then have been said, that 

 the earth's becoming at a particular period the residence of 

 human beings, was an era in the moral, not in the rVhvsiVal 

 world — that our studv and c< 



the laws which govern its 



ntemplation 

 limate nrodi 



more to be considered in the light of a disturbance or devi- 

 ation from the system, than the discovery of the satellites of 

 Jupiter should be regarded as a physical event affecting those 

 heavenly bodies. Their influence in advancing the progress 



and in aiding navigation and com- 



among men 

 3 accompani 



mind upon the economy of nature in those distant planets ; 

 and so the earth might be conceived to have become, at a 



moral 



and intellectual 



provement to man 



previously existing order of change in its animate and inan- 



imate productions. 



The distinctness, however, of the human from all other 

 species, considered merely as an efficient cause in the physi- 

 cal world, is real ; for we stand in a relation to contemporary 

 species of animals and plants widely different from that 

 which other irrational animals can ever be supposed to have 

 held to each other. We modify their instincts, relative num- 

 bers, and geographical distribution, in a manner superior in 

 degree, and in some respects very different in kind, from that 

 in which any other species can affect the rest. Besides, the 

 progressive movement of each successive generation of men 

 causes the human species to differ more from itself in power 

 at two distant periods, than any one species of the higher 

 order of animals differs from another. The establishment, 





he eeafl 



uature h 



9 the • 



nay 



be a: 



the law n 



w 



tion. insl 



modify hi 



the unva: 



power of 



the cha ; 

 or in ft 



