CREATION BY LAW. 289 



range of equal extent. Indeed, it may be said 

 with truth, that never in all the changes of Time 

 has there been any alteration throughout the 

 whole scale of Organic Life, in the fundamental 

 principles of chemical and mechanical adjustment, 

 on which the great animal functions of Respira- 

 tion, Circulation, and Reproduction, have been 

 provided for.* These are fundamental similari- 

 ties of plan, depending probably on the very 

 nature of Forces which necessitate these adjust- 

 ments in order to the production of the pheno- 

 mena of Life — Forces of which we know nothing, 

 but which we have not the slightest reason to sup- 

 pose are due to Inheritance. Other similarities of 

 plan may depend on the same laws, equally un- 

 connected with Inheritance by descent. 



Inheritance, indeed, has been suggested as the 

 cause of organic likeness, mainly because there is 

 a difficulty in conceiving any other. But there 

 is at least an equal difficulty in conceiving the 

 applicability of this cause to Man. We have 

 already seen f that Mons. Guizot lays it down as 



* Agassiz' Geological Sketches, p. 41. London, 1S66. 

 T P. 28. 



T 



