400 On the Creation, Diffusion, and 



the above theory supposes, many of them would shortly have 

 been exterminated, and the earth abandoned to those of 

 hardier and ranker growth. Thus we are led to acknow- 

 ledge the importance of the insect tribes in keeping in check 

 those plants which would otherwise soon cause the extinc- 

 tion of the weaker and less hardy species ; and we are there- 

 fore unhesitatingly led to reject the doctrine which would 

 teach us, that the days of creation may be construed into in- 

 definite periods of thousands of years. 



It has already been shewn, that if the Mosaic days were 

 the same as these of our present time ; and if a single pair 

 only of each species was created, and that these species 

 were constituted as at present, — that many of them could 

 never have propagated or diffused themselves at all, but 

 would have fallen a prey to the fiercer tribes on the very 

 threshold or outset of their existence. 



It may however be strongly urged as an objection to this 

 line of argument, and with every probability of truth, that 

 death and decay came into the world as a consequence 

 to man's transgression, and therefore as they did not visit 

 the organic creation until after the Fall, no destruction of 

 species could take place at the outset. 



This point being ceded, as it necessarily must, and as 

 we know that the carnivorous races could not have subsist- 

 ed upon vegetable diet alone, unless their natures and 

 habits have undergone a total and radical change since 

 then, it reduces us to the necessity of believing, that none 

 of the purely carnivorous animals of our time could have 

 existed till subsequent to the fall of man ; for had they been 

 created previous to that event, they must have been herbivo- 

 rous, and not, as now, carnivorous ; nor need this reasoning 

 in any way perplex or surprise us, for it is in strict accord- 

 ance with the doctrines of the Bible, as set forth in the 

 twenty-ninth and thirtieth verses of the very first chapter 

 of Genesis, wherein it is clearly stated, that to man was 



