MR. PA TRICK MA TTHE W. 3 19 



living things which are proved to have a drmmstance- 

 swii/ng power (a very slight change of circumstance by 

 culture inducing a corresponding change of character), 

 may have gradually accommodated themselves to the 

 variations of the elements containing them, and without 

 new creation, have presented the diverging changeable 

 phenomena of past and present organized existence ? 



"The destructive liquid currents before which the 

 hardest mountains have been swept and comminuted 

 into gravel, sand, and mud, which intervened between 

 and divided these epochs, probably extending over the 

 whole surface of the globe and destroying nearly all 

 living things, must have reduced existence so much 

 that an unoccupied field would be formed for new 

 diverging ramifications of life, which from the con- 

 nected sexual system of vegetables, and the natural 

 instinct of animals to herd and combine with their own 

 kind, would fall into specific groups — these remnants in 

 the course of time moulding and accommodating their 

 being anew to the change of circumstances, and to 

 every possible means of subsistence — ^and the millions 

 of ages of regularity which appear to have followed 

 between the epochs, probably after this accommodation 

 was completed, affording fossil deposit of regular specific 

 character. 



"In endeavouring to trace .... the principle of 

 these changes of fashion which have taken place in the 

 domiciles of life the following questions occur : Do they 

 arise from admixture of species nearly allied producing 

 intermediate species ? Are they the diverging ramifi- 



