18 



ponent parts. And so it is witli the objects which we 

 have been just discussing. When contemplated in a 

 mass, and by an uneducated eye, hosts of them may 

 appear to be identical ; but as our vision becomes clearer 

 and more acute, differences, formerly inappreciable, are 

 gradually made manifest, — until at last we can detect 

 modifications innumerable, throughout the entire length 

 of the living panorama ; and are enabled to endorse the 

 belief (repugnant a priori though it be), that individual 

 variations, even to the extent which I have ventured to 

 suggest, are not incompatible with specific similitudes. 



