PREDOMINANT THEORY EXAMINED. 279 



special exertion. But the truth is, that various regions 

 exhibit variations altogether without apparent end or pur- 

 pose. Professor Henslow enumerates forty-five distinct 

 floras, or sets of plants, upon the surface of the earth, not- 

 withstanding that many of these would be equally suita- 

 ble elsewhere. The animals of different continents are 

 equally various, few species being the same in any two, 

 though the general character may conform. The infer- 

 ence at present drawn from this fact is, that there must 

 have been, to use the language of the Rev. Dr. Pye Smith, 

 " separate and original creations, perhaps at different and 

 respectively distant epoch- " It seems hardly conceiva- 

 ble that rational men should give an adherence to such a 

 doctrine when we think of what it involves. In the 

 single fact that it necessitates a special fiat of the incon- 

 ceivable Author of this sand-cloud of worlds to produce 

 the flora of St. Helena, we read its more than sufficient 

 condemnation. It surely harmonizes far better with our 

 general ideas of nature to suppose that, just as all else in 

 this far-spread scene was formed by the laws impressed 

 on it at first by its Author, so also was this. An excep- 

 tion presented to us in such a light appears admissible 

 only when we succeed in forbidding our minds to follow 

 out those reasoning processes to which, by another law 

 of the Almighty, they tend, and for which they are adapted. 



I feel that I have dwelt long enough on this part of the 

 question, and yet there are a few geological facts which 

 here can for special comment, and I am loath to overlook 

 them. As is well known, most of the large carnivores 

 and pachyderms of the late tertiary formations very closely 

 resemble existing species ; but they are, nevertheless, de- 

 termined to be distinct species by Professor Owen and 

 other eminent authorities, in consideration of certain pe- 

 culiarities. The peculiarities are, in general, trifling, 

 such as differences in the tubercles or groovings of the 

 surface of teeth, or greater or less length of body or ex- 

 tremities ; but no matter of what the differences consist. 

 Enough for the present that they are held by Mr. Owen 

 and his friends to be of that character which are never 

 passed in generation, but necessarily imply a new crea- 

 tion, a separate effort of Divine power. Now it so hap- 

 pens that all the tertiary species, or so-called species, 

 have not been changed or extirpated. There is a Badger 

 Df the Miocene, w T hich cannot be distinguished from the 



