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APPENDIX. 



circumstance? Or have they resulted from the combined 

 agency of both ? Is there only one living principle? 

 Does organized existence, and perhaps all material exist- 

 ence, consist of one Proteus principle of life capable of 

 gradual circumstance-suited modifications and aggrega- 

 tions, without bound under the solvent or motion-giving 

 principle, heat or light ? There is more beauty and uni- 

 ty of design in this continual balancing of life to circum- 

 stance, and greater conformity to those dispositions of 

 nature which are manifest to us, than in total destruc- 

 tion and new creation. It is improbable that much of 

 this diversification is owing to commixture of species 

 nearly allied, all change by this appears very limited, and 

 confined within the bounds of what is called Species ; 

 the progeny of the same parents, under great difference 

 of cii'cumstance, might, in several generations, even be- 

 come distinct species, incapable of co-reproduction. 

 - The self-regulating adaptive disposition of organized 

 life may, in part, be traced to the extreme fecundity of 

 Nature, who, as before stated, has, in all the varieties of 

 her offspring, a prolific power much beyond (in many 

 cases a thousandfold) what is necessary to fill up the 

 vacancies caused by senile decay. As the field of exist- 

 ence is limited and pre-occupied, it is only the hardier, 

 more robust, better suited to circumstance individuals, 

 who are able to struggle forward to maturity, these inha- 

 biting only the situations to which they have superior ad- 

 aptation and greater power of occupancy than any other 

 kind ; the weaker, less circumstance-suited, being prema- 



