AFFORD STRONGEST EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. 107 
kind, afforded by fossil organic remains, than I 
might have done, without such specific directions 
respecting the source from which my arguments 
are lo be derived. I know not how I can better 
fulfil the object thus proposed, than by attempt- 
ing to show that the extinct species of Animals 
and Vegetables which have, in former Periods, 
occupied our Planet, afford in their fossil re- 
mains, the same evidences of contrivance and 
design that have been shown by Ray, Derham, 
and Paley, to pervade the structure of existing 
Genera and species of organized Beings. 
From the high preservation in which we find 
the remains of animals and vegetables of each 
geological formation, and the exquisite mecha- 
nism which appears in many fossil fragments of 
their organization, we may collect an infinity 
of arguments, to show that the creatures from 
which all these are derived were constructed 
with a view to the varying conditions of the 
surface of the Earth, and to its gradually in- 
creasing capabilities of sustaining more complex 
forms of organic life, advancing through succes- 
sive stages of perfection.* 
* When we speak of different forms of animal life, as pos- 
sessing various degrees of perfection, we do not impute to any 
creature the presence of absolute imperfection, we mean only, 
that animals of more simple structure discharge a lower office 
in the gradually descending scale of animated beings. All per- 
fection has relation to the object proposed to be attained by 
each form of organization that occurs in nature, and nothing 
can be called imperfect which fully accomplishes the end pro- 
