COMMON OBJECT OK CUEATION. 293 
lakes, and rivers. The great purpose of their 
existence seems at all times to have been, to fill 
the waters with the largest possible amount of 
animal enjoyment. 
The sterility and solitude which have some- 
times been attributed to the depths of the ocean, 
exist only in the fictions of poetic fancy. The 
great mass of the water that covers nearly three- 
fourths of the globe is crowded with life, per- 
liaps more abundantly than the air, and the 
surface of the earth ; and the bottom of the 
Sea, within a certain depth accessible to light, 
swarms with countless hosts of worms, and creep- 
ing things, which represent the kindred families 
of low degree which crawl upon the land. 
The common object of creation seems ever 
to have been, the infinite multiplication of life. 
As the basis of animal nutrition is laid in the 
Vegetable kingdom, the bed of the ocean is not 
loss beautifully clothed with submarine vege- 
tation, than the surface of the dry land with 
Verdant herbs and stately forests. In both 
onses, the undue increase of herbivorous tribes 
is controlled by the restraining influence of those 
which are carnivorous ; and the common result 
iSj and ever has been, the greatest possible 
Amount of animal enjoyment to the greatest 
number of individuals. 
From no kingdom of nature does the doctrine 
nl gradual Development and Transmutation of 
