4 
CARNIVORA. 
therefore be cautious not to become the dupe of 
those, who would make science the greatest ' curse 
that could visit the Earth, if it were effectual in 
establishing their own fancied refutation of our re- 
ligion. 
Why then this fair creation should be so much 
defaced, and murder be introduced by necessity to 
perform the work of death more expeditiously than 
casualties, disease, and the restlessness of nature; 
and why. many animals should die, that one may 
live ; are still among those questions, which neither 
the wisdom of antiquity, the active research of mo- 
dern times, nor the Sacred Volume itself has satis- 
factorily answered. 
That man is justified in his carnivorous habits, is 
clear from the express word of God, to be understood 
perhaps as little short of a command, or we should 
be disputing His providence, and despising His 
goodness towards us : and the inferior members of 
creation are equally justified by the authority of 
visible nature ; an authority naturalists have long and 
often observed in the peculiarities fitting every ani- 
mal for that species of sustenance, which it is ob- 
served exclusively to seek^ and the mode of life it 
must necessarily follow to maintain its existence. 
These peculiarities have been seized upon as sub- 
stantial and tangible characters, by which to separate 
and classify the animal kingdom; in general ; arid as 
the different species, which compose the order now 
under consideration, are more or less inclined to a 
carnivorous regimen, so are they more or less fitted 
