ture: no fuch experiments are going on at prefent no fuch energy operates as that which is here fuppofed, and which should be constantly pushing into existence new varieties of beings; nor are there any appearances to fupport an opinion, that every poffible combination of vegetable or animal structure has formerly been tried. Multitudes of conformations, both of vegetables and animals, may be conceived capable of existence and fucceffion, which yet do not exist. Perhaps almost as many forms of plants might have been found in the fields, as figures of plants can be delineated upon paper. A countless variety of animals might have exifted which do not exift. Upon the fuppofition here ftated, we fhould fee unicorns and mermaids, fylphs and centaurs; the fancies of painters and the fables of poets realized by examples. Or, if it be alledged that these may tranfgrefs the limits of poffible life and propagation, we might, at leaft, have nations of human beings without nails upon their fingers, with more or fewer fingers and toes than ten, fome with one eye, others with one ear, with one noftril, or without the fenfe of fmelling at all. All thesey and a thousand other imaginable Usmct

F3

varieties,

varieties, might live and propagate. We may modify any one fpecies many different ways, all confiftent with life, and with the actions neceffary to preservation, although affording different degrees of conveniency and enjoyment to the animal. And if we carry these modifications through the different fpecies which are known to fubfift, their number would be incalculable. No reafon can be given why, if thefe deperdits ever exifted, they have now disappeared. Yet, if all poffible exiftences have been tried, they must have formed part of the catalogue.

But moreover, the division of organized fubftances into animals and vegetables, and the diftribution and fub-diftribution of each into genera and fpecies, which diftribution is not an arbitrary act of the mind, but is founded in the order which prevails in external nature, appear to me to contradict the fuppofition of the prefent world being the remains of an indefinite variety of existences; of a variety which rejects all plan. The hypothefis teaches, that every poffible variety of being hath, at one time or other, found its way into exiftenée (by what cause or in what manner is not faid), and that those which were badly

formed,

formed, perished: but how or why thofe which furvived fhould be caft, as we fee that plants and animals are caft, into regular claffes, the hypothefis does not explain; or rather the hypothefis is inconfiftent with this phæno

menon.

The hypothefis, indeed, is hardly deferving of the confideration which we have given to it. What should we think of a man, who, because we had never ourselves feen watches, telescopes, flocking-mills, fteam-engines, &c. made; knew not how they were made; or could prove by teftimony when they were made, or by whom ;-would have us believe that these machines, instead of deriving their curious structures from the thought and defign of their inventors and contrivers, in truth derive them from no other origin that this; that, a mass of metals and other materials having run when melted into all possible figures, and combined themselves in all poffible forms and fhapes and proportions, these things which we fee, are what were left from the accident, as beft worth preferving; and, as fuch, are become the remaining ftock of a magazine, which, at one time or other, has, by this means, contained every mechanism, useful and useless, convenient

F 4

vénient and inconvenient, into which fuch like materials could be thrown? I cannot diftinguish the hypothefis as applied to the works of nature, from this folution, which no: one would accept, as applied to a collection of machines.

V. To the marks of contrivance difcoverable in animal bodies, and to the argument deduced from them, in proof of defign, and of a defigning Creator, this turn is fometimes attempted to be given, viz. that the parts were not intended for the use, but that the ufe arofe out of the parts. This diftinction is intelligible. A cabinet-maker rubs his mahogany with fishfkin ; yet it would be too much to affert that the skin of the dog fifh was made rough and granulated on purpofe for the polishing of wood, and the use of cabinet-makers. Therefore the diftinction is intelligible. But I think that there is very little place for it in the works of nature. When roundly and generally affirmed of them, as it hath fometimes been, it amounts to fuch another ftretch of affertion, as it would be to fay, that all the implements of the cabinet-maker's workshop, as well as his fifhfkin, were fubftances accidentally configurated, " which he had picked up, and converted to his

use;

ufe; that his adzes, faws, planes, and gimlets, were not made, as we fuppofe, to hew, cut, fmooth, shape out, or bore wood with; but that, these things being made, no matter with what defign, or whether with any, the cabi net-maker perceived that they were applicable to his purpose, and turned them to account.

But, again; fo far as this folution is attempted to be applied to thofe parts of animals the action of which does not depend upon the will of the animal, it is fraught with still more evident abfurdity. Is it poffible to believe that the eye was formed without any regard to vifion; that it was the animal itself which found out, that though formed with no fuch. intention, it would ferve to fee with; and that the use of the eye, as an organ of fight, refulted from this discovery, and the animal's application of it? The fame queftion may be afked of the ear; the fame of all the fenfes. None of the fenfes fundamentally depend. upon, the election of the animal : confequently. neither upon his fagacity, nor his experience. It is the impreffion which objects make upon them that conftitutes their ufe. Under that impreffion he is paffive. He may bring objects, to the fenfe, or within its reach; he may felect these