CHAP. VIII.

and regulated also its renovation; and the PART III. extinction of certain animal species, which existed prior to that last revolution, is proved, by their eruvia, to have been a part of His plan in

the renovation.

It is wisely remarked, in a passage cited from Camper by a writer whom I have lately quoted; "that it was not contrary to the "Divine Wisdom to ordain the cessation of "animal species, when they had entirely ful"filled the purpose for which they had been created, although that purpose is unknown to

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1

-Sapientia Divinæ non repugnare legem, qua res illas vel animalia illa desinere jubeat, "simulac scopo primario, nobis incognito, satisfecerunt penitus 1." That those species existed then, is manifest; but there is no evidence whatever, that they have existed since. What more probable physical cause can be assigned for the extinction of their races, than that universal revolution? What more probable moral cause, than the will and design of their Creator, the sole Author and Manager of the revolution? To our preserved progenitors, who were eyewitnesses of all its details, the extinction of those several species, must have been a subject of devout contemplation; not of that cold

PART III. speculating sentiment, which their fossil reCHAP. VIII. mains now produce in the cabinets of mere physical curiosity. Moral argument, can alone reach this question; mere physical reasoning can no more attain to it, than the rule of simple addition can resolve a problem in trigonometry.

By ascending to the first moral and physical cause of Newton, we obtain a direct and intelligible solution of the question; but, with the utmost labour of search among the secondary causes of the mineral geology, we can never obtain it; we only encounter the same perplexity, resulting from the same imperfection of analysis, that we witnessed in our inquiry concerning first formations. From that first cause alone it has happened, or can have happened; that races have become extinct, and have left no "memorial of themselves, except some small 66 fragments, which the NATURALIST (magnus Apollo!) can scarcely recognize1." The evidence, of extinct species and of changes in the forms of organized beings, demonstrates, to rational thought, the intervention of the same intelligent power who gave origin and primitive order to the general system; and exhibits, for the apprehension of the intellect, as it were, the Sign-Manual of the Creator.

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1 CUVIER, § 6. p. 38.

3

For,

CHAP. VIII.

A difficulty, which some of these extinct PART III. species occasion to this geology, arises from the circumstance of their not being found in the same places, or-the same strata, with those animals whose species have been preserved. Hence, it concludes, that they cannot have co-existed, but must have perished in different revolutions. Assuming the fact alleged to be universally confirmed, which is not the case; yet, the resort to different revolutions, is as unreasonable in this case as in all the preceding. suppose that the palæotheria and elephants did not inhabit the same regions of the submerged continents, as the camelopard and the kanguroo do not inhabit the same regions in the present 'continents, and that they were therefore not congregated in the same places, which is not only possible, but highly probable; and suppose that their that their races perished in different subsidences of land, and at different periods of the inundation, which is equally probable; then, they would not have been carried off by the same currents, at the same times, and in the same directions; and then, they would not have been deposited in the same places. Or, if the one was deposited before the other, with an interval of time sufficient to allow the continually agitated bottom of the sea to cast up and accumulate vast masses

CHAP. VIII.

PART III. of its moveable soils above it, before the other was brought and deposited; then, although they had co-existed, yet the one would become imbedded in deeper strata than the other; and thus, the hypothesis of different revolutions is not required, nor sustained, by the phænomena. It is not, therefore, by endeavouring to deduce geological theories from fossil remains, that the eminent naturalist, who has devoted so much ingenuity and zeal to the examination of them, will serve the cause of true knowledge; it is, by applying his anatomical and zoological skill and experience to discriminate between the extinct and the preserved species, and thus, to bring us acquainted with those animal races, which the Author of creation thought fit to exclude from His renovated earth.

CHAPTER IX.

CHAP. IX.

AGAIN, the mineral geology demands more revo- PART III, lutions, to enable itself to unriddle a phænomenon which is presented to it in penetrating the different strata of the globe. "If," it says, "we "examine with greater care these remains of

organized bodies, we shall discover in the "midst even of the most ancient secondary "strata, other strata that are crowded with "animal or vegetable productions which belong "to land and fresh water; and amongst the "most recent strata, that is, the strata which are nearest to the surface, there are some of "them in which land animals are buried under

heaps of marine productions. Thus, the various

catastrophes of our planet have not only "caused the different parts of our continent to "rise by degrees from the basin of the sea, but “it has also frequently happened, that lands "which had been laid dry have been again "covered by the water, in consequence either "of these lands sinking down below the level of “the sea, or of the sea being raised above the

level of the lands. The particular portions