PREFACE.
Three important subjects of inquiry in Natural Theology come under consideration in the present Treatise. The first regards the inorganic Elements of the Mineral Kingdom, and the actual dispositions of the Materials of the Earth: many of these, although produced or modified by the agency of violent and disturbing forces, afford abundant proofs of wise and provident Intention, in their adaptations to the uses of the Vegetable and Animal Kingdoms, and especially to the condition of Man.
The second relates to Theories which have been entertained respecting the Origin of the World; and the derivation of existing systems of organic Life, by an eternal succession, from preceding individuals of the same species; or by gradual transmutation of one species into another. I have endeavoured to show, that to all these Theories the phenomena of Geology are decidedly opposed.
The third extends into the Organic Remains of a former World the same kind of investigation, which Paley has pursued with so much success in his examination of the evidences of Design in the mechanical structure of the corporeal frame of Man, and of the inferior Animals which are placed with him on the present surface of the Earth.
The myriads of petrified Remains which are disclosed by the researches of Geology all tend to prove, that our Planet has been occupied in times preceding the Creation of the Human Race, by extinct species of Animals and Vegetables, made up, like living Organic Bodies, of “Clusters of Contrivances,” which demonstrate the exercise of stupendous
