Closely connected with the supposition of worlds created longer ago than the earth, is that of successive creations of plants and animals to supply the defect of new or remote continents and islands. Many who, conformably to the Scriptures, hold to the identity of the human race as descended from one primitive pair, though distributed over all the continents and islands, and exhibiting in many respects extreme diversity, profess nevertheless to believe that there have been many successive creations of brute animals since, if not prior to the deluge. Though pairs of the inferior races as well as of the human race were preserved in the ark, and for the same reason--"to keep seed alive _upon the face of all_ the earth," and though no greater obstacles existed, so far as we know, to the dispersion of the inferior animals to all quarters of the globe than to that of man, they indulge the notion, without any authority from Scripture, or any demonstrable necessity, or any better reason than the exigency of a geological theory, that the Creator of the universe, in the course of his providence over this apostate and blighted world, has, from time to time, exercised his power in creating races of brutes to be subject to the conditions of those who shared in the consequences of the apostasy of man. Such a notion seems in every view incongruous and preposterous, without reason or necessity, inconsistent with the law of creation in respect to man, and unworthy of the perfections and of the moral purposes and administration of the Creator. It seems to imply the further notion, that the same providence which dispersed and preserved the human race in all quarters and climates of the world, was inadequate to the same results in the case of the lower animals, and that it was of such moment to keep every locality stocked with savage and carnivorous beasts as to call, from time to time, for the interposition of creative power. The object of the works of creation, as the scene of the moral and providential administration of the Creator, would, in harmony with the announcements of Scripture, seem to imply that they were brought into existence at one epoch. That administration had a beginning: at the beginning he created the scene and subjects of it. It extends to all worlds. It is one comprehensive, universal, perfect system, involving the rights and prerogatives of the Supreme Ruler, which are founded on the fact of his being the Creator of all; and the obligations and duties of intelligent creatures, which arise from the fact of their owing their existence to him.