"In all the numerous examples of design which we have selected from the various animal and vegetable remains that occur in a fossil state," says Dr. Buckland, "there is such a never-failing identity in the fundamental principles of their construction, and such uniform adoption of analogous means to produce various ends, with so much only of departure from one common type of mechanism as was requisite to adapt each instrument to its own especial function, and to fit each species to its peculiar place and office in the scale of created beings, that we can scarcely fail to acknowledge in all these facts a demonstration of the unity of the intelligence in which such transcendent harmony originated; and we may almost dare to assert that neither atheism nor polytheism would ever have found acceptance in the world, had the evidences of high intelligence and unity of design which have been disclosed by modern discoveries in physical science been fully known to the authors or the abetters of systems to which they are so diametrically opposed. It is the same handwriting that we read, the same system and contrivance that we trace, the same unity of object and relation to final causes which we see maintained throughout, and constantly proclaiming the unity of the great divine original."--_Bridgewater Treatise_, p. 584. "The earth, from her deep foundations, unites with the celestial orbs, that roll throughout boundless space, to declare the glory and show forth the praise of their common Author and Preserver; and the voice of natural religion accords harmoniously with the testimonies of revelation, in ascribing the origin of the universe to the will of one eternal and dominant intelligence, the almighty Lord and supreme First Cause of all things that subsist; _the same yesterday, to-day, and forever, before the mountains were brought forth, or ever the earth and the world were made, God from everlasting and without end_."--_Bridgewater Treatise_, p. 596. LECTURE IX. THE HYPOTHESIS OF CREATION BY LAW.