m that of every other. We are therefore
led to admit either a repeated miraculous conception, or _a power of
change under change of circumstances_ to belong to living organized
matter, or rather to the congeries of inferior life which appears to
form superior." (By this I suppose Mr. Matthew to imply his assent to
the theory, that our personality or individuality is but as it were "the
consensus, or full flowing river of a vast number of subordinate
individualities or personalities, each one of which is a living being
with thoughts and wishes of its own.") "The derangements and changes in
organized existence, induced by a change of circumstances from the
interference of man, afford us proof of the plastic quality of superior
life; and the likelihood that circumstances have been very different in
the different epochs, though steady in each, tend strongly to heighten
the probability of the latter theory.

"When we view the immense calcareous and bituminous formations,
principally from the waters and atmosphere, and consider the oxidations
and depositions which have taken place, either gradually or during some
of the great convulsions, it appears at least probable that the liquid
elements containing life have varied considerably at different times in
composition and weight; that our atmosphere has contained a much greater
proportion of carbonic acid or oxygen; and our waters, aided by excess
of carbonic acid, and greater heat resulting from greater density of
atmosphere, have contained a greater quantity of lime, and other mineral
solutions. Is the inference, then, unphilosophic that living things
which are proved to have _a circumstance-suiting power_ (a very slight
change of circumstance by culture inducing a corresponding change of
character), may have gradually accommodated themselves to the variations
of the elements containing them, and without new creation, have
presented the diverging changeable phenomena of past and present
organized existence?

"The destructive liquid currents before which the hardest mountains have
been swept and comminuted into gravel, sand, and mud, which intervened
between and divided these epochs, probably extending over the whole
surface of the globe and destroying nearly all living things, must have
reduced existence so much that an unoccupied field would be formed for
new diverging ramifications of life, which from the connected sexual
system of vegetables, and the natural instinct of an