ned anything either in statement or principle contrary to such a
supposition, I would not entertain it for a moment, but I do not know
that it does. I do not know that it is anywhere implied that God created
no more after the six days' work was done. His Sabbath-rest having been
broken by the incoming of sin, we know from John v. 17, that He
continued to work without interruption; and we may fairly conclude that
progressive creation was included as a part of that unceasing work.

I know not whether my readers will take the same concern as I do in this
subject of the dying-out of species, but to me it possesses a very
peculiar interest. Death is a mysterious event, come when and how it
will; and surely the departure from existence of a species, of a type of
being, that has subsisted in contemporary thousands of individuals, for
thousands of years, is not less imposingly mysterious than that of the
individual exemplar.

We do not know with any precision what are the immediate causes of death
in a species. Is there a definite limit to life imposed at first? or is
this limit left, so to speak, to be determined by accidental
circumstances? Perhaps both: but if the latter, what are those
circumstances?

Professor Owen says:--"There are characters in land animals rendering
them more obnoxious to extirpating influences, which may explain why so
many of the larger species of particular groups have become extinct,
whilst smaller species of equal antiquity have survived. In proportion
to its bulk is the difficulty of the contest which the animal has to
maintain against the surrounding agencies that are ever tending to
dissolve the vital bond, and subjugate the living matter to the
ordinary chemical and physical forces. Any changes, therefore, in such
external agencies as a species may have been originally adapted to exist
in, will militate against that existence in a degree proportionate to
the size which may characterise the species. If a dry season be
gradually prolonged, the large mammal will suffer from the drought
sooner than the small one; if such alteration of climate affect the
quantity of vegetable food, the bulky herbivore will first feel the
effects of stinted nourishment; if new enemies be introduced, the large
and conspicuous animal will fall a prey while the smaller kinds conceal
themselves and escape. Small quadrupeds, moreover, are more prolific
than large ones. Those of the bulk of the mastodons, megatheria,
gl