Not only is the serpentine of the Lizard found at Clicker Tor, but the
plant also indicative of that formation, the great ornament of our
southern promontory, the ERRICA VAGANS, the multiflora of Hudson and
Ray, and the didyma of Withering. Nothing seems to be more
extraordinary, nor what, independently of experience, would be more
unexpected, than the existence of the same rare plants at distant and
unconnected places, where the peculiarities of soil and climate happen
to agree; but to increase the wonder still further, even this
diffusion has its limits. The southern hemisphere is said not to be
decorated by a single wild rose, the Ανασσα Ανθων of the northern
world. And the whole continent of America is believed not to produce a
single heath.
Our preconceptions of what would be fitting for intelligences superior
to our own, and _a fortiori_ as to what might be expected from
infinite wisdom and power, have been established beyond the shadow of
a doubt by SIR ISAAC NEWTON, in respect to the great bodies moving in
our universe. They perform all their revolutions in obedience to the
simple and general laws of gravity and inertia; and the rapidly
progressive discoveries of each succeeding year, establish the same
principle respecting causes acting conformably to general laws in the
internal construction, preservation, and renovation of our planet; and
we are moreover induced to believe that a like system must prevail in
the moral world, not from analogy alone, but from a deep conviction
that such a plan, and no other, can reconcile the existence of partial
evil with universal good: and thus conciliate the actual state of
things with the attributes of unlimited goodness, wisdom, and power;
but in respect to animal and vegetable life, although an arrangement
as plain and as demonstrative of infinite wisdom may exist, it is, in
the actual state of our knowledge, utterly hidden from our view.
Thousands of distinct species or genera have ceased to exist, and
their remains, varying from the most gigantic skeletons to objects
suited for a microscope, are daily brought under our view――animals and
plants have succeeded each other in the various geological periods,
tending in succession towards more elaborate construction and greater
general perfection; but not a trace is laid before us of the plan by
which this beautiful system is arranged; our ignorance compels us
therefore to suppose the immediate agency of THE DIVINITY itself, when
a plant indigenous to an old formation appears on one more recently
elevated to the surface; or when any of the innumerable changes take
place in an organized inhabitant of this or of some other plant.