science, it may be asked, seem to show that noxious things existed in the earth before man sinned? that carnivorous animals were in existence, ages, indeed, before man came into being at all? How is this to be accounted for?
Let us examine this point. That carnivorous animals existed in the early geological periods, and long before the earth was rendered fit for the habitation of man, is unquestionable. This is proved indirectly by a variety of circumstances, but it is also substantiated by very direct proof. "In some members of the Secondary class of strata," says Dr. Pye Smith, "are found the skeletons of gigantic lizard-formed animals, with their stomachs remaining under their ribs, and those stomachs still retaining the more solid relics of their food, among which are fish-scales and bits of bone." This fact, therefore, seems ascertained clearly enough. But what is the inference to be drawn from it? Both Pye Smith and Dr. Buckland take much pains, and we think successfully, to show—that this fact is no proof of want of benevolence or goodness on the part of the Creator, but the contrary. They show that this provision—namely, that animals should be sustained by feeding on other animals,—was in the first place an absolute necessity, particularly in regard to fish and other sea-animals; that otherwise, in a short period, the sea would be over-stocked, the whole ocean would be filled, for, as as is well known, so rapid is the multiplication of fishes, that a single individual will deposit in one season, not less than millions of eggs or spawn.[1] Suppose, then, that
- ↑ "It is asserted of the herring," says a writer, "that, if suffered to multiply unmolested, and its offspring undiminished, during the space of twenty years, it would show a progeny many
