No particular order
or position ever continues a moment unaltered. The original
force, still remaining in activity, gives a perpetual
restlessness to matter. Every possible situation is produced, and
instantly destroyed. If a glimpse or dawn of order appears for a
moment, it is instantly hurried away, and confounded, by that
never-ceasing force which actuates every part of matter.
Thus the universe goes on for many ages in a continued
succession of chaos and disorder. But is it not possible that it
may settle at last, so as not to lose its motion and active force
(for that we have supposed inherent in it), yet so as to preserve
an uniformity of appearance, amidst the continual motion and
fluctuation of its parts? This we find to be the case with the
universe at present. Every individual is perpetually changing,
and every part of every individual; and yet the whole remains, in
appearance, the same. May we not hope for such a position, or
rather be assured of it, from the eternal revolutions of unguided
matter; and may not this account for all the appearing wisdom and
contrivance which is in the universe? Let us contemplate the
subject a little, and we shall find, that this adjustment, if
attained by matter of a seeming stability in the forms, with a
real and perpetual revolution or motion of parts, affords a
plausible, if not a true solution of the difficulty.
It is in vain, therefore, to insist upon the uses of the
parts in animals or vegetables, and their curious adjustment to
each other.
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