If fish can be fed upon water and stone; if siliceous bodies can, by
the digesting powers of animals, be converted into argillaceous and
calcareous earths; and if inflammable matter can be prepared without the
intervention of vegetable bodies, we might erect a system in which this
should be the natural order of things. But to form a system in direct
opposition to every order of nature that we know, merely because we may
suppose another order of things different from the laws of nature which
we observe, would be as inconsistent with the rules of reasoning in
science, by which the speculations of philosophy are directed, as it
would be contrary to common sense, by which the affairs of mankind are
conducted.
Still, however, to pursue our visionary system, after a continent had
been formed from the relicts of those animals, living, growing, and
propagating, during an indefinite series of ages, plants at last are
formed; and, what is no less wonderful, those animals which had formed
the earth then disappear; but, in compensation, we are to suppose, I
presume, that terrestrial animals began.
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