IX.

INSECTS.

How inexpressibly various are the characteristics impressed by the eternal Creator on all living beings!

How has he stamped on each its legible and peculiar properties! How especially visible is this in the lowest classes of animal life! The world of insects is a world of itself. The distance between this and the world of men. I own is great; yet, were it sufficiently known, how useful would it be to human physiognomy! What certain proofs of the physiognomy of men must be obtained from insect physiognomy!

Through all their forms and gradations, how visible are their powers of destruction, of suffering and resisting; of sensibility and insensibility! Are not all the compact hardwinged insects physiognomonically and characteristically more capable and retentive than various light and tender species of the butterfly? Is not the softest flesh the weakest, the most suffering, the easiest to destroy? Are not the insects of least brain the beings

VOL. II.

most removed from man, who has the most brain?

Is it not perceptible in each species whe ther it be warlike, defensive, enduring, weak, enjoying, destructive, easy to be crushed, or crushing? How distinct in the external character are their degrees of strength, of defence, of stinging, or of appetite!

The agility and swiftness of the great dragon fly 1, are shewn in the structure of its wings. Perpetually on flight, in search of small flies.-How sluggish, on the contrary, is the crawling caterpillar 2! How carefully does he set his feet as he ascends a leaf! How yielding his substance, incapable of resistance !-How peaceable, harmless, and indolent is the moth 8!-How full of motion, bravery, and hardiness, is the industrious ant! How loath to remove, on the contrary, is the harnessed lady bird!

I.

A WORD ON MONKEYS.

Of all animals the monkey is known to have most the appearance of the human form. I cautiously repeat the appearance, for, I believe, the bones of the elephant, and also the bones of the heads of some horses, notwithstanding their great apparent dissimilarity, have more of the human form than the bones of the greater part of monkeys: but this applies properly to the bone of the nose in the horse.

Inconceivable is the distance between the nature of the man and the monkey.

Once more, oh man! rejoice in thy manhood. Inimitable as thou art, rejoice in thy inimitability. Seek not greatness by assuming the baseness of the brute, or humility in the degradation of thy nature.

The scull of certain monkeys, as we shall soon see, is most like the scull of man; there is, also, a similarity in the mode in which objects are impressed upon their mind.

Of the monkey species the most resembling men are the orang outang, and the pithecus, or pygmy. The other kinds depart much more from the form of the human body.