"When hoary Winter issues forth, The difference of climates, too, he would observe to arise from difference of position of countries on our globe's surface. To it he would trace the most profuse and constant variety of the earth's productions, and of living creatures of every description all enjoying existence. In the great magazine of the atmosphere which surrounds us, he would find a mixture most curiously and accurately adapted to the varied functions of animal and vegetable life. The solid part of our earth he would perceive to be the dwelling of living creatures. The sea also, "that wide path of communication among men," he would find to answer a similar purpose of residence to innumerable tribes; and while its waters are salt for wise purposes, he would find its exhalations to be sweetened by the nicest chemical process, and to descend fresh upon the earth, for the use of living creatures. The rivers produced by them too he would see returning back into the ocean; their streams performing ever and again the same wonderful round. These are curious instances of what, in the language of our demonstration, may be called the secondary wheels in the great machinery of nature. But our enquirer would proceed, and still would he find his simile and illustration to apply. The little insect fluttering in the sun's rays, brought into existence through his heat, and living upon the vapour rising with his summer influence, is far more interesting than the smallest of all the spindles of the cottonmill; nor are those more distinctly connected with the moving power, and the greatest wheel of the machine, than the little fly, through a chain of combining relations, is with the great luminary which is the centre of the earth's motion, and the vivifying principle of all that it contains. The enlightened Dr Paley remarks, that "in a multitude of proofs of deity, it is generally one that does the business ;" and he adds, that "two minds seldom fix on the same one." But clusters and systems of evidence like these, are much more powerful than what can be afforded by solitary instances; and the best demonstration of design and wisdom in the Creator is to be found in the important fact, that EVERY THING IN NATURE IS ADJUSTED TO EVERY THING,-all, as far as we can perceive, forming a WHOLE, of the most complete and accurate structure. But while so much intention and power are evident in the aggregate, they are clear also in all its parts. Our reasoning hitherto has been chiefly drawn from astronomy, and unquestionably the extension of it has tended materially to enlarge and confirm our ideas on this important subject. But astronomy has not alone opened a field of extensive illustration: Wherever science has carried her lamp, she has illuminated all around, and at every step has more and more distinctly shown the marks of the kindest beneficence and of boundless design and power. It would not be necessary, however, for our humble enquirer to resort for such demonstrations to science, in which he might probably be but little versant. Amid all the aptitudes of nature constantly before him, he would ever trace the finger of nature's God. The universality of light, and the adaptation of it to the eye; the fitting of the members of all creatures to their situations, as the fins, the air-bladders, and the gills of fishes to the water, the wings of birds to the air, the stomachs and teeth of granivorous and carnivorous animals respectively to their different kinds of food; the economy of the insect tribes; and the anatomical structure of the whole of the animated world ;—all demonstrate intelligence, beneficence, and power, of the most minute and wonderful kind. These attributes are discernible even in the destruction of animals ; and while the circumstance of their becoming the food of one another calls into existence much more of sentient being than could otherwise be, their sudden and unexpected transition from life by that means, instead of by long disease and lingering death, are proofs even of the mercy of their Creator. While we thus demonstrate the Deity from the bodies of living creatures, we cannot but see also the clearest proofs of him in the structure of their minds, if I may so express it; and in the accurate portion of intellect, which is assigned to every species, according to its wants. From the most insignificant shell-fish, to the faithful shepherd's dog and the sagacious elephant, and up even to man, the most perfect of this world's inhabitants, all have received such shares of it as are fitted to their respective wants, and no more. If less were allotted to them, they would be severally unfit for their states; and if more, they would be unhappy in them. If any lower animal had the understanding and feeling of a man, how hard would be its lot! and if a man had those only of any such animal, how inadequate would he be to the performance of his duties! But from this regularity of allotments there are exceptions. In some instances, actings are required of creatures beyond the reach of the portion of common intellect assigned to the species; and there the Creator comes to their aid with extraordinary instincts, and supplies their defects. In that way the bee constructs to itself cells, which all the mathematicians of the world could hardly surpass; and the migrating birds reach their places of destination across the wide ocean, with a certainty which its navigators could scarcely attain. CHAPTER IV. BUT in contemplating the living works of our Creator, our thoughts must rise in a particular manner to MAN: and while design, and unity, and accommodation of means to ends, appear in the less important parts of nature, it has been in him, though styled the lord of the creation, that an exception from such beautiful arrangement has by some persons been imagined to exist. It has been said, that the enjoyments of the lower animals are nearly complete, according to their kind; that all of them are provided with necessary clothing; that most of them live without labour; that several have the most valuable instincts, supplying the art of the architect, and superseding the use of the mariner's compass; that many of the little insect tribes have the particular kind of vegetable, on which they are to feed, ready for them, at the very time of their coming into existence, and lasting in plenty during their happy though short lives; and that while all of them partake of their Maker's bounty, they are without anxiety, and their sleep is not broken with thoughts of to-morrow. How different, it is contended, is it often with man, in all these respects? Born, it is said, in nakedness, and to trouble, and labouring for his bread with the sweat of his brow, few instincts supply his defects: his crop |