were, but sprouts: for instance, the lobster can push out new claws, but not a new tail; in which great part of its vigour lies.

The farther the muscular powers enter the sphere of the nerves, the more are they imprisoned, as it were, in this organization. The more numerous and delicate the nerves of an animal, the more they are allied to nobler parts and senses: and, on the contrary, in those animals, in which irritability overpowers perception, and the muscular powers the nervous system;-where the latter is employed on mean functions and appetites, especially hunger, the species, according to our own standard, is less perfect in structure, and more gross in its manners; while in those possessed of an ample brain, the sensations and perceptions are remarkably exalted--just as the clownish part of human nature is capable of being changed and refined into the gentleness and accomplishment of taste and sentiment.

These, then, are the facts-the obvious rules, by which it has pleased Divine Providence to connect life and motion with the phenomena of perception and thought; in various degrees in the ascending scale; and yet so mysteriously in every gradation, that we can in no case separate that which is material from the immaterial; nor determine how much is attributable to mind and how much to matter. But it is clear that every where, and in every species, an active and intelligent principle must be inferred. Without it the materialist must find himself be

wildered. For as the bodies of brutes have their natural life and spring from the dust, so the body of man has analogous propensities, and may claim kindred with the worm, and with the earth out of which it was formed.

I may, indeed, be told, that the mechanism of the animal, in other words, its material structure, is sufficient to account for its operations; and that to introduce any thing of mind or an immaterial principle, operating in the lower animals, is to make them partakers of that immortal nature we conclude to be imparted only to man. But the latter consequence can with no good reason be drawn from it: because, upon this principle, every thing, in which traces of the divine finger are manifest, must be immortal also. Now, all nature bears these marks-and every hair of the head, every vessel, and every joint, is a miracle of divine workmanship. Every blade of grass, and every flake of snow,-the bird's feather and the fishes scale, have each their wonders. Yet these are not immortal. Nor does it appear that a spark of the divine, free, or self-acting nature, is communicated to any sublunary being but to Man.

It is quite impossible to separate the mechanism from the Art or Intelligence that designed, and the Power that formed. And however I may admit that the animal is capable by its own mechanism of producing those actions which are under its controul, I cannot with reason ascribe to its own power other actions going forward in its animal structure-actions

of vital necessity-of which, notwithstanding, it is wholly unconscious. Therefore, all its unconscious vital motions, together with the skill and perfection of its formation, must, by a necessary consequence, be referred to some intelligent agent.

But, if we believe that the earth, with all contained in it, was originally formed by an Almighty powera position which very few, even professed materialists, deny; we must also believe that the frame and constitution of nature are continued and sustained by the same power. Hence we must conclude that the divine energy pervades every part of the great system; every atom and every orb; the minute insect and the mighty whale; the invisible seed and the lofty oak. For, if we could imagine the divine superintendence to be withdrawn, even for a moment of time, anarchy and chaos would resume their ancient dominion. It is quite absurd and derogatory from the attributes of the Deity to suppose, as some do-and I state the argument with reverence-that the Supreme Being, having established laws, as they are pleased to say, by which all nature is governed, takes no farther trouble in the administration of these laws, but relinquishes his divine care, and reposes as a wearied mortal after his toil. This cannot be conceived of what is infinite in power. And the eye "that sleeps not by day, nor slumbers by night," represents an ever-watchful and bountiful Providence.

The materialist cannot show, notwithstanding this singular gradation in structure, movement, and action,

that we have observed in the scale of being up to man, how a single animated object in the creation regulates its own movements. The mechanism is not its own contrivance: and with this the unthinking animal has as little to do, as the infant with a knowledge of the structure and functions of its brain or heart.

There is a strict alliance, then, between man and every thing beneath him and around him;-an alliance in the elements of his body, in the mode of its production, of its nourishment, and its decay. He is dependent upon the grass of the field. He has appetites and passions like the reptile and the brute.

But, with all these powerful affinities that bind him to the earth, he has within him a principle that looks beyond the present world; that tells him all he sees and contemplates in this life relates only to the inferior propensities of his nature; and that convinces him he alone is the visible lord of the creation, for whom all these things were made; and consequently that he must be the connecting link between the visible and invisible worlds.

Consider the higher operations of the human mind. Calculate its wonderful capacities. Examine the range of its contemplations, and its conceptions of ideal happiness and perfection, even when unaided by revelation. Observe the good man in adversity,-his mind supporting itself with a godlike magnanimity :-And what relation have these sparks of a brighter flamethese indications of a noble and superior nature, to

the present constitution of things?-what congruity have these gleams of light that are now and then permitted to shine over us, with the darkness and changeableness, and reptile forms, that are here continually before our eyes!

Whatever the materialist may theoretically conclude, he cannot seriously persuade himself, that a little difference in form, or a nicer texture in the brain, constitutes all the difference between himself and the highest order of brutes.

Human imagination cannot conceive a being destined to fill the station occupied by man on this earth, with a different constitution of body from the present, to which numberless objections might not be readily advanced by any considerate mind. Of what elements, it might be asked, would the materialist have the human structure to be composed? If they were essentially different from those every where else observable in nature, there could be neither affinity nor harmony between them: and their growth, increase, and dissolution, would be quite inconceivable. If the elements were the same, the body must be subject to the same laws. But, if subject to the same laws, and other creatures inferior in the scale were also designed by infinite wisdom as necessary to complete the chain; and that these also should be subject to the same natural laws; their organization must needs have exhibited various lines of affinity and outward resemblance to that of man. Hence, the resemblance to the brute, in all that concerns the material structure of the