vivifying principle, whose internal working is inexplicable, and can only be referred to an all-wise efficient Power.

But leaving plants, if we follow up the chain of organized matter, from the polypus, the snail, and the oyster, to the most perfect animal structure; whether we contemplate the living forms adapted to the air, the water, or the earth-as the zoophyte, the reptile, the insect, the fish, the amphibia, the bird, or the beast; we see them all exquisitely fashioned, and perfect in their kinds.

We see that the arts, by which the several tribes are preserved, and the species perpetuated, are varied in so many thousand ways, that it is nearly demonstrable, nothing but a Supreme and infinitely wise Ruler, could have so diversified their forms, and adapted their structure so wonderfully to their different instincts. For, whether they are endowed with more or less sagacity, it is plain, that every one answers the design of its creation as completely, though in its limited sphere, as the Sun, the Moon, or any of the planetary orbs.

There is a remarkable coincidence in the ideas contained in the following passages from Virgil and Pope, which is too obviously connected with the preceding reasonings, to require further comment.

"All are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose body Nature is, and God the soul;
That changed thro' all, and yet in all the same,
Great in the Earth, as in the etherial frame;
Warms in the Sun, refreshes in the breeze,
Glows in the Stars, and blossoms in the trees,
Lives thro' all life, extends thro' all extent,
Spreads undivided, operates unspent ;
Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part,
As full, as perfect in a hair as heart-
As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns,
As the rapt Seraph, that adores and burns"....

"Who taught the nations of the field and wood
To shun their poison, and to choose their food?
Prescient, the tides or tempests to withstand,
Build on the wave, or arch beneath the sand?
Who made the spider parallels design
Sure as Demoivre, without rule or line?
Who bid the stork, Columbus-like, explore

Heavens not his own,

and worlds unknown before?

Who calls the council, states the certain day,

Who forms the phalanx, and who points the way?

GOD, in the nature of each being, founds

Its proper bliss, and sets its proper bounds."

Pope's Essay on Man.

It is necessary to premise that Virgil had some leaning to the Pythagorean doctrine of Metempsychosis.

"Know first, that heav'n and earth's compacted frame,
And flowing waters, and the starry flame,
And both the radiant lights, one common soul
Inspires and feeds-and animates the whole.
This active mind, infus'd through all the space,
Unites and mingles with the mighty mass.
Hence men and beasts the breath of life obtain,
And birds of air, and monsters of the main ;
The etherial vigour is in all the same;
And every soul is filled with equal flame-
As much as earthy limbs and gross allay
Of mortal members subject to decay,

Blunt not the beams of heav'n and edge of day.
From this coarse mixture of terrestrial parts,
Desire and fear by turns possess their hearts,

And grief and joy; nor can the groveling mind
In the dark dungeon of the limbs confined,
Assert the native skies, or own its heavenly kind."
Dryden's Virgil.

Justin Martyr gives the following summary of the opinion of Pythagoras: viz. "God is one; he is not as some conjecture, exterior to the world, but in himself entire, pervades the universal sphere, superintends all productions, is the support of all nature, eternal, the source of all power, the first simple principle of all things, the origin of celestial light, the father of all, the mind and animating principle of the universe, the first mover of all the spheres."*

* See Aikin's General Biography-Justin Martyr.

SECT. II.

Perfection of Instinct in its operations.

It seems evidently to be the design of nature, that not only the vegetable kingdom, but the different tribes of the animal, should be subservient to the uses of man; for whom we may legitimately presume they were created, because we see no other animal superior to ourselves. We find therefore that the preservation and perpetuation of the several species have been guarded and secured by an Intelligence more vigilant and active, and more perfect than the most enlightened human reason. And this Intelligence, operating in the brutes from the highest to the lowest, for these special purposes, we have been accustomed to designate by the term of Instinct. But from every thing we can discern, it does not appear, that brutes themselves in accomplishing those purposes for which they were obviously designed, have any rational notions of the end of their own works. It simply appears, that by the direction of this powerful principle, in obedience to certain modes of structure and bodily sensations prompting them to act, they pursue, blindly and without foresight, those ends or operations, on which, as far as they are individually concerned, the integrity of the whole scheme of nature and its

durability depend. It is obvious, that to harmonize and order aright so many thousand created things; varying infinitely in structure, in habits, and propensities; interfering too continually in their several objects and mutual wants; supporting and destroying one another; nothing short of the most comprehensive and exalted Intelligence would be required. We have, therefore, the evidence of wisdom in each, as well as in the whole;-in the individual fibre and the entire animal ;-in each animal separately, and in its relations to every thing around it,—to the complete circle of animated beings.

What I aim, therefore, to impress, is this, that every thing which regards the administration of the physical government of the world, the Deity has reserved to his own keeping: so that whatever is of supreme importance to the general good; whether in the unconscious elements, the vegetating plant, the moving reptile, or the living animal; whether in the highest order of thinking brutes, or even in the physical economy of man himself; is under the immediate controul and superintendence of Divine Wisdom, and not of human Reason.

Where Reason, therefore, would be a feeble and uncertain guide, sometimes ready for service, and sometimes slumbering at its post, Instinct is ever found to be a prompt minister, faithful to its trust.