objects may be accurately depicted on the retina, that the ball of the eye may be easily turned in every direction, and that we may enjoy all the entertainments of vision.* If an atmosphere is thrown around the earth, it is for the purpose of attempering the rays of the sun, giving a lucid brightness to every part of the heavens, producing the morning and evening twilight, promoting evaporation and the respiration of animals, and causing the earth to bring forth abundance of food, by means of the rains and dews; all which effects produce happiness in a thousand different ways to every sentient being. If this atmosphere presses our bodies with a weight of thirty thousand pounds, it is in order to counterpoise the internal pressure of the circulating fluids, and to preserve the vessels and animal functions in due tone and vigour, without which pressure the elastic fluids in the finer vessels would inevitably burst them, and the spark of life be quickly extinguished. Thousands of examples of this description, illustrative of divine benevolence, might be selected from every part of the material system connected with our world, all of which would demonstrate that the communication of enjoyment is the great end of all the contrivances of infinite wisdom.

⚫ As an evidence of the care of the Creator to promote our enjoyment, the following instance may be selected in regard to the muscles of the eye. Nothing can be more manifestly an evidence of contrivance

Fig. 1.

There is a striking display of benevolence in the gratification afforded to our different senses. As the eye is constructed of the most delicate substances, and is one of the most admirable pieces of mechanism connected with our frame, so the Creator has arranged the world in such a manner as to afford it the most varied and delightful gratification. By means of the solar light, which is exactly adapted to the structure of this organ, thousands of objects of diversified beauty and sublimity are presented to the view. It opens before us the mountains, the vales, the woods, the lawns, the brooks and rivers, the fertile plains and flowery fields, adorned with every hue,-the expanse of the ocean and the glories of the firmament. And as the eye would be dazzled, were a deep red colour or a brilliant white to be spread over the face of nature, the divine goodness has clothed the heavens with blue and the earth with green, the two colours which are the least fatiguing and the most pleasing to the organs of sight, and at the same time one of these colours is diversified by a thousand delicate shades which produce a delightful variety upon the landscape of the world. The ear is curiously constructed for the perception of sounds, which the atmosphere is fitted to convey; and what a variety of pleasing sensations are pro

n, the depressor oculi, for pulling the globe of the eye down; f. adductor oculi, for turning the eye towards the nose; g, abductor oculi, for moving the globe of the eye outwards, to the right or left; h, obliquus inferior, for drawing the globe of the eye forwards, inwards, and downwards; i, part of the Fig. 2.

and design, and at the same time of benevolent intention, than these muscles, which are admirably adapted to move the ball of the eye in every direction, upwards, downwards, to the right hand, to the left, and in whatever direction we please, so as to preserve that parallelism of the eye which is necessary to distinct vision. In fig. 1. is exhibited the eyeball with its muscles; a, is the optic nerve; b, the musculus trochlearis, which turns the pupil downwards and outwards, and enables the ball of the eye to roll about at pleasure; c, is part of the os frontis, to which the trochlea or pulley is fixed, through which d, the tendon of the trochlearis, passes; e, is the attolens oculi, for raising up the globe of the eye;

a

superior maxillary bone, to which it is fixed; k, the eyeball. Fig. 2. represents the same muscles in a different point of view, where the same letters refer

to the same muscles.

All these opposite and antagonist muscles preserve a nice equilibrium, which is effected partly by their equality of strength, partly by their peculiar origin, and partly by the natural posture of the body and the eye, by which means the eye can be turned instantaneously towards any object, preserved in perfect steadiness, and prevented from rolling about in hideous contortions. This is only one out of a hundred instances in relation to the eye, in which the same benevolent design is displayed.

duced by the objects of external nature intended to affect this organ! The murmurings of the brooks, the whispers of the gentle breeze, the hum of bees, the chirping of birds, the lowing of the herds, the melody of the feathered songsters, the roarings of a stormy ocean, the dashings of a mighty cataract, and, above all, the numerous modulations of the human voice and the harmonies of music, produce a variety of delightful emotions which increase the sum of human enjoyment. To gratify the sense of smelling, the air is perfumed with a variety of delicious odours, exhaled from innumerable plants and flowers. To gratify the feeling, pleasing sensations of various descriptions are connected with almost every thing we have occasion to touch; and to gratify the sense of taste, the earth is covered with an admirable profusion of plants, herbs, roots, and delicious fruits of thousands of different qualities and flavours, calculated to convey an agreeable relish to the inhabitants of every clime. Now, it is easy to conceive, that these gratifications were not necessary to our existence. The purposes of vision, as a mere animal sensation for the use of self-preservation, might have been answered, although every trace of beauty and sublimity had been swept from the universe, and nothing but a vast assemblage of dismal and haggard objects had appeared on the face of nature. The purpose of hearing might have been effected although every sound had been grating and discordant, and the voice of melody for ever unknown. We might have had smell without fragrance or perfume; taste with out variety of flavour; and feeling, not only without the least pleasing sensation, but accompanied with incessant pain. "But, in this case, the system of nature would have afforded no direct proofs, as it now does, of divine benevolence.

The remedies which the Deity has provided against the evils to which we are exposed, are likewise a proof of his benevolence. Medicines are provided for the cure of the diseases to which we are liable; heat is furnished to deliver us from the effects of cold; rest from the fatigues of abour; sleep from the languors of watching; artificial light to preserve us from the gloom of absolute darkness, and shade from the injuries of scorching heat. Goodness is also displayed in the power of self-restoration which our bodies possess, in recovering us from sickness and disease, in healing wounds and bruises, and in recovering our decayed organs of sensation, without which power almost every human being would present a picture of deformity, and a body full of scars and putrefying sores. The pupil of the eye is so constructed, that it is capable of contracting and dilating by a sort of instinctive power. By this means the organ of vision defends itself from the blindness which might ensue from the admission of too great a quantity of light; while,

on the other hand, its capacity of expansion, so as to take in a greater quantity of rays, prevents us from being in absolute darkness even in the deepest gloom, without which we could scarcely take a step with safety during a cloudy night. Again, in the construction of the human body, and of the various tribes of animated beings, however numerous and complicated their organs, there is no instance can be produced that any one muscle, nerve, joint, limb, or other part, is contrived for the purpose of producing pain. When pain is felt, it is uniformly owing to some derangement of the corporeal organs, but is never the necessary result of the original contrivance. On the other hand, every part of the construction of living beings, every organ and function, and every contrivance, however delicate and minute, in so far as its use is known, is found to contribute to the enjoyment of the individual to which it belongs, either by facilitating its movements, by enabling it to ward off dangers, or in some way or another to produce agreeable sensations.

In short, the immense multitude of human beings which people the earth, and the ample provision which is made for their necessities, furnish irresistible evidence of divine goodness. It has been ascertained, that more than sixty thousand species of animals inhabit the air, the earth, and the waters, besides many thousands which have not yet come within the observation of the naturalist. On the surface of the earth there is not a patch of ground or a portion of water, a single shrub, tree, or herb, and scarcely a single leaf in the forest, but what teems with animated beings. How many hundreds of millions have their dwellings in caves, in the clefts of rocks, in the bark of trees, in ditches, in marshes, in the forests, the mountains and the valleys! What innumerable shoals of fishes inhabit the ocean and sport in the seas and rivers! What millions on millions of birds and flying insects, in endless variety, wing their flight through the atmosphere above and around us! Were we to suppose that each species, at an average, contains four hundred millions of individuals, there would be 24,000,000,000,000, or 24 billions of living creatures belonging to all the known species which inhabit the different regions of the world, besides the multitudes of unknown species yet undiscovered,-which is thirty thousand times the number of all the human beings that people the globe. Besides these, there

*

• As an instance of the immense number of ani mated beings, the following facts in relation to two

species of birds may be stated. Captain Flinders, in his voyage to Australasia, saw a compact stream of stormy petrels, which was from 50 to 80 yards deep and 300 yards or more broad. This stream for a full hour and a half continued to pass without interruption with nearly the swiftness of the pigeon. Now, taking the column at 50 yards deep by 300 in breadth, and that it moved 30 miles an hour, and allowing nine cubic inches of space to each bird, the

are multitudes of animated beings which no man can number, invisible to the unassisted eye, and dispersed through every region of the earth, air, and seas. In a small stagnant pool which in summer appears covered with a green scum, there are more microscopic animalcules than would outnumber all the inhabitants of the earth. How immense then must be the collective number of these creatures throughout every region of the earth and atmosphere! It surpasses all our conceptions. Now, it is a fact that, from the elephant to the mite, from the whale to the oyster, and from the eagle to the gnat, or the microscopic animalcula, no animal can subsist without nourishment. Every species, too, requires a different kind of food. Some live on grass, some on shrubs, some on flowers, and some on trees. Some feed only on the roots of vegetables, some on the stalk, some on the leaves, some on the fruit, some on the seed, some on the whole plant; some prefer one species of grass, some another. Linnæus has remarked, that the cow eats 276 species of plants and rejects 218; the goat eats 449 and rejects 126; the sheep eats 387 and rejects 141; the horse number would amount to 151 millions and a half. The migratory pigeon of the United States flies in still more amazing multitudes. Wilson, in his "American Ornithology," says, "Of one of these immense flocks, let us attempt to calculate the numbers, as seen in passing between Frankfort on the Kentucky and the Indian territory. If we suppose this column to have been one mile in breadth, and I believe it to have been much more, and that it moved four hours at the rate of one mile a minute, the time it continued in passing would make the whole length 240 miles. Again, supposing that each square yard of this moving body comprehended three pigeons, the square yards multiplied by 3 would give 2,230,272,000," that is, two thousand two hun dred and thirty millions and two hundred and seventy-two thousand, nearly three times the number of all the human inhabitants of the globe, but which Mr. Wilson reckons to be far below the actual amount. Were we to estimate the number of ani

mals by the scale here afforded, it would amount to several hundreds or thousands of times more than what I have stated in the text. For if a single flock of pigeons now alluded to in only one district of the earth, amounts to so prodigious a number, how many thousand times more must be the amount of the same species in all the regions of the globe! In the above calculations, it is taken for granted that pigeons fly at the rate of from 30 to 60 miles an hour, and it is found by actual experiment that this is the case. In 1830, 110 pigeons were brought from Brus sels to London, and were let fly on the 19th July, at a quarter before nine A. M. One reached Ant

werp, 186 miles distance, at 18 minutes past 2, or in 5 1-2 hours, being at the rate of 34 miles an hour.

Five more reached the same place within eight minutes afterwards, and thirteen others in the course of eight hours after leaving London. Another went from London to Maestricht, 260 miles, in six hours and a quarter, being at the rate of nearly 42 miles an hour. The golden eagle sweeps through the atmosphere at the rate of 40 miles an hour, and it has been computed that the Swift flies, at an average, 500 miles a day, and yet finds time to feed, to clean itself, and to collect materials for its nest with apparent leisure. Such are the numbers of this species of animated beings, and such the powers of rapid motion which the Creator has conferred upon them, -powers which man, with all his intellectual facul

eats 262 and rejects 212; and the hog, more nice in its taste than any of these, eats but 72 plants and rejects all the rest. Yet such is the unbounded munificence of the Creator, that all these countless myriads of sentient beings are amply provided for and nourished by his bounty! "The eyes of all these look unto Him, and he openeth his hand and satisfieth the desire of every living being." He has so arranged the world, that every place affords the proper food for all the living creatures with which it abounds. He has furnished them with every organ and apparatus of instruments for the gathering, preparing, and digesting of their food, and has endowed them with admirable sagacity in finding out and providing their nourishment, and in enabling them to distinguish between what is salutary and what is pernicious. In the exercise of these faculties, and in all their movements, they appear to experience a happiness suitable to their nature. The young of all animals in the exercise of their newly acquired faculties, the fishes sporting in the waters, the birds skimming beneath the sky and warbling in the thickets, the gamesome cattle browsing in the pastures, the wild deer bounding through the forests, the insects gliding through the air and along the ground, and even the earth-worms wriggling in the dust,-proclaim, by the vivacity of their movements and the various tones and gesticulations, that the exercise of their powers is connected with enjoyment. In this boundless scene of beneficence, we behold a striking illustration of the declarations of the inspired writers, that "the Lord is good to all,"-that "the earth is full of his riches," and that "his tender mercies are over all his works.".

Such are a few evidences of the benevolence of the Deity as displayed in the arrangements of the material world. However plain and obvious they may appear to a reflecting mind, they are almost entirely overlooked by the bulk of mankind, owing to their ignorance of the facts of natural history and science, and the consequent inattention and apathy with which they are accustomed to view the objects of the visible creation. Hence they are incapacitated for appreciating the beneficent character of the Creator, and the riches of his munificence; and incapable of feeling those emotions of admiration and gratitude which an enlightened contemplation of the scene of nature is calculated to inspire.

4. An enlightened and comprehensive survey of the universe presents to us a view of the vast multiplicity of conceptions and the infinitely diver sified ideas which have been formed in the Divine Mind.

mind of the Creator are ascertained from the objects he has created, the events he has produced, and the operations he is incessantly conducting. The formation of a single object is an exhibition of the idea existing in the Creating Mind, of which it is a copy. The formation of a second or a third object exactly resembling the first, would barely exhibit the same ideas a second or a third time, without disclosing any thing new concerning the Creator; and, consequently, our conceptions of his intelligence would not be enlarged, even although thousands and millions of such objects were presented to our view,—just as a hundred clocks and watches, exactly of the same kind, constructed by the same artist, give us no higher idea of his skill and ingenuity than the construction of one. But, every variety in objects and arrangements exhibits a new discovery of the plans, contrivances and intelligence of the Creator.

Now, in the universe we find all things constructed and arranged on the plan of boundless and universal variety. In the animal kingdom there have been actually ascertained, as already noticed, about sixty thousand different species of living creatures. There are about 600 species of mammalia, or animals that suckle their young, most of which are quadrupeds-4000 species of birds, 3000 species of fishes, 700 species of reptiles, and 44,000 species of insects.* Besides these, there are about 3000 species of shell-fish, and perhaps not less than eighty or a hundred thousand species of animalcules invisible to the naked eye; and new species are daily discovering, in consequence of the zeal and industry of the lovers of natural history. As the system of animated nature has never yet been thoroughly explored, we might safely reckon the number of species of animals of all kinds, as amounting to at least three hundred thousand. We are next to consider, that the organical structure of each species consists of an immense multitude of parts, and that all the species are infinitely diversified-differing from each other in their forms, organs, members, faculties and motions.-They are of all shapes and sizes, from the microscopic animalculum, ten thousand times less than a mite, to the elephant and the whale.-They are different in respect of the construction of their sensitive organs. In regard to the eye, some have this organ placed in the front, so as to look directly forward, as in man; others have it so placed, as to take in nearly a whole hemisphere, as in birds, hares and conies; some have it fixed, and others, moveable; some have two globes or balls, as quadrupeds; some have four, as snails, which are fixed in their horns; some have eight, set like a locket of diamonds, as spiders; some have several hundreds, as flies

• Specimens of all these species are to be seen in the magnificent collections in the Museum of Natural History at Paris.

and beetles, and others above twenty thousand, as the dragon-fly and several species of butterflies. In regard to the ear,-some have it large, erect and open, as in the hare, to hear the least approach of danger; in some it is covered to keep out noxious bodies; and, in others, as in the mole, it is lodged deep and backward in the head, and fenced and guarded from external injuries. With regard to their clothing,—some have their bodies covered with hair, as quadru→ peds; some with feathers, as birds; some with scales, as fishes; some with shells, as the tortoise; some only with skin; some with stout and firm armour, as the rhinoceros; and others with prickles, as the hedgehog and porcupine-all nicely accommodated to the nature of the animal, and the element in which it lives. These coverings, too, are adorned with diversified beauties; as appears in the plumage of birds, the feathers of the peacock, the scales of the finny tribes, the hair of quadrupeds, and the variegated polish and colouring of the tropical shell-fish-beauties which, in point of symmetry, polish, texture, variety, and exquisite colouring, mock every attempt of human art to copy or to imitate.

In regard to respiration-some breathe through the mouth by means of lungs, as men and quadrupeds; some by means of gills, as fishes; and some by organs placed in other parts of their bodies, as insects. In regard to the circulation of the blood, some have but one ventricle in the heart, some two, and others three. In some animals, the heart throws its blood to the remotest parts of the system; in some it throws it only into the respiratory organs; in others, the blood from the respiratory organs is carried by the veins to another heart, and this second heart distributes the blood, by the channel of its arteries, to the several parts. In many insects, a number of hearts are placed at intervals on the circulating course, and each renews the impulse of the former, where the momentum of the blood fails. In regard to the movements of their bodies,-some are endowed with swift motions, and others with slow; some walk on two legs, as fowls; some on four, as dogs; some on eight, as caterpillars; some on a hundred, as scolopendræ or millepedes; some on fifteen hundred and twenty feet, as one species of sea-star; and some on two thousand feet, as a certain species of echinus.* Some glide along with a sinuous motion on scales, as snakes and serpents; some skim through the air, one species on two wings, another on four; and some convey themselves with speed and safety by the help of their webs, as spiders; while others glide with agility through the waters by means of their tails and fins.But it would require volumes to enumerate and

See Lyonet's notes to Lesser's Insecto-Theology, who also mentions that these Echini have 1300 horns, similar to those of snails, which they can put out and draw in at pleasure.

explain all the known varieties which distinguish the different species of animated beings. Besides the varieties of the species, there are not, perhaps, of all the hundreds of millions which compose any one species, two individuals precisely alike in every point of view in which they may be contemplated.

As an example of the numerous parts and functions which enter into the construction of an animal frame, it may be stated, that, in the human body there are 445 bones, each of them having forty distinct scopes or intentions; and 246 muscles, each having ten several intentions; so that the system of bones and muscles alone includes above 14,200 varieties, or different intentions and adaptations. But, besides the bones and muscles, there are hundreds of tendons and ligaments for the purpose of connecting them together; hundreds of nerves ramified over the whole body to convey sensation to all its parts; thousands of arteries to convey the blood to the remotest extremities, and thousands of veins to bring it back to the heart; thousands of lacteal and lymphatic vessels to absorb nutriment from the food; thousands of glands to secrete humours from the blood, and of emunctories to throw them off from the system-and, besides many other parts of this variegated system, and functions with which we are unacquainted, there are more than sixteen hundred millions of membranous cells or vesicles connected with the lungs, more than two hundred thousand millions of pores in the skin, through which the perspiration is incessantly flowing, and above a thousand millions of scales, which according to Leeuwenhoek, Baker, and others, compose the cuticle or outward covering of the body. We have also to take into the account, the compound organs of life, the numerous parts of which they consist, and the diversified functions they perform; such as the brain, with its infinite number of fibres and numerous functions; the heart, with its auricles and ventricles; the stomach, with its juices and muscular coats; the liver, with its lobes and glands; the spleen, with its infinity of cells and membranes; the pancreas, with its juice and numerous glands; the kidneys, with their fine capillary tubes; the intestines, with all their turnings and convolutions; the organs of sense, with their multifarious connexions; the mesentery, the gall-bladder, the ureters, the pylorus, the duodenum, the blood, the bile, the lymph, the saliva, the chyle, the hairs, the nails, and numerous other parts and substances, every one of which has diversified functions to perform. We have also to take into consideration the number of ideas included in the arrangement and connexion of all these parts, and in the manner in which they are compacted into one system of small dimensions, so as to afford free scope for all the intended functions. If, then, for the sake of a rude calculation, we were to suppose,

in addition to the 14,200 adaptations stated above, that there are 10,000 veins great and small, 10,000 arteries, 10,000 nerves,* 1000 gaments, 4000 lacteals and lymphatics, 100,000 glands, 1,600,000,000 vesicles in the lungs, 1,000,000,000 scales, and 200,000,000,000 of pores, the amount would be 202,600,149,200 dif ferent parts and adaptations in the human body; and if all the other species were supposed to be differently organised, and to consist of a simi lar number of parts, this number multiplied by 300,000, the supposed number of species-the product would amount to 60,780,044,760,000,000, or above sixty thousand billions, the number of distinct ideas, conceptions or contrivances, relation to the animal world-a number of which we can have no precise conception, and which, to limited minds like ours, seems to approximate to something like infinity; but it may tend to convey a rude idea of the endless multiplicity of conceptions which pervade the Eternal Mind.

That many other tribes of animated nature have an organization no less complicated and diversified than that of man, will appear from the following statements of M. Lyonet. This celebrated naturalist wrote a treatise on one single insect, the cossus caterpillar, which lives on the leaves of the willow,-in which he has shown, from the anatomy of that minute animal, that its structure is almost as complicated as that of the human body, and many of the parts which enter into its organization even more numerous. He has found it necessary to employ twenty figures to explain the organization of the head, which contain 228 different muscles. There are 1647 muscles in the body, and 2066 in the intestinal tube, making in all 3941 muscles; or nearly nine times the number of muscles in the human body. There are 94 principal nerves which divide into innumerable ramifications. There are two large tracheal arteries, one at the right, and the other at the left side of the insect, each of them communicating with the air by means of nine spiracula. Round each spiraculum the trachea pushes forth a great number of branches, which are again divided into smaller ones, and these further subdivided and spread through the whole body of the caterpillar; they are naturally of a silver colour, and make a beautiful appearance. The principal trachael vessels divide into 1326 different branches. All this complication of delicate machinery, with numerous other parts and organs, are compressed into a body only about two inches in length.

The amazing extent of the ramification of the veins and nerves may be judged of from this circumstance, that neither the point of the smallest needle, nor the infinitely finer lance of a gnat can pierce any part without drawing blood, and causing an uneasy sensation, consequently without wounding, by so sinall a puncture, both a nerve and a vein; and therefore the number of these vessels here assumed may be considered as far below the truth.