condition also is suited to its constitution and it apparently lives and flourishes in as great enjoyment as the lion. The same remark applies to all the inferior creatures; and the idea which I wish particularly to convey is, that their bodily organs, faculties, instincts, and external circumstances, form parts of a system in which adaptation and harmony are discoverable; and that the enjoyment of the animals depends on the adaptation of their constitution to their external condition. If we saw the lion one day tearing in pieces every animal that crossed his path, and the next oppressed with remorse for the death of his victims, or compassionately healing those whom he had mangled, we should exclaim, What an inconsistent creature! and conclude that he could not by possibility be happy, owing to this opposition among the principles of his nature. In short, we should be strikingly convinced that two conditions are essential to enjoyment: first, that the different instincts of an animal must be in harmony with each other; and, secondly, that its whole constitution must be in accordance with its external condition.

When, keeping these principles in view, we direct our attention to Man, very formidable anomalies present themselves. The most opposite instincts or impulses exist in his mind: actuated by Combativeness, Destructiveness, Acquisitiveness, and Self-Esteem, the moral sentiments being in abeyance, he is almost a fiend; on the contrary, when inspired by Benevolence, Veneration, Hope, Conscientiousness, Ideality, and Intellect, the benignity, serenity, and splendor of a highly-elevated nature beam from his countenance, and radiate from his eye. He is then lovely, noble, and gigantically great. But how shall these conflicting tendencies be reconciled, and how can external circumstances be devised that shall accord with such hete

rogeneous elements? Here again a conviction of the power and goodness of the Deity comes to our assistance. Man is obviously an essential and most important part of the present system of creation; and, without doubting of

his future destinies, we ought not, so long as our knowledge of his nature is incomplete, to consider his condition here as inexplicable. The nature of man has hitherto, to all philosophical purposes, been unknown, and both the designs of the Creator and the situation of man have been judged of ignorantly and rashly. The skeptic has advanced arguments against religion, and crafty deceivers have, in all ages, founded systems of superstition, on the disorder and inconsistency which are too readily admitted to be inseparable attributes of human existence on earth. But I venture to hope that man will yet be found in harmony with himself and with the condition in which he is placed.

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I am aware that some individuals, whose piety is entitled to respect, conceive, that as the great revolutions of human society, as well as all events in the lives of individuals, take place under the guidance of the Deity, it is presumptuous, if not impious, to endeavor to scan their causes and effects. But as the Creator has bestowed faculties on man, it is presumable that He governs him in accordance with them, and their constitution implies that he should investigate creation. The young swallow, when it migrates on the approach of the first winter of its life, is impelled by an instinct implanted by the Deity, and it can neither know the causes that prompt it to fly, nor the end to be attained by its flight. But its mental constitution is wisely adapted to this condition; for it has no powers stimulating it to reflect on itself and external objects, and to inquire whence came its desires, or to what object they tend. Man, however, has been framed differently. The Creator has bestowed on him faculties to observe phenomena, and to trace cause and effect; and he has constituted the external world to afford scope to these powers. We are entitled, therefore, to say, that it is the Creator himself who has commanded us to observe and inquire into the causes that prompt us to act, and the results that will naturally follow, and to modify our conduct according to the discoveries which we shall make

Deity 6 times here

To enable us to form a just estimate of our duty a J interest as the rational occupants of this world, we may inquire briefly into the constitution of external nature, and of ourselves.

The constitution of this world does not look like a system of optimism. It appears to be arranged in all its departments on the principle of slow and progressive improvement. Physical nature itself has undergone many revolutions, and apparently has constantly advanced. Geology seems to show a distinct preparation of it for successive orders of living beings, rising higher and higher in the scale of intelligence and organization, until man appeared.

The globe, in the first state in which the imagination can venture to consider it, says Sir H. Davy,* appears to have been a fluid mass, with an immense atmosphere revolving in space around the sun. By its cooling, a portion of its atmosphere was probably condensed into water, which occupied a part of its surface. In this state no forms of life, such as now belong to our system, could have inhabited it. The crystalline rocks, or, as they are called by geologists, the primary rocks, which contain no vestiges of a former order of things, were the result of the first consolidation on its surface. Upon the farther cooling, the water, which, more or less, had covered it, contracted; depositions took place; shell-fish and coral insects were created, and began their labors. Islands appeared in the midst of the ocean, raised from the deep by the productive energies of millions of zoophytes. These islands became covered with vegetables fitted to bear a high temperature, ́

The description in the text is extracted chiefly from The Last Days of a Philosopher,' by Sir Humphrey Davy, 1831, p. 134, on account of its popular style; but similar representations may be found in several recent works ⚫n Geo ogy, particularly ‘A Geological Manual, by H. T. De La Beche;' the Penny Magazine of 1833, in a very instructive popular form; and Sedgwick's Discourse on the Studies of the University of Cambridge, third edition. Mr. Lyell, however, in his Principles of Geology, vol. i. ch. is. controverts the doctrine of a progressive development of plants and an mals

such as palms, and various species of plants, similar to those which now exist in the hottest parts of the world. The submarine rocks of these new formations of land became covered with aquatic vegetables, on which various species of shell-fish, and common fishes, found their nourishment. As the temperature of the globe became lower, species of the oviparous reptiles appear to have been created to inhabit it; and the turtle, crocodile, and various gigantic animals of the Saurian (lizard) kind seem to have haunted the bays and waters of the primitive lands. But in this state of things, there appears to have been no order of events similar to the present. Immense volcanic explosions seem to have taken place, accompanied by elevations and depressions of the surface of the globe, producing mountains, and causing new and extensive depositions from the primitive ocean. The remains of living beings, plants, fishes, birds, and oviparous reptiles, are found in the strata of rocks which are the monuments and evidence of these changes. When these revolutions became less frequent, and the globe became still more cooled, and inequalities of temperature were established by means of the mountain-chains, more perfect animals became its inhabitants, such as the mammoth, megalonix, megatherium, and gigantic hyena, many of which have become extinct. Five successive races of plants, and four successive races of animals, appear to have been created and swept away by the physical revolutions of the globe, before the system of things became so permanent as to fit the world for man. In none of these formations, whether called secondary, tertiary, or diluvial, have the fossil remains of man, or any of his works, been discovered. At last, man was created, and since that period there has been little alteration in the physical circumstances of the globe.

'In all these various tormations,' says Dr. Buckland, 'the coprolites' (or the dung of the saurian reptiles in a fossil state, exhibiting scales of fishes and other traces of

the prey which they had devoured) 'form records of warfare waged by successive generations of inhabitants of our planet on one another; and the general law of nature, which bids all to eat and be eaten in their turn, is shown to have been co-extensive with animal existence upon our globe, the carnivora in each period of the world's history fulfilling their destined office to check excess in the progress of life, and maintain the balance of creation."

This brief summary of the physical changes of the Globe, is not irrelevant to our present object. The more that we discover of creation, the more conspicuously does uniformity of design appear to pervade its every department. We perceive here the physical world gradually improved and prepared for man.

Let us now contemplate Man himself, and his adaptation to the external creation. The world, we have seen, was inhabited by living beings, and death and reproduction prevailed, before Man appeared. The order of creation seems not to have been changed at his introduction-heappears to have been adapted to it. He received from his Creator an organized structure, and animal instincts. The brain is unquestionably the workmanship of God, and there exist in it organs of faculties impelling man to kill that he may eat, to oppose aggression, and to shun dangerinstincts which clearly imply a constitution of external nature corresponding to that which we see existing around him. Man, then, apparently took his station among, yet at the head of, the beings that inhabited the earth at his creation. He is to a certain extent an animal in his structure, powers, feelings, and desires, and is adapted to a world in which death reigns, and generation succeeds generation. This fact, although so trite and obvious as to appear scarcely worthy of being noticed, is of importance in treating of Man; because the human being, in so far as he resembles the inferior creatures, is capable of enjoying a life like theirs: he has pleasure in eating, drinking, sleeping, and exercising his limbs; and one of the greatest

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