the ground, or the screws uniting the machinery to the beams, are the fixed points which resist in the working of the machine; that their resistance is a necessary condition, since it is thrown, together with the power of the hand, on the weight to be raised; and he will add that the multiplication of wheels does not alter the principle of action, which every one may see in the simple lever, to result from the resistance of the fulcrum or point, on which it rests.

Now grant that man's body is a machine, where are the points of resistance? are they not in the ground we stand upon? This leads us to inquire by what property we stand. Is it not by the weight of the body, or, in other words, by the Attraction of the earth? The terms attraction or gravitation lead at once to the philosophy of the question. We stand because the body has weight, and a resistance in proportion to the matter of the animal frame and the magnitude of the globe itself. We need not stop at present to observe the adjustment of the strength of the frame, the solidity of the bones, the elasticity of the joints, and the power of the muscles, to the weight of the whole. Our attention is directed to the relations which the frame has to the Earth we are placed upon.

Some Philosophers who have considered the matter curiously, have said, that if man were translated bodily to another Planet, and that planet were smaller than the earth, he would be too light, and he would walk like one wading in deep water: that on the contrary, if the planet were larger, the attraction of his body would make him feel as if his limbs were loaded with lead; nay, that the attraction might be so great as to destroy the fabric of the body, crushing bones and all.*

However idle these fancies may be, there is no doubt that the animal frame is formed with a due relation to the earth we inhabit; and that the strength of the materials of the animal body have as certainly a correspondence with the weight, as the wheels and levers of a machine, or the scaffolding which sustains them, have relation to the force and velocity of the machinery, or the load they are employed to raise.

The mechanism and organisation of animals have been often brought forward for a different purpose from that for which I

*The matter of Jupiter is as 330,600 to 1000 of our Earth. The

diameter of Pallas is 80 miles; that of the Earth is 7911 miles.

use them. We find it said, that it is incomprehensible how an all-powerful Being should manifest his will by these meansthat mechanical contrivance implies difficulties overcome; and how strange it is, they add, that the perceptions of the mind, which might have been produced by some direct means, or have arisen spontaneously, should be received through an instrument so fine and complex as the eye;—and which requires the creation of the element of light, to enter the organ and to cause vision.

For my own part, I think it most natural to contemplate the subject quite differently. We perhaps presume too much when we say that Light has been created for the purpose of Vision. We are hardly entitled to pass over its properties as a chemical agent, its influence on the gases, and, in all probability, on the atmosphere, its importance to vegetation, to the formation of the aromatic and volatile principles, and to fructification, its influence on the animal surface by invigorating the circulation, and imparting health. In relation to our present subject, it seems more rational to consider light second only to attraction for its importance in nature, and as a link connecting systems of infinite remoteness.

To have a conception of this, we must tutor our minds and acquire some measure of the velocity of light, and of the space which it fills. It is not sufficient to say that it moves 200,000 miles in a second; for we can comprehend no such degree of velocity. If we are further informed that the earth is distant from the sun 95,000,000 of miles, and that light traverses the space in 8 minutes and 1-8th, it is but another way of affirming the inconceivable rapidity of its transmission. Astronomers, whose powers of mind afford us the very highest estimate of human faculties, whose accuracy of calculation is hourly visible, have affirmed that light emanates from celestial bodies at such vast distance that thousands of years shall elapse during its progress to our earth-yet that, impelled by a force equal to its transmission through that space, it enters the eye and strikes upon the delicate nerve, with no other effect than to produce vision.*

Instead of supposing light created for the eye, and to give us the sense of vision, would it not be a more just manner of considering the subject to dwell with admiration on the fact, that

*The argument is not weakened | light results from the movement of on assuming the hypothesis that an elastic ether.

this small organ, the eye, should be formed with relation to a system of such vast extent and grandeur; and, more especially, that the ideas arising in the mind through the influence of that light and this organ, should be constituted a part of one vast whole!

By such considerations we are led to contemplate the human body in its different relations. The magnitude of the earth determines the strength of our bones, and the power of our muscles; so must the depth of the atmosphere determine the condition of our fluids, and the resistance of our blood vessels; the common act of breathing, the transpiration from the surfaces, must bear relation to the weight, moisture, and temperature of the medium which surrounds us. A moment's reflection on these facts proves that our body is formed with a just correspondence to all these external influences: and not the frame of the body only, but also the vital endowments and the properties of the organ of sense. It were a perverseness to say that the outward senses, the organisation, and the vital properties, could arise from the influence of the surrounding elements, or out of matter spontaneously; they are created in accordance with the condition of the globe, and are systematic parts of a great whole.

These views lead to another consideration, that it is to external nature, and not of necessity to the mind, that the complexity of our structure belongs. Whilst man is an agent in a material world, and sensible to the influence of things external, complexity of structure is a necessary part of his constitution. But we do not perceive a relation between this complexity and the mind. From aught that we learn by this mode of study, the mind may be as distinct from the bodily organs as the exterior influences are which give them exercise.

Something, then, we observe to be common to our planet and to others, to our system and to other systems; matter, attraction, light; which nearly implies that the mechanical and chemical laws must be the same throughout. It is perhaps too much with an anonymous author to affirm, that an inhabitant of our world would find himself at home in any other; that he would be like a traveller, for a moment only perplexed by diversity of climate and strangeness of manners, but ready to confess, at last, that nature was everywhere and essentially the

same. However this may be, all I contend for is the necessity of certain relations being established between the planet and the frames of all which inhabit it; between the great mass and the physical properties of every part; that in the mechanical construction of animals, as in their endowments of life, they are created in relation to the whole, planned together and fashioned by one Mind.

A comparison made between the system of an animal body, and the condition of the earth's surface, is highly illustrative of design in both. In the animal, we see matter withdrawn from the influences which arrange things dead and inorganic; but this matter, thus appropriated to the animal, and newly endowed through the influence of life, continues to possess such qualities of inanimate matter as are necessary to constitute the living being a part of the system-an inhabitant of the earth. To what, then, does this argument lead? Is it not, that as the beautiful structure of the animal, and the perfection in the arrangement of its parts, demonstrate design-so design extends to the condition of the earth also; and over both there is a ruling Intelligence?

Men who have studied deeply, and who have become authorities in natural science, acquire a happy spirit of contentment and true philosophy, of which we have examples in Grew,* in Ray, and in Linnæus. The last, resting from his great labours in universal nature, and struck with the perfection and order evinced in the whole, breaks out, very naturally and eloquently, in admiration of the just relation of all things, as proving them to be the work of one Almighty Being. Then considering the great globe as a Museum,+ furnished forth with the works of the Supreme Being, man, he adds, is placed in the midst of it, as alone capable of comprehending and valuing it. And if this be true, as certainly it is, what then becomes his duty? Moralists and divines, with Nature herself, testify that the purpose of so much beauty and perfection being made manifest to man, is that he may study and celebrate the works of God: and that if he fail in this, he will be wanting in those contem

* A naturalist, who wrote on the anatomy of Plants; also, "Cosmologia Sacra: a Discourse on the Universe, as the creature and kingin of God."

These sentiments are best expressed in his Preface to the Catalogue of the Museum of Adolphus Frederick of Sweden.

plations and exercises by which the mind is to be raised to the knowledge of God. Those who say that the Scriptures ought to be the sole guides, forget that these are addressed to intelligent beings; and what can be more fitting to bestow that intelligence and capacity which is to receive eternal truths, than those studies which the great naturalist is enforcing, when he says, "If we have no faith in the things which are seen, how should we believe those which are not seen? The brute creatures, although furnished with external senses, resemble those animals which, wandering in the woods, are fattened with acorns, but never look upwards to the tree which affords them food; much less have they any idea of the Beneficent Author of the tree and its fruit." By such reflections was Linnæus led to conclude, that "whoever shall regard with contempt the economy of the Creator here, is as truly impious as the man who takes no thought of the future."

The passiveness which is natural in infancy, and the want of reflection as to the sources of enjoyment which is excusable in youth, become insensibility and ingratitude in riper years. In the early stages of life, before our minds have the full power of comprehension, the objects around us serve but to excite and exercise the outward senses. But in the maturity of reason, philosophy should present these things to us anew, with this difference, that the mind may contemplate them that mind which is now strengthened by experience to comprehend them, and to entertain a grateful sense of them.

It is this sense of gratitude which distinguishes man. In brutes, the attachment to offspring for a limited period is as strong as in him, but it ceases with the necessity for it. In man, on the contrary, the affections continue, become the sources of all the endearing relations of life, and the very bonds by which society is connected.

If the child upon the parent's knee is unconsciously incurring a debt, and strong affections grow up so naturally that nothing is more universally condemned than filial ingratitude, we have but to change the object of affection, to find the natural source of religion itself. We must show that the care of the most tender parent is in nothing to be compared with those provisions for our enjoyment and safety, which it is not only beyond the ingenuity of man to supply to himself,