290 CONCLUSIONARY REFLECTIONS. 



in the preceding- pages for the reader to look up towards 

 an Omnipotent Creator, 



" In whom we live and have our being," 

 with feelings of humility and pure devotion ; for it will be 

 seen I have attempted to delineate some of the greatest and 

 some of the most diminutive objects of his creative power : 

 and as all the living beings inhabiting this globe are made 

 more or less subservient to the wants of man in all situations, 

 climates, and latitudes, therefore well might the poet 

 Thompson justly exclaim, 



" Tis surely God, 

 Whose unremitting energy pervades, 

 Adjusts, sustains, and agitates the whole ; 

 He ceaseless works alone, and yet alone 

 Seems not to work, yet with such perfection fram'd 

 Is this complex stupendous scheme of things." 



The contemplation of animated nature generally is (taking 

 it as a science) replete with so many points of interest, it 

 embraces so many topics by the investigation of which use- 

 ful knowledge is acquired, our intellectual character im- 

 proved, and a degree of real pleasure not to be calculated 

 is felt and enjoyed, so that although zoologists generally 

 make choice of one department of Natural History for their 

 minute study and investigation, yet it is difficult which to 

 select, as the best calculated to satisfy the curious, to gratify 

 the philosopher, or to repay for the outlay of time and re- 

 search the mere utilitarian. 



Dr. Robertson,* of Chesterfield, justly observes that, 

 " whatever be the department which may seem most calcu- 

 lated to effect so much and to interest so many, however 

 high the pre-eminence which it may have attained, either 

 with reference to the interesting 1 or the useful nature of the 

 facts which it developes, still such subject is capable of 

 further improvement. Without altering in any important 



* Lectures on the mutual illations between the vital functions in 

 animals and plants, p. 7. 



