'112 SYSTEM OF INSECTS. 
curiosity and the desire of information concerning these 
high and important subjects would stimulate him to the 
study of the mystic volume placed before him ; in the 
progress of which he would doubtless be assisted by that 
Divine guidance, which even now is with those who 
honestly seek the truth. Both divines and philosophers 
have embraced this opinion, which is built upon the 
word of God itself a . 
This last purpose of the Creator was the root of the 
analogies, connecting different objects with each other 
that have no real affinity, observable in the works of 
creation: so that from the bottom to the top of the scale 
of being, there is many a series of analogous forms, as 
well as of concatenated ones ; and the intire system of 
nature is representative, as well as operative: it is a kind 
of Janus bij'rons, which requires to be studied in two as- 
pects looking different ways. To what degree of know- 
ledge the primeval races of men attained after the fall, 
by the contemplation and study of this book of nature, 
we are no where informed; but we learn from the highest 
authority that the revelation that God thus made of 
himself was in time corrupted, by those that prqfessi ng 
themselves to be wise became fools, to the grossest ido- 
latry, which sunk men in the lowest depths of sensuality, 
vice, and wickedness b . 
* The most natural and consistent interpretation of 1 Cor. xiii. 
12, BA;5ro ( «f!/ yx(> xqti o;' ioo7tt(>v tv etivtyfixn, is, that " we see 
now as it were in a mirror the glory of God reflected enigmatically 
by the things that he has made." Comp. Rom. i. 20—. Our Sa- 
viour (Luke x. 19.) calls serpents and scorpions the power of the 
enemy; which can only mean that they are figures or symbols of the 
enemy. 
'' Rom. i. 20, to the end of the chapter. 
