344 STUDIES OF NATURE. 



membrane which prefented one fingle organized 

 part of an eye. I withdrew, without examining 

 w\iether thefe accidents were natural or artificial, 

 for, in truth, it was not worth the trouble. 



The monfters which are preferved in cryflal 

 globes filled with fpirit of wine, fuch as pigs with 

 the probofcis of an elephant ; children double 

 bodied, or with two heads, which are exhibited in 

 cabinets, with a philofophic myfterioufnefs, prove 

 much lefs a laboured production of Nature than 

 the interruption of it. No one of thofe beings 

 could pofTibly have attained a complete expan- 

 iion : and fo far from demonftrating, that the in- 

 telligence which produced them had fallen into a 

 blunder, they atteft, on the contrary, the immuta- 

 bility of Supreme Wifdom, which has lejefted 

 them from it's plan, by refufing them life. 



There is a benignity, in the conduâ; of Nature 

 toward Man, which challenges the higheft ad- 

 miration : it is this, that in defying him, on 

 the one hand, to infringe the regularity of her 

 laws, to gratify caprice; on the other, flie fre- 

 quently perm.its him to derange the courfe of fome 

 of them, to relieve his neceffities. For inftance, 

 file connives at the production of the mule from 

 the copulation of the afs and the mare, becaufe 

 that animal is fo fcrviceable in mountainous coun- 

 tries. 



