114 STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



how forcibly, though silently, the duties of industry, 

 perseverance, order, and subordination are ex- 

 emplified in the ant and the bee. Yet, if this was 

 the only moral or religious precept that could be 

 learned from the study of nature, we might be 

 tempted to think the application of this science to 

 moral truths was but slight; and to spiritual, no 

 greater than that of proclaiming the existence and 

 the perfection of their Creator. 



(61.) That there is a general analogy between 

 the different parts of the animal world, by which one 

 object or group represents another, is a truth so 

 universally admitted in modern science, that it need 

 not be here advocated. It is confirmed, not only by 

 the most profound investigations, but is perceived 

 and assented to by the vulgar, who, in many instances, 

 have given to particular animals such names as ex- 

 press an intuitive perception of this principle, with- 

 out the power of demonstrating the analogy implied 

 by such epithets. Hence the origin of such names 

 as night hawk and Tern owl, as given to the goat- 

 suckers ; chauve souris, or flying mice, applied by 

 the French to the bats ; water hens, to the Fulicce ; 

 sea swallow, to the Terns ; and swallow butterflies, 

 to the genus Podalirius. The provincial or vulgar 

 names of well-known animals, in every language, 

 furnish innumerable instances of the same per- 

 ception of natural analogies. These resemblances, 

 therefore, being undeniable, we must come to one 

 or other of the following conclusions: — Are we to 

 consider them as partial and incidental, incapable of 

 being reduced to any definite rules, and governed by 

 no fixed principles ? or, are we to view them as the 



