886 



ANNUAL REGISTER, 1804 



holding an analogy with instruments 

 and tools of art. The filaments, 

 anthera.', and ftigmata of flowers 

 bear no more resemblance to the 

 young plant, or even to the seed, 

 ■which is formed by their interven- 

 tion, than a chisel or plane docs to 

 a tabic or chair. What then are the 

 lilauients, anthcrcc, and sfigituda of 

 pliinls, but instri'inenls, strictly so 

 called ? 



3 We may advance from animals 

 ■which bring forth eggs, to animals 

 which bring forth their young alive; 

 and, of tliis lalter class, from the 

 lowest to the highest, from irrational 

 to rational life, from brutes to the 

 human species ; without perceiving, 

 as we proceed, any alteration what- 

 ever in the terms of the comparison. 

 The rational atiimal docs not pro- 

 duce its oiTspring with more cer- 

 tainty or success than the irrational 

 animal : a man than a quadruped, a 

 quadruped than a bird ; nor (for we 

 may follow the gradation through 

 its whole scale) a bird than a plant ; 

 nor a plant than a watch, a piece of 

 dead mechanism, would do, upon 

 the supposition which has already so 

 often been repeated. Rationality, 

 therefore, has nothing to do in the 

 business. If an account must be 

 given of the contrivance which we 

 observe ; if it be demanded, whence 

 arose tither the contrivance by 

 wliich the young animal is produced, 

 or the contrivance manifested in the 

 young animal itself, it is not from 

 the reason of the parent that any 

 such account can be draw n. lie is 

 the cause of his oflspring in the same 

 sense as that in which a gardener is 

 the cause of the tulip which grows 

 upon his parterre and in no other. 

 \Vc .admire the flower ; we examine 

 the ])lant ; we perceive the condu- 

 circucss of many of its parts to their 



end and office : we observe a pro- 

 vision for its nourishment, growth, 

 protection, and fecundity : but we 

 never think of the gardener in all 

 this. We attribute nothing of this 

 to his agency ; yet it may still be 

 true, that without the gardener, we 

 should not have had the tulip. Just 

 so it is with the succession of ani- 

 mals even of the highest order. For 

 the contrivance discovered in the 

 strufture of the thing produced, we 

 want a contriver. The parent is not 

 that contriver. His consciousness 

 decides that question. He is in total 

 ignorance why that which is pro- 

 duced took its present form rather 

 than any other. It is for liim only 

 to be astonished by the effect. We 

 can no more look, therefore, to the 

 intelligence of (he parent animal for 

 what we are in search of, a cause 

 of relation and of subserviency of 

 parts to their use, which relation 

 and subserviency we see in the pro- 

 created body, than we can refer the 

 intertial conformation of an acorn to 

 the intelligence of the oak from 

 which it dropped, or the structure 

 of the watch to the intelligence of 

 the watch which produced it: there 

 being no difference, as far as argu- 

 ment is concerned, between an in- 

 telligence which is not exerted, and 

 an intelligence which does not exist. 



Tao Le/fcrs on the suhjeSi of Puf)Uc 

 Ediicaiion^ from the celebrated 

 CoiCjicr. 



To ihc Rev. William Unwin. 

 My dear friend, Sept. 7, 1780. 



As many gentlemen as there are 

 in the world, who have children, 

 and heads capable of reflecting on 

 the important subject of their edu- 

 cation; so many opinions there are 



about 



