MYKIADS OF LIVING FORMS. 185 



we can hardly fail to admit the accuracy of the 

 comparison made in the quaint words of Spenser : 



" Oh ! what an endlesse worke have I in hand, 

 To count the sea's abundant progeny ! 

 Whose fruitfulle seede farre passeth those in land, 

 And also those which wonne in the azure sky, 

 For much more eath to tell the starres on hy, 

 Albe they endlesse seeme in estimation 

 Then to recount the Sea's posterity; 



So fertile be the flouds in generation, 



So huge their numbers, and so numberless their nation." 



The organisation of these various animated beings 

 so exactly adapted to their condition, the habits 

 and instincts they possess, the supply of food for 

 their vast and never-ceasing demands, the kind 

 and degree of enjoyment of which they are capa- 

 ble, all afford subjects of the most instructive 

 contemplation, illustrating in a striking manner 

 not only the wisdom and the power of the great 

 Source of Existence, but the beneficence by which 

 those attributes are directed. 



The living beings from which such lessons are 

 derivable present themselves to our observation 

 in a miscellaneous manner ; it ought nevertheless 

 to be our object to study them with some attention 

 to system and order. And the reason of this 

 may be found in the constitution of the mind 

 itself, and not in any arbitrary mode of classifi- 

 cation adopted by naturalists. The power of 

 generalisation is possessed and exercised even in 

 early youth, and independently of instruction. 

 The child classifies as if by intuition objects 



