12 FINAL CAUSES. 



and what endless diversity exists in their habits, 

 pursuits, and characters ! How extensive is the 

 study of Birds alone ; and how ingeniously, if 

 we may so express it, has nature interwoven in 

 their construction every possible variation com- 

 patible with an adherence to the same general 

 model of design, and the same ultimate reference 

 to the capacity for motion through the light 

 element of air. What profusion of being is 

 displayed in the wide expanse of the ocean, 

 through which are scattered such various and 

 such unknown multitudes of animals ! Of Fishes 

 alone the varieties, as to conformation and en- 

 dowments, are endless. Still more curious and 

 anomalous, both in their external form, and 

 their internal economy, are the numerous orders 

 of living beings that occupy the lower divisions 

 of the animal scale ; some swimming in countless 

 myriads near the surface ; some dwelling in the 

 inaccessible depths of the ocean : some attached 

 to shells, or other solid structures, the produc- 

 tions of their own bodies, and which, in process 

 of time, form, by their accumulation, enormous 

 submarine mountains, rising often from un- 

 fathomable depths to the surface. What sublime 

 views of the magnificence of creation have been 

 disclosed by the microscope, in the world of 

 infinite minuteness, peopled by countless multi- 

 tudes of atomic beings which animate almost 

 every fluid in nature ? Of these, a vast variety 



