THE VERTEBRAL COLUMN OF FISHES. 187 



of commerce ; he ransacks the earth for the 

 valued productions of different climes, and, 

 what no other animal does, he invents a 

 system of exchange, the dawn of which we see 

 even in the earliest history of his career on 

 the earth. 



Nor must we stop here : unlike other 

 animals, man cultivates the arts and sciences. 

 He has learned how to transfer the scenes of 

 nature or the human form divine to the canvas, 

 or to carve the marble into exquisite grace. 

 To him are given languages in contradistinction 

 to sounds. It is his to feel the beauties of 

 poetry, and to record the history of passing 

 events ; he looks back upon the past, and 

 looks forward to the fiiture ; he has dared to 

 investigate the structure and properties of 

 organic bodies — to analyze inorganic matter, 

 and resolve it into its elementary particles, and, 

 soaring still higher, he has measured the dis- 

 tances and revolutions of the planets, and 

 demonstrated the path of the globe on which 

 he treads. 



Does not man, then, considered iri this light, 

 apart from revelation, appear to be a most 

 wonderful and extraordinary being ? Does he 

 not seem destined for something more than an 



