338 



LETTER LIV. 



by devouring the smaller; and their whole lives are 

 passed in a state of depredation. 



In this circumstance "we seem to discover the reason 

 why the predatory system exists among animals. 

 You will, my dear Sir, recollect the observations 

 made on this subject in the former part of our corres- 

 pondence, relative to the ferocious quadrupeds of the 

 feline genus, the arguments their adduced to reconcile 

 Die state of incessant hostility subsisting in the brute 

 creation,withthe paternal beneficence of the Author of 

 -Sature, will be abundantly illustrated, by contemplat- 

 ing the same system, and reflecting on its necessary 

 existence among the inhabitants of the deep. The sea 

 does not, like the land, afford a profusion of vegetable 

 food for the support of animal life, and consequently 

 without some other supply, the immense regions of 

 water must have remained uninhabited, and have pre- 

 senter! nothing more than one vast extent of inanimate 

 matter. This immense vacuum in the system of ani- 

 mated nature, infinite wisdom and goodness has pre- 

 vented, by ordaining that the natives of the deep 

 should support one another's existence in a situation 

 which produces no other aliment. Here we plainly 

 perceive the wonderful ceconomy of nature, and how 

 justly creative wisdom has balanced circumstances, 

 and provided against all possible consequences. 



The greatest part of quadrupeds and volatiles are 

 supported by those vegetable aliments which the 

 earth abundantly produces: the rest prey upon those 

 that might multiply to a nuisance, and as we have, in 

 the place alluded to, already observed the fecundity 

 of each species is, with an udjnirable justness and cal- 

 culation, proportioned to its exposure to destruction. 

 Among the finny inhabitants of the ocean, this 

 system, which seems so mysterious among land ani- 

 mals, appears far more luminous, far more easy to 

 comprehend, and perfectly reconcileabk 7 with the 

 beneficence of the Universal Parent. Fishes, being 

 destitute of those resources which quadrupeds and 

 volatiles possess, have no other means of subsistence' 

 than that of devouring one another, and consequently 



