175 



LETTER XII. 



ON THEIR NERVOUS SYSTEM AND SENSES. 



" When we are in perfect health and spirits," says 

 Dr. Paley, " we feel in ourselves a happiness independent 

 of any particular outward gratification whatever, and of 

 which we can give no account. This is an enjoyment which 

 the Deity has annexed to life, and probably constitutes, in a 

 great measure, the happiness of infants and brutes, especi- 

 ally of the lower and sedentary orders of animals, as of 

 oysters, periwinkles, and the like ; for which I have some- 

 times been at a loss to find out amusement."* There is 

 much of truth in these remarks of the great moralist ; but, 

 nevertheless, the enjoyments, even of the oyster, are not 

 so few and unvaried as, on a first glance, we might deem 



Fig. 31. 



SOLEN SILIQUA. 



they were. Among the numberless happy creatures which 

 crowd our world, the shellfish and the still more helpless 

 Ascidiae play, it is true, no obtrusive part, yet neither do 

 they mar the scene by their deprivations. The performance 

 of every function with which their Creator has endowed 

 them, brings with it as much pleasure and happiness as their 

 organisation admits of: in the gentle agitation of the water 



* Moral Phil. bk. i. chap. 6. "We cannot take cognisance of the 

 actions of creatures enclosed in bivalve shells; but a distinguished philoso- 

 pher was so fully convinced of the happiness enjoyed by testaceous ani- 

 mals, that he calls calcareous mountains filled with their remains, 'monu- 

 ments of the felicity of past ages.' " — Bakewell's Geology, p. xxx. See, 

 also, Turner's Sac. Hist. i. 204. This view is a pleasing, and, I believe, a 

 just one, notwithstanding Virey's contrary assertion. "Les mollusques, dit 

 M. Virey, sont les pauvres et les affliges panni les etres de la creation ; ils 

 semblcnt solliciter la pitie des autres animaux." — Chenu Lecons Elem. 22. 



