310 PROGRESSIVE SCALE OF BEINGS. 



be adduced in illustration of the same principle among the 

 vertebral animals ; and among the invertebral, the connec- 

 tions and relations of this sort are so numerous, as to form a 

 great obstacle to the proper division of them into classes and 

 orders. 



' All the substances we recognize on this earth may be di- 

 vided intoorganized and animated, organized and inanimated, 

 and unorganized or brute matter. The whole of these pos- 

 sess degrees of perfection, of excellence, or of relative utility, 

 proportioned to their stations or ranks in the universe. Change 

 these stations or ranks, and another world would be neces- 

 sary to contain and support them. Beings must not be con- 

 templated individually, but by their rank, and the relations 

 they have to the constituent parts of the general system of 

 nature. Certain results of their natures we consider as evils. 

 Destroy these evils, and you annihilate the beings who corn- 

 plain of them. The reciprocal action of the solids and fluids 

 constitute life, and the discontinuation of this action is the 

 natural cause of death. Immortality on this earth, therefore, 

 presupposes another system ; for our planet has no relation 

 to immortal beings. Every animal, and every plant, rises, by 

 gentle gradations, from an embryo, or gelatinous state, to a 

 certain degree of perfection exactly proportioned to their 

 several orders. An assemblage of all the orders of relative 

 perfection constitutes the absolute perfection of the whole. 

 All the planets of this system gravitate toward the suit and 

 toward each other. Our system gravitates toward other sys- 

 tems, and they to ours. Thus the whole universe is linked 

 together by a gradual and almost imperceptible chain of 

 existences, both animated and inanimate. Were there no 

 other argument in favor of the UNITY OF DEITY, this uniform- 

 ity of design, this graduated concatenation of beings, which 

 appears not only from this chapter, but from many other parts 

 of the book, seerns to be perfectly irrefragable. 



' In contemplating man as the head of those animals with 

 which we are acquainted, and viewing him in connection with 

 the economy of the world about him, it appears obvious that 

 no sentient being, whose physical construction was more deli- 

 cate, or whose mental powers were more elevated than those 

 of man, could possibly live and be happy here. If such a be- 

 ing really existed, his misery would be extreme. With senses 

 more refined and acute; with perceptions more delicate 

 and penetrating; with a taste so exquisite that the objects 

 around him could by no means gratify it ; obliged to feed upon 



