ANIMALS. 



213 



utmost care to provide a place of warmth, as 

 well as safety, for their young ; the rapacious 

 kinds bring forth in the thickest woods ; those 

 that chew the cud, with the various tribes of 

 the vermin kind, choose some hiding place 

 in the neighbourhood of man. Some dig holes 

 in the ground ; some choose the hollow of a 

 tree ; and all the amphibious kinds bring up 

 their young near the water, and accustom 

 them betimes to their proper element. 



Thus Nature seems kindly careful for the 

 protection of the meanest of her creatures : 

 but there is one class of quadrupeds that seems 

 entirely left to chance, that no parent stands 

 forth to protect, nor no instructor leads, to 

 teach the arts of subsistence. These are the 

 quadrupeds that are brought forth from the 

 egg, such as the lizard, the tortoise, and the 

 crocodile. The fecundity of all other animals 

 compared with these is sterility itself. These 

 bring forth above two hundred at a time ; but, 

 as the offspring is more numerous, the paren- 

 tal care is less exerted. Thus the numerous 

 brood of eggs are, without farther solicitude, 

 buried in the warm sands of the shore, and 

 the heat of the sun alone is left to bring them 

 to perfection. To this perfection they arrive 

 almost as soon as disengaged from the shell. 

 Most of them, without any other guide than 

 instinct, immediately make to the water. In 

 their passage thither, they have numberless 

 enemies to fear. The birds of prey that haunt 

 the shore, the beasts that accidentally come 

 there, and even the animals that give them 

 birth, are known, with a strange rapacity, to 

 thin their numbers as well as the rest. 



But it is kindly ordered by Providence, that 

 these animals, which are mostly noxious, 

 should thus have many destroyers : were it 

 not for this, by their extreme fecundity, they 

 would soon over-run the earth, and cumber 

 all our plains with deformity. 



[" Thus throughout the whole economy of 

 nature we may trace displays of infinite wis- 

 dom,even in regulating theimpulses of instinc- 

 tive power, and in governing its annual or va- 

 ried tides. A mere system of organized mat- 

 ter, without any independent and intelligent 

 cause, could never have communicated to it- 

 self that prescience which the numerous tribes 

 of animals exhibit; and to ascribe the visible 



phenomena to chance, is to invest a mere ab- 

 stract idea with attributes, which, even human 

 knowledge, refined by all the light which phi- 

 losophy imparts, is scarcely able to compre- 

 hend. And even if we allow chance to have 

 been the primitive cause of existence, and of 

 the varied phenomena connected with it, we 

 must ascribe to it that eternity of being which 

 Atheism denies to the intelligent Creator; 

 unless we conceive that chance, by chance, 

 has begotten chance throughout an infinite 

 series in past duration. The absurdity of 

 such a supposition it would be folly to pursue. 



"That many things appear inexplicable in 

 the economy and overruling Providence of 

 God, will be most readily allowed. In every 

 department, shadows, and obscurities, veil 

 from human penetration a considerable por- 

 tion of his ways. In the vast chain of being, 

 a few links only are open to human inspec- 

 tion ; and even these the dimness of our bodi- 

 ly organs and mental powers will not permit 

 us fully to explore. Sometimes even those 

 links which we perceive are not immediately 

 connected together; and at other times, mists, 

 minuteness, and distance, lay an embargo upon 

 our faculties. It is thus that the parts with 

 which we are surrounded, are intercepted 

 and concealed from our discernment, while 

 the chain itself, stretching into another world, 

 can only be discovered by that light, which, 

 in futurity, eternity shall impart. 



" In the structure and organs of animals, 

 there is an adaptation for certain ends which 

 the most superficial observer can hardly fail 

 to observe. Adaptation implies design, and 

 this involves some being or power capable oi 

 forming the design, and calculating upon is- 

 sues, which no combination of accidents has 

 in any known case ever yet produced. The 

 evidences of wisdom which are scattered over 

 the surface of our globe, speak in a language 

 that must be heard even by the most careless 

 and inattentive ; and the animal world pre- 

 sents us with a noble compendium of facts, 

 that are constantly exposed to the scrutiny of 

 every eye. Of these, Dr. Goldsmith has fur- 

 nished a grand exhibition; and the condi- 

 tion of that reader is not to be envied, who, 

 after perusing his Natural History, can close 

 his book, and deliberately think there is no 

 God."] 



2O 



