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fruit are upheld from rottiug upon the ground. The 

 ivy for the same reason, but by another contrivance 

 climbs up the oak, and sticks close to its sides : and 

 the feeble plant which we vulgarly call the creeper, 

 that can hardly raise itself three feet high alone, 

 thrusts out its claws at proper distances, fixes them 

 fast in the neighbouring wall or building, and mounts 

 fcy this means to the tops of the highest houses. What 

 Tariety of artifice is found here among these feeble 

 vegetables to support themselves ? 



Yet we believe these plants have no understanding, 

 and mankind are all agreed that they have no such 

 thing as sense belonging to them, and we immediately* 

 recur to the wisdom of God the Creator, and as* 

 cribe the contrivance and the honour of it to him 

 alone. It was he (we say), who gave the vine its 

 during tendrils, and the creeper its, hooky claws ; 

 it was he instructed the one to bind itself with na- 

 tural winding cords to the boughs of a stronger tree, 

 and he taught the other as it were, to nail itself against 

 the wall, it was he shewed the ivy to ascend straight 

 up the oak, and the hop and (he lupin, in long spiral 

 lines, to twine round their proper supporters. 



Let us enquire row, what do we mean by such 

 expressions as these ? Truly nothing but this^ that 

 God formed the nature of these vegetables in such a 

 manner, as that by certain and appointed rules of 

 mechanical motion, they should grow up and move 

 their bodies and their branches so as to raise and to 

 uphold themselves and their fruit. Thus the wisdom 

 of God, the great artificer, is glorified in the vegeta. 

 tie world. 



And why should we not give God the Creator the 

 same honour of his wisdom in the animal world also ; 

 why may we not suppose that he has formed the 

 bodies of brute creatures, and all their inward springs 

 of motion, with such exquisite art, as even in their 

 youngest hours, without reasoning and without imi- 

 tation, to pursue those methods as regularly which are 

 necessary for their life ancj t^eir defence, by the sam* 



