*7 



m-hole marsh is covered with herbs and grass, and be- 

 comes a pleasant and fruitful meadow. 



I shall add only one reflection more, with regard to 

 the scale of beings. As the microscope discovers almost 

 every drop of water, every blade of grass, every lea 

 flower, and grain of earth, to be swarming with inhabi- 

 tants : a thinking mind is naturally led to consider that 

 -part of the scale of beings, which descends lower and 

 lower, from himself, to the lowest of all sensitive 

 creatures. Among these some are so little above dead 

 /matter, that it is hard to determine whether they live or 

 no. Others that are lifted . one step higher, have no 

 sense beside feeling and taste. Some again have the 

 additional one of hearing: others of smell, and others 

 of sight. 



It is .wonderful to observe 3 by what a gradual pro- 

 gression the world of life advances, through an immense 

 -variety of .species, before a . creature is found, that is 

 .--complete in all its senses. And among these there arc 

 so many different degrees of perfection in the senses 

 which one animal enjoys above another, that though 

 .each sei^e in different animals, comes under the same 

 common denomination, yet it seems almost of a dif- 

 ferent nature. If after this, we attentively consider 

 the inward endowments of animals, their cunning and 

 sagacity, and what we usually^comprehend under the 

 general name of instinct, we find them rising one above 

 another, in the same imperceptible manner, and receiving 

 higher and higher improvements, according to the 

 jspecies in which they are implanted. 



The whole progress of nature is so gradual, that the 

 entire chasm from a plant to man, is tilled up with 

 divers kinds of creatures, rising one above another, by 

 so gentle an ascent, that the transitions from one species 

 to another, are almost insensible. And the intermediate 

 space is so well husbanded, that there is scarce a degree 

 -of perfection which does not appear in some. Now 



