130 



it will afterwards assume, that we should be apt to mis- 

 take it, were it not to accompany it in all its progress. 

 Observehovv tJie parts of a plant are folded together, 

 eutwined7 and concentred in the seed or bud. Is this 

 that majestic tree which will ere long overshadow a 

 large space of ground 1 This the flower that will so 

 gracefully display itself? This the fruit that will as- 

 sume such a regular figure ? You can now only per- 

 ceive an unformed mass of knotted filaments : yet this 

 little chaos may already contain in it a world, where all 

 is organized and symmetrical. 



You have seen frogs in their first state ; they appear 

 afrtliat time to consist only of a large head and a long 

 tail : such is the chick when it begins to expand itself. 

 A very slender tail, stretched in a strait line, is joined to 

 a large head ; and the tail contains all the rudiments of 

 the composition ; nay, is the very composition itself; 

 and the transparent fluid in which it floats, constitutes 

 the whole of those soft parts with which it is afterwards 

 covered. 



The same revolutions, therefore, which occasion the 

 heart of the chick to be transformed from its semicircu- 

 lar shape of that of a pyramid, bring the chick itself to 

 a state of perfection. If we were permitted to pene- 

 tnitx-' to the foundation of the mechanism whereby these 

 successive changes are effected, what a degree of cer- 

 tainty would our knowledge of animal economy ac- 

 quire? We should contemplate in an egg, the mys- 

 teries of the two kingdoms,. And how greatly would 

 our admiration of that ADORABLE WISDOM be in- 

 creasedi which, by the simplest means, ever attains the 

 most noble ends ? 



f). Thus, the more we ascend to the origin of or- 

 ganized beings, the mere we "are persuaded (if their 

 having pre-existed before their first appearance ; not 

 Such as they first appear to us, but disguised ; and 

 where it possible for us to trace them still higher, 

 we should undoubtedly find them still more disguised, 

 and should be at a- loss to conceive how they could 



