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Chapter II. 



ORGANIC DEVELOPEMENT. 



Although the study of organic structures in 

 their finished state must tend to inspire the 

 most sublime conceptions of the Great Creator 

 of this vast series of beings, extending from the 

 obscurest plant to the towering tenant of the 

 forest, and from the lowest animalcule to the 

 stately elephant and gigantic whale, there yet 

 exists another department of the science of 

 Nature, removed, indeed, from the gaze of ordi- 

 nary observers, but presenting to the philosophic 

 inquirer subjects not less replete with interest, 

 and not less calculated to exalt our ideas of the 

 transcendent attributes of the Almighty. To a 

 mind nurtured to reflection, these divine attri- 

 butes, whether of power, of wisdom, or of bene- 

 ficence, are no where manifested with greater 

 distinctness, or arrayed in greater glory, than in 

 the formation of these various beings, and in 

 the progressive architecture of their wondrous 

 fabric. 



Our attention has already been directed, in a 

 former part of these inquiries, to the successive 



