THE FUNCTIONS OF LIFE. 55 



Studies will prepare us for the consideration of living animals 

 as sentient and active beings, endowed.by their bounteous 

 Creator with the exalted faculties of perception and of vo- 

 lition, which alone give value to existence, and which raise 

 them so far above the level of the vegetable world. I shall 

 lastly give a very brief account of the reproductive func- 

 tions and of the phenomena of animal development, in which 

 the discoveries of modern times have revealed to us so con- 

 siderable a portion of those extensive plans which an all-wise 

 Providence has beneficently devised for the general wel- 

 fare of animated beings. 



