ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE 

 PHYSIOLOGY. 



INTRODUCTION. 

 Chapter I. 



FINAL CAUSES. 



To investigate the relations which connect Man 

 witii his Creator is the noblest exercise of human 

 reason. The Being who bestowed on him this 

 faculty must evidently have intended that he should 

 so exercise it, and that he should acquire, through 

 its means, some insight, however limited, into the 

 order and arrangements of creation ; some know- 

 ledge, however imperfect, of the divine attributes ; 

 and a distinct, though faint perception of the tran- 

 scendent glory with which those attributes are 

 encompassed. To Man have been revealed the 

 POWER, the WISDOM, and the goodness of God, 

 through the medium of the Book of Nature, in the 

 varied pages of which they are inscribed in inde- 

 lible characters. On Man has been conferred the 

 high privilege of interpreting these characters, and 

 of deriving from their contemplation those ideas of 

 grandeur and sublimity, and those emotions of 

 admiration and of gratitude, which elevate and 

 VOL. r. B 



