190 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. 



though planted with various vegetables, seem 

 unapt to exhibit in beauty the frail blossoms of 

 the plant, which though they can bear the fluc- 

 tuations of their own atmosphere, must often be 

 destroyed by the greater weight and more irre- 

 sistible agitations of a denser element. To 

 ornament the bosom of the deep, therefore, more 

 solid forms, sending forth blossoms capable of 

 sustaining the action of such an element, were 

 requisite : and therefore God, who gifted his 

 creature man with an inquiring spirit, and with 

 an appetite for knowledge of the works of 

 creation, to furnish him with objects for inquiry, 

 and to gratify that appetite to the utmost, not 

 only placed before his eyes upon the earth an 

 innumerable host of creatures, of which he could 

 gain a notion by only opening his eyes and by 

 observing their beauties, and experiencing their 

 utility, might praise his Maker for them; but 

 also filled the deep with inhabitants, and orna- 

 mented it with animals which appearing to vege- 

 tate and blossom like plants, his curiosity being 

 excited, he might also study the inhabitants of 

 the water, and glorify his Maker for the creation 

 of them also. 



But we may derive another use from the con- 

 sideration of these plant-like animals, if the 

 sceptic endeavours to persuade us, from the 

 gradual progress, observable in natural objects 

 from low to high, and from the narrow interval 



