WORMS. 331 



in his property, and their great object is hasten- 

 ing the execution of the sublapsarian sentence 

 of death, yet this evil is not unmixed with good. 

 Though fearful and hurtful to individuals, yet 

 it promotes the general welfare by helping to 

 reduce within due limits the numbers of man 

 and beast. Besides, with regard to the Lord 

 of the Creation, these things are trials that 

 exercise his patience and other virtues, or tend 

 to produce his reformation, and finally to secure 

 to him an entrance into an immutable and eter- 

 nal state of felicity, when that of probation is 

 at an end, so that the gates of Death may be to 

 him the gates of PEACE and REST. 



CHAPTER XII. 

 Functions and Instincts. Annelidans. 



THE animals we have just been considering 

 form an almost insulated group, so that it seems 

 not easy to say to what tribe they are most 

 nearly related, but the soft Pseudo-leeches, as 

 was observed above, especially those that have 

 rudimental tentacles, seem to tend somewhat 

 towards the molluscan tribes ; they exhibit con- 

 siderable resemblance to the blood-suckers or 

 true leeches, and like them have an instrument 



