CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS. 191 



together only on that instinctive impulse which 

 causes the swallows to assemble ere they take 

 their flight. Among birds of prey, some, as 

 certain vultures, are said to be sociable ; they 

 are merely gregarious ; so also is the wild rock 

 dove of the cavern. The subject thus briefly 

 touched is not often noticed by Zoologists. 



In all our researches into the phenomena of 

 the vital principle we must never forget its 

 Omnipotent Creator. By whatever secondary 

 causes he may work, God alone is the Author 

 and Giver of life. At his fiat, his creatures live ; 

 at his fiat, they die. Immeasurably and in- 

 conceivably glorious must He be at whose 

 bidding results so wonderful proceed. 



There is, however, one species of life higher 

 than any which these pages have been consider- 

 ing — a life, indeed, without which the most 

 exalted form of intellectual existence is com- 

 paratively poor and worthless. To nndi i 

 this subject, however, Ave must refer to the pages 

 of the word of God. From these unerring i 

 we shall learn that man is by nature dead in 

 trespasses and sins ; that created originally in 

 the image of God, with faculties adapted to love 

 his Creator, and to observe those laws which 

 he appointed for his creatures' happiness, man 

 has by transgression fallen from his high estate, 

 and is now with a corrupted nature alienated 

 from God, "an enemy to him by wicked works." 



But the Divine record has not been con- 

 fined to an explanation of the state of spiritual 



