BOOK OF NATURE LAID OPEN. 



anomalous substance called peat is actually a 

 vegetable rather than an earthy or mineral sub- 

 stance, as it has been often supposed. 



Nor is it with regard to corporeal forms only, and 

 peculiarities of organization, that this disjointed con- 

 nection subsists between the different objects which 

 inhabit the globe: the same concatenation is observ- 

 ed to take place respecting mind, beginning with 

 man, who forms the highest link of the chain, and 

 descending from him by an almost imperceptible 

 dimunition of mental powers, through an innumera- 

 ble series of existences, till it ends at last in mere 

 animation alone, with a seeming privation of all 

 mental perception whatever. It is indeed true, that 

 though, in regard to intellect, some of the higher 

 order of animals appear, in certain points of vievv^ 

 to approximate to the lowest of the human species, 

 yet there can be no doubt that man is much farther 

 exalted above them all, than any one of these excels 

 the next below it; so that if there be any break in 

 the chain at all, it is here that the rupture takes 

 place. For though many of the higher orders of 

 animals possess a kind of memory, and the faculty 

 of reasoning in a certain degree; though u the ox 

 knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib," 

 yet, unless it be in recollecting their dependence on 

 others for food, and a few circumstances of a similar 

 nature, tending chiefly to the preservation of ex- 

 istence, the intellectual powers of even the highest 

 order of animals are extremely circumscribed Man 

 alone can reason from consequences to remote causes, 



