NATURAL THEOLOGY. 99 



The tjoung of all animals appear to me to re- 

 ceive pleasm'e simply from the exercise of their 

 limbs and bodily faculties, without reference to 

 any end to be attained, or any use to be answered 

 by the exertion. A child, without knowing any 

 thing of the use of language, is in a high degree 

 delighted with being able to speak. Its incessant 

 repetition of a few articulate sounds, or, perhaps, 

 of the single word which it has learnt to pronounce, 

 proves this point clearly. Nor is it less pleased 

 with its first successful endeavours to walk, or 

 rather to run (which precedes walking,) although 

 entirely ignorant of the importance of the attain- 

 ment to its future life, and even without applying 

 it to any present purpose. A child is delighted 

 with speaking, without having any thing to say, 

 and with walking, without knowing where to go. 

 And, prior to both these, I am disposed to believe, 

 that the waking hours of infancy are agreeably 

 taken up w^ith the exercise of vision, or perhaps, 

 more properly speaking, with learning to see. 



But it is not for youth alone that the great Pa- 

 rent of creaton hath provided. Happiness is found 

 with the purring cat, no less than with the playful 

 kitten ; in the arm-chair of dozing age, as well as 

 in either the sprightliness of the dance, or the ani- 

 mation of the chase. To novelty, to acuteness 



such animals may be only apparently short. If time is but the 

 succession of ideas, then, as Soame Jenyns has observed, the in- 

 sect that flutters for a single summer's day may in reality live as 

 Ion-; as th3 tortoise that breathes for a century. 



