186 SPUING. 



the eagle caresses her young; and when there is danger, 

 creatures which we at other times account the most 

 stupid and cowardly, show no inconsiderable portion 

 of wisdom and valour. There is no caprice in the 

 exercise of this principle, and no deliberation before it 

 be carried into effect; it is instantaneous as the falling 

 of the stone when the support is taken from under it ; 

 and therefore, like that, we must account it a general 

 law of nature not something that each creature finds 

 out by a sort of reflection upon consequences, but a 

 law and a part of its very being, which is as essential 

 and necessary to its existence as respiring or the circu- 

 lation of the fluids, but as independent of any thing 

 that we may call voluntary upon its part, as these are. 

 It is in these general laws, controlling all the parti- 

 cular laws of the individual and the species, that we 

 most clearly see that nature, amid all its varieties, is 

 one whole, and must have had its origin from one 

 cause. Whatever may be the peculiarities of the indi- 

 vidual, and how much soever it may appear to be op- 

 posed in some of its habits to others of the system, 

 there is always some controlling power apparent which 

 links it to the rest, and shows us that, with them, it is 

 the offspring of one common parent. 



It is worthy of remark that this involuntary, or, as 

 we may call it, this unformed attachment, is ever the 

 strongest in those animals of which the broods are the 

 least numerous ; and that in proportion as it is want- 

 ing, or cannot be applied, there is an augmentation in 

 the numbers of the young. The tenderness of the raven, 

 and the other rapacious birds, is an instance of the 

 former ; and the fishes, which retire from the places 



