ON ZOOLOGY. 



109 



fix our attention, or where we shall have the 

 greatest reason to admire the wisdom and contri- 

 vance by which so many animated bodies with 

 each its own peculiar laws, have been preserved 

 in individual uniformity, and yet contributing to 

 the general harmony of the whole. For though 

 animals, for the conveniency of acquiring a readier 

 knowledge of all their varieties, have, by human 

 arrangements, been divided into perfect and im- 

 perfect ; yet in nature there is not one living sub- 

 stance but is endued with the properties, essential 

 to its respective duties ; and it is the relative 

 qualifications, as compared with those of other 

 animals, that alone constitute the difference. 

 Throughout every species indeed such an attention 

 has been paid to the necessities of each, as well 

 as to the means of performing its various func- 

 tions; that we cannot but consider every part of 

 the animal kingdom as one grand system in which 

 no portion of it is defective; and however compa- 

 ratively limited in action some of its members may 

 appear, yet it may well be doubted, if greater 

 powers had been assigned to them, whether such 

 an interruption to the movements of the other 

 parts of thesystem would not have been produced, 

 as might at once have defeated the object for 

 which the whole was created. 



In a former paper, when treating on the vege- 

 table kingdom, we took the opportunity of draw- 

 ing a comparison between vegetables and animals, 



