ON ZOOLOGY. 113 



wonderful movements are produced; and this 

 would lead me into the anatomy and physiology 

 of animals, a highly interesting subject, but of 

 too comprehensive a nature to admit of more than 

 a cursory view of a few of its principal phenomena* 



Since the vegetable world, among other objects, 

 was intended to assist in the supply of food to 

 animals ; its resources, great as they appear to 

 be, would have been too limited to support the 

 vast variety and increasing numbers which now 

 inhabit the globe, had not other means been 

 adopted to make good the deficiency; and as by 

 so great an addition to the animal world, many 

 parts of which have a tendency to multiply in 

 very extraordinary proportions, the earth would 

 have been too small for their accommodation; 

 providence has ordained that animals shall 

 destroy and live upon each other ; and thus by 

 confining the proportion within just bounds on 

 the one hand, and by multiplying the resources 

 for food on the other, the order of the creation 

 has been so balanced in all its several parts, as 

 to allow no one portion of it to preponderate to 

 the injury of the other. 



This dispensation, which at first sight appears 

 to have a cruel tendency, and therefore to be at 

 variance with the attributes which we have usu- 

 ally assigned to the supreme Being, if closely 

 examined, in all its practical applications, will 

 be found to originate in mercy and benevolence. 



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