142 ON ZOOLOGY. 



principally in view the accommodation and 

 eminence of the human species ; yet it would not 

 have corresponded with the general benevolence 

 which we so justly attribute to the supreme Being, 

 had any part of it been allowed to be benefitted 

 at the expense of the remainder; or, in other 

 words, that one portion of the system should be 

 exposed to great privations and sufferings, only 

 to give a greater zest to the happiness and grati- 

 fication of the other. So far from that being the 

 case, we find a very ample arrangement has been 

 made for the protection and enjoyment of the brute 

 species, in every possible way, their particular 

 nature may require; and that though it was not 

 intended, nor was it necessary, that their happi- 

 ness should be derived from those refined feelings 

 which belong to the human species ; yet if we 

 come to draw a fair comparison between the re- 

 lative sufferings and enjoyments of each, it may 

 well be deserving of consideration, whether an 

 inferiority on the one side, has not been amply 

 balanced by the nicer sensibilities, and phy- 

 sical infirmities, of the other. Man is brought 

 into the world more helpless than any other ani- 

 mal ; without a covering to protect him against 

 the weather, and hardly endued with one instinc- 

 tive property to direct him to the source from 

 which his subsistence is to be obtained. He is 

 therefore indebted to the ingenuity and more 

 than ordinary care of his own species for his im- 



