222 CLASS AVES. 



nature that life must subsist on life : the modes, indeed, are 

 different, but the principle, the result, and the object are the 

 same. The peaceful herds and flocks which graze on the 

 plain, or browse upon the mountain slope, are no less de- 

 stroyers of life, than the sanguinary rangers of the forest and 

 the air. Even vegetation itself is sustained by what once was 

 animal existence, to which its own origin is in all probability 

 posterior : for lifeless matter could never have produced life, 

 nor the green herb have sprung from the naked bosom of the 

 primaeval granite. 



We shall not have recourse here, like some writers, to the 

 vague hypothesis of final causes, to explain all that appears 

 contrary to our conventional ideas of right and wrong in the 

 great system of nature. The fact is, that of final causes we 

 know very little : all we know is, that things are so, and we 

 may conclude that they must be so. There are certain con- 

 ditions of existence without which existence could not be. 

 Wherever we turn, we find indubitable marks of that impe- 

 rious necessity, to which the highest intelligence must bow, as 

 w€ll as the meanest worm. It is no compliment to the Divi- 

 nity to laud his wisdom in the provisions he has made for the 

 preservation of any being, when we know that, without such 

 provisions, the being could not exist at all ; and it is the height 

 of presumption to pretend to justify his operations, by arguing 

 from an imaginary and an impossible hypothesis. 



But without pretending to unravel the mystery of final 

 causes, or to assign a reason why certain animals are endowed 

 with a sanguinary instinct, we may simply observe, that the 

 mischief operated by carnivorous animals in the creation is 

 comparatively very small. The wolf may occasionally ab- 

 stract a lamb from the numerous flock, the lion kill one buffalo 

 out of the immense herd, the eagle strike a solitary kid, or the 

 gerfalcon a single hare ; but the number of victims bears no 

 sort of proportion to the numbers which escape. The bene- 

 volent lord of the creation executes more destruction among 



