VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL LIFE. 



101 



as in years, is but an infant, seems to require not less than a thousand years 

 to give it full vigour and maturity. Extending its enormous arms over the 

 dry and barren soil from which it shoots naturally, it affords shelter to whole 

 nations of barbarians, and in its pleasant subacid fruit administers an ample 

 supply to their hunger. 



Let it not, however, be imagined that, by pointing out such frequent in- 

 stances of resemblance between animal and vegetable life, I mean to degrade 

 the rank of animal being from its proper level ; for it will be one of the chief 

 objects of our subsequent studies to develope and delineate its multiform and 

 characteristic superiorities. I am only tracing at present the common prin- 

 ciple of vitality to its first outlines : I am endeavouring to unfold to you, in 

 its simplest and rudest operations, that grand, and wonderful, and compre- 

 hensive system, which, though under different modifications, unquestionably 

 controlling both plants and animals, from the first moment it begins to act 

 infuses energy into the lifeless clod, draws forth form and beauty, and indi- 

 vidual being, from unshapen matter, and stamps with organization and pro* 

 pensities the common dust we tread upon. And if, in this its lowest scale 

 of operation, — if, under the influence of these its simplest laws, and the mere 

 powers (so far as we are able to trace them) of contractility and irritability, 

 it be capable of producing effects thus striking, thus incomprehensible, what 

 may we not expect when the outline is filled up and tiie system rendered com- 

 plete ? What may we not expect when we behold, superadded to the powers of 

 contractility and irritability, those of sensation and voluntary motion ? What, 

 more especially, when to these are still farther added the ennobling faculties of a 

 rational and intelligent soul, — the nice organs of articulation and speech, — the 

 eloquence of language, — the means of interchanging ideas, and of imbody- 

 ing, if I may so express myself, all the phenomena of the mindl 



Such are the important subjects to which our subsequent studies are to be 

 directed. In the mean time, from the remarks which have already been 

 hazarded, we cannot, I think, but be struck with the two following sublime 

 characters, which pre-eminently, indeed, distinguish all the works of nature : 

 — a grand comprehensiveness of scheme, a simple but beautiful circle of 

 action, by which every system is made to contribute to the well-being of 

 every system, every part to the harmony and happiness of the whole ; and 

 a nice, and delicate, and ever-rising gradation from shapeless matter to form, 

 from form to feeling, from feeling to intellect, from the clod to the crystal, 

 from the crystal to the plant, from the plant to the animal, from brutal life to man. 

 Here, placed on the summit of this stupendous pyramid, lord of all around 

 him, the only being through the whole range of the visible creation endowed 

 with a power of contemplating and appreciating the magnificent scenery by 

 which he is encompassed, and of adoring its Almighty Architect — at once 

 the head, the heart, and the tongue of the whole — well, indeed, may he exult 

 and rejoice ! But let him rejoice with modesty. For, in the midst of this 

 proud exaltation, it is possible that he forms but one of the lowest links in 

 " the golden everlasting chain" of intelligence ; that he stands on the mere 

 threshold of the wifrld of perception ; and that there exists at least as wide 

 a disproportion between the sublimest characters that ever were born of 

 women, our Bacons, Newtons, and Lockes, our Aristotles, Des Cartes, and 

 Eulers, and the humblest ranks of a loftier world, as there is between these 

 highly-gifted mortals and the most unknowing of the animal creation. Yet 

 MIND, thanks to its benificent Bestower ! is itself immortal, and knowledge is 

 eternally progressive ; and hence man, too, if he improve the talents in- 

 trusted to him, as it is his duty to do, may yet hope, unblamed, to ascend 

 hereafter as high above the present sphere of these celestial intelligences, as 

 they are at present placed above the sphere of man. But these are specula- 

 tions in some degree too sublime for us : the moment we launch into them, 

 that moment we become lost, and find it necessary to return with suitable 

 modesty to our proper province, — an examination of the world around us ; 

 where, with all the aids of which we can avail ourselves, we shall still find 

 difficulties enough to try the wisdom of the wisest, and the patience of the 

 Host persevering. 



