Microscopical Essays. 357 



all harmonizing and acting together as if they were efientially 

 one, naturally lead the mind to confider the nature and perfec- 

 tion of the theatre of creation ; and to perceive that it is an 

 exhibition of the higheft wifdom, and that this wifdom, which in 

 the minuteft things gives evidence of fuch an immenfe attention, 

 to order and ufe, has, no doubt, framed the whole for fome 

 great purpofe ; but what that purpofe is, we mail find it difficult 

 to difcover. 



Though there is no doubt that even this difficulty may be re- 

 moved, when mankind begin to confider the univerfe as one con- 

 nected whole, manifefting and reprefenting the action of an all- 

 beneficent Creator on his creatures, according to the feveral de- 

 grees in which they are capable of receiving and difplaying this 

 aclion ; or; in other words, that this tranfitory fcene is the 

 ultimate refult of the ftate of purity, or error of thofe intelligences 

 which act thereon. But it would lead us too far from the fubject 

 in hand, to enter into a difcuffion of this truly interelling fubjecl:. 

 We muftj therefore, content ourfelves with recommending the 

 reader to ftudy nature ; with the fcriptures in his hand, he may 

 be allured that he will not only find that they perfectly agree 

 with each other ; but he will alfo find, upon an attentive com- 

 panion of palfages of fcripture with each other, that thofe parts 

 which he may have hitherto only confidered as pleafmg figures,, 

 defcriptive imagery, and perhaps as the fublime and beautiful of 

 eloquence, have a more diftinct and clofe connection with the 

 fublime and beautiful of nature ; that they point out the natural, 

 anatomical, and phyfical relation of the various parts of animated 

 nature with , man, and of man with fuperior intelligences. 



