ANALOGY OF TEGETABLE AND ANlftlAL LIFE. 3^ 



ill grow on no other soil, thrives here and fixes it, and prevents it from 

 being washed back or blown away ; to which the lime-grass,* couch- 

 grass,! sand-reed,f and various species of willow, lend their aid. Thus 

 fresh lands are formed, fresh banks upraised, and the boisterous sea re» 

 polled by its own agency. 



Frosts and suns, water and air, equally promote fructification in their 

 respective ways ; and the termes, or white ant, the mole, the hampster, and 

 the earth-worm, break up the ground or delve into it, that it may enjoy 

 their salubrious influences. In hke manner, they are equally the ministers 

 of putrefaction and decomposition ; and Uverworts and funguses, the ant 

 and the beetle, the dew- worm, the ship- worm, and the woodpecker, con- 

 tribute to the general effect, and soon reduce the trunks of the stoutest 

 oaks, if lying waste and unemployed, to their elementary principles, so as 

 to form a productive mould for successive progenies of animal or vegetable 

 existence.^ Such is the simple but beautiful circle of nature. Every 

 thing lives, flourishes, and decays : every thing dies, but nothing is lost ; 

 for the great principle of life only changes its form, and the destruction of 

 one generation is the vivification of the next.§ Hence, the Hindu mytho- 

 logists, with a force and elegance peculiarly striking, and which are no 

 where to be paralleled in the theogonies of Greece and Rome, describe 

 the Supreme Being, whom they denominate Brahm, as forming and regu- 

 lating the universe through the agency of a triad of inferior gods, each of 

 whom contributes eqXially to the general result, under the names of Brah- 

 ma, Visnu, and Iswara ; or the generating power, the preserving or con- 

 summating power, and the decomposing power. And hence the Chris- 

 tian philosopher, with a simplicity as much more sublimethan the Hindu's, 

 as it is more veracious, exclaims, on contemplating the regular confusion, 

 the intricate harmony, of the scenes that rise before him-*- 



These, as they change, Almighty Father ! these 

 Are but the varied God. The rolling year 

 Is full of Thee. - 



LECTURE IX. 



ON THE GENERAL ANALOGY OP VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL LIFE.. 

 (The subject continued.) 



The perfection of an art consists in the employment of a comprehensive 

 system of laws, commensurate to every purpose within its scope, but con- 

 cealed from the eye of the spectator ; and in the production of effects that 

 seem to flow forth spontaneously, as though uncontrolled by their influ- 

 ence, and Which are equally excellent, whether regarded individually, or 

 in reference to the proposed result. 



Such is the great art of nature : and he who would study it with success 

 must, as far as he is able, trace out its various laws, and reduce them to 

 general principles, and collect its separate pheenomena, and digest them 



* Elymus arenariua. t Triticum repens. J Arundo arendria. 



§ See upon this subject the Swedish Amoenitates Academicae, yol. v. art. 80. by J, H- 

 Hagen. 1757, entitled Natura Pelagi. 



