OF THE BRUTE CREATION. 
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of changes, till their original vehicles become as pure and refined 
as light, and susceptible of the same degree of rapid motion 1 
There are various insects that undergo transformations nearly as 
wonderful on our globe ; but, the circumstances occurring almost 
constantly before our eyes, we do not consider them as extraordinary 
or wonderful. The caterpillar is first an egg, next a crawling worm, 
then a nymph or chrysalis, and afterwards a butterfly, adorned with 
the most gaudy and beautiful colours. The May-bug beetle bur- 
rows in the earth, where it drops an egg, from which its young 
creeps out in the shape of a maggot, which casts its skin every 
year, and, in the fourth year, it bursts from the earth, unfolds its 
wings, and sails in rapture through the soft air. 
These are only two of the many instances that might be adduced 
to shew the probability of a progressive change among the higher 
order of animals — changes which, however great and interesting 
to the individual, may not be more wonderful or more mysterious 
than those occurring in the different states of existence to which 
a caterpillar is destined. 
The conclusion to which we naturally arrive on the last argu- 
ment is, that it is impossible for the human mind to form too 
extravagant a conception of the universe ; and that, in speculating 
on the possibility of the future existence of the lower orders of 
creation, there is nothing improbable ; for as the Deity ex- 
tended to us finite beings his fatherly regard, while there are 
intellectual beings in existence whose faculties are raised as far 
above the limited power of man as man is above the lowest reptile 
on our globe, so His love and care will not stop at man, but 
will be extended to the whole of his innumerable family . 
“ All are but parts of one stupendous whole, 
Whose body nature is, and God the soul ; 
That chang’d through all, and yet in all the same ; 
Great in the earth, as in th’ ethereal frame ; 
Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze, 
Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees ; 
Lives through all life, extends through all extent, 
Spreads undivided, operates unspent.” 
An objection might here be raised to the possibility of be- 
lieving or admitting the existence of spirit in actuating the most 
minute and meanest animate organization of matter; yet, when 
the objection is properly examined and confronted, it will be found 
that there is no solid foundation for its existence. It cannot be 
more wonderful that microscopic animals should possess mind, 
than that they should possess organized frames like our own, and 
be endowed with feeling and instinct. In the fluids in which they 
live, they are observed to move with astonishing speed and 
activity ; nor are their motions blind and fortuitous, but evidently 
