UN INSTINCT. 
429 
while rejecting this subtle jiuid, the ethereal matter I cannot 
for an instant agree with the French philosophers, who imagine 
that by organization, powers not naturally possessed by matter 
were developed, and that sensibility was a property belonging to 
some unknown combinations of insensate atoms. I never can 
believe that intelligence can result from combinations of insensate 
and brute atoms. I can as easily imagine that the planets are 
moving by their own will or design round the sun ; and it is with 
disgust that I hear the plan of the physiologist, of the gradual 
accretion of matter, and its becoming endowed with irritability, 
ripening into sensibility, and acquiring such organs as were ne¬ 
cessary by its own inherent forces; and at last rising into intel¬ 
lectual existence.” Surely, a walk into the green fields or woods, 
or by the banks of a river, would be sufficient to elevate our 
thoughts from nature to the God of nature, for there may be seen in 
all the boasted powers of matter, the instruments of the Deity— 
the sunbeams, the breath of the zephyr, awakening animation 
in forms prepared by divine intelligence to receive it—the insen¬ 
sate seed, the slumbering egg, which were to be vivified, appear¬ 
ing, like the new-born animal, works of a divine mind. 
It can be scarcely necessary in these days to direct an adult 
audience from nature up to nature’s God; but I would wish to 
impress, if possible, on the minds of some of the junior part of 
my audience, who may be now studying the book of nature, that 
the conviction that every thing tends to some immediate or even¬ 
tual good, is the greatest incentive to its study. This conviction 
makes the study of nature highly interesting, and may, indeed, 
be said to render labour delightful. To those who entertain such 
sentiments, every thing seems animated, beneficent, and useful; 
they have the happy talent of discovering even 
“Tongues in trees, books in the running brooks. 
Sermons in stones, and good in every thing.” 
MR. CHARLES CLARK IN REPLY TO MR. MAYER, 
ON THE DOCTRINES TAUGHT BY PROFESSOR 
COLEMAN. 
To the Editor of The Veterinarian” 
Veterinary Infirmary, Giltspur Street, 
July 14, 1838. 
Sir,—I n your last Number I find myself called upon, or 
rather “ respectfully requested,” to prove an allegation made in 
I. 
