accordingly we can go no further here than to show, in a brief and succinct manner, a few of the principal arrangements instituted by Almighty wisdom and power, which render our solid globe and its circumambient atmosphere the fitting abode of such forms of organic life as we are acquainted with, and for which, in fact, the world was created. To this world all the senses of animals are expressly accommodated. If there were no air, there could be no organs of hearing—granting the existence of living beings without respiration. If there were no light, or the laws of light were otherwise than what they are, our eyes would be useless. Were our lower stratum of atmosphere always enveloped in a dense mist, obscuring the rays of the sun, the sphere of our vision and its accuracy would be greatly circumscribed—nay, sounds would fall more dully on our ears. Suppose the globe closely shrouded by an oppressive fog; and then imagine the condition of plants, animals, and man. Yet, did it please our great Creator, it is in his power to call into existence plants and animals fitted for so moist and obscure an atmosphere.

Again, the atmospheric temperature, the varying degrees of heat and cold, according to latitude and to the characters of land—that is, its elevation, its depression, the nature of its surface, and the arrangement of adjacent seas, etc., are in harmony with the development of life, and the due exercise of animal functions. Then, intimately connected with this subject, are the laws of caloric, the suspension of which would lead to the annihilation of all organic beings at present constituted. Neither can we forget the weight of the atmosphere, its varying electric conditions, nor the density and attractive force of our planet. To these, and many other laws impressed upon matter, and the results of those laws, are the physical organization of plants and animals adapted, each in its own way, but yet with a mutual relative bearing, conducive to universal order.

To the constitution of this earth are plants, living forms destitute of feeling, hearing, sight, or indeed any sense known to us, adapted—yet according to their kinds they know what nutriment to refuse or reject; they are subject to the influence of temperature and of light and darkness; some court the broad glare of the sun, others flourish only in the shade. The same observations apply to certain of the lowest forms of animal organization, which lead a vegetable life, and appear not to be aware of their own existence. Nor, indeed, is it until we ascend high in the scale of animal being, and arrive at a point at which the senses are more or less developed, and in accordance with this development, that of mind also, (for we can use no other term,) that we discover a decided consciousness of existence, as manifested by anger, fear, and other passions; by watchfulness, sensibility to pain and pleasure of a mental kind; a recourse to artifice or to force as a means of gaining certain ends; and other proofs of a something—call it mind, or any other name—to which the senses appeal.

For, let us remember, it is only in a certain sense that the eye sees, or the ear hears; in the former instance, nothing more than an image of objects is inversely reflected on the retina, and yet the mind recognises these objects in their proper position; and what is more, not double, though the same object is figured on the retina of each eye, or, in the case of insects, on the retina of scores of eyes. In hearing, the minute auditory nerves merely receive an impulse from the vibrations or wavelets of the elastic atmosphere, and this constitutes what we call noise, tones, music, voice. But these tones or noises are in the mind only; they are not appreciated by the exercise of any other sense.

Having thus briefly endeavoured to show the harmony of the general order of nature, as far as our globe and its animal and vegetable forms are concerned, we shall proceed to the consideration of another portion of our subject, and commence with it a fresh chapter.