to vindicate the truths of the gospel, and at the same time to question the divine authority of Moses and the Prophets, are incompatible labours. If the writings of the latter be not received as genuine in themselves, I know not where we shall find the proof of those sublime dogmas, which is admitted to exist. Jesus Christ, by fulfilling the laws and ordinances of Moses, confirmed their divine obligations upon all the descendants of Abraham till his time: in short, by fulfilling the law he set his seal to the divine commission of Moses who was its author. And therefore a contrast of the two dispensations, with invidious and disparaging reflexions upon the first, must inevitably weaken the foundations of credibility in the last.

In concluding my remarks on the work under review, I am, however, anxious to do the author justice. Although I cannot find the reference to an Almighty Power, in immediate connexion with his reasoning on the movements of animal life; yet I am gratified in being able to produce an incidental allusion to such a Divine principle, in the Second Lecture. He observes, "The ends or final purposes of the Creator will be placed in the strongest light by selecting any animal of marked peculiarity in its economy, and comparing together its structure and mode of life."-I gladly quote also a passage, to be found in one of the Introductory Lectures, published about three years before the principal work made its appearance. It is to the following effect." The

Power of Reproduction"-" forms one of those decisive and grand characters, which distinguish at once the machines, that proceed from the hand of the Creator, from all, even the most ingenious and boasted productions of human skill.”

CHAP. VIII.

RECAPITULATION-THE PERFECTION OF INSTINCT IN ITS PHYSICAL OPERATIONS, AND THE IMPERFECTION OF HUMAN REASON.

SECT. I.

Recapitulation.

HAVING now considered those instinctive motions in organized matter, which indicate the operation of a moving power, called Mind, vitally inherent in every animated structure, and acting very frequently without the creature's direction,-whether it may act according to chemical or mechanical laws, or may obey a finer impulse peculiar to living organs;-I shall recapitulate very briefly the chief heads of which we have been treating, before I proceed to apply the foregoing reasonings in connexion with the subject more immediately proposed in this Essay-viz. the relation which Instinct, in all its different modifica tions, bears to the highest acts of the human mind.

We have seen, and must be assured, that in every particle of dust, there are properties entirely incomprehensible; and that in the fall of a stone and the shooting of a crystal, a blind but infallible impulse operates; which, from ignorance of the cause, we are used to term a Law of Nature. For, though this impulse be blind, as it regards the substance, yet it is wise and unerring, as it regards the Creator; and because it acts with uniform energy-in a manner too inscrutable to human reason,-we refer it to a power impressed by the Deity. For, if the law, by which a stone falls to the ground, be the same with that by which the heavenly bodies are moved in their orbits, how wonderful must be its operation, how far transcending human knowledge, and how worthy of the divine architect.*

If we notice the elements by which we are surrounded, how perfect are they in their respective natures;—the air, water, fire !—how essential in every vital operation to every thing that grows and breathes, yet how powerful when suffered even to exert their limited force in the earth :-as witness the hurricane's fury, the raging sea, the far-extended devastation of the earthquake, the overwhelming eruption of the

* "Gravity (says Woodward) does not proceed from the efficiency of any contingent and unstable agents; being entirely owing to the direct concourse of the power of the Author of Nature."

"True philosophy has shewn it (gravity) to be unsolveable by any hypothesis, and resolved it into the immediate will of the Creator.(Quincey.)

"Universal gravitation (says Bentley) is above all mechanism: and proceeds from a divine energy and impression.”

volcano, and the awfully swift destruction of lightning! With such amazing capabilities of reducing the earth to its original chaos, how admirably are these potent elements restrained and regulated; and, with what transcendent skill, are they adapted to the form and habitudes and senses of animals!

Rising from gravitation and the laws of the more subtile though unconscious elements, to crystallization and chemical attraction; in the solid parts of our globe, what infinite wonders!-If the ultimate particles of matter be the same in all bodies, how marvellously and in what inexhaustible variety are they formed into metals, gems, earths, salts, and their innumerable compounds;-each precious stone, and each salt, earthy or metallic, affecting its own crystal by an inherent tendency altogether inscrutable!

But, if from the rude crust of the earth, the inorganic stone, we ascend a single step towards the animal kingdom, we see the plant springing upward from its seed, and bearing fruit, with inherent powers which defy all explanation by chemical or mechanical laws. The structure is so delicate, the growth and nutrition so elaborate, that the utmost effort of human skill cannot form a fibre of the simplest leaf, or compound the juice of the meanest herb. And therefore, we seem justified in ascribing the phenomena of the vegetable kingdom, so perfect, so diversified, so adapted to their ends,-the continuance of the several species, the delight and support of animated nature, and the beauty and harmony of the creation—to a