they are multiplied, finite, and perpetually renewed. Without the one, there would be no grandeur in the creation; without the other, it would exhibit nothing but dull uniformity.

Here time appears to us in a new point of view; the smallest of its fractions becomes a complete whole, which comprehends all things, and in which all things transpire, from the death of an insect to the birth of a world; each minute is in itself a little eternity. Combine, then, at the same moment, in imagination, the most beautiful incidents of nature; represent to yourself at once all the hours of the day and all the seasons of the year, a spring morning and an autumnal morning, a night spangled with stars and a night overcast with clouds, meadows enamelled with flowers, forests stripped by the frosts, and fields glowing with their golden harvests; you will then have a just idea of the prospect of the universe. While you are gazing with admiration upon the sun sinking beneath the western arch, another beholds it emerging from the regions of Aurora. By what inconceivable magic does it come, that this aged luminary, which retires to rest, as if weary and heated, in the dusky arms of night, is at the very same moment that youthful orb which awakes bathed in dew, and sparkling through the gray curtains of the dawn? Every moment of the day the sun is rising, glowing at his zenith, and setting on the world; or rather our senses deceive us, and there is no real sunrise, noon, or sunset. The whole is reduced to a fixed point, from which the orb of day emits, at one and the same time, three lights from one single substance. This triple splendor is perhaps the most beautiful incident in nature; for, while it affords an idea of the perpetual magnificence and omnipresence of God, it exhibits a most striking image of his glorious Trinity.

We cannot conceive what a scene of confusion nature would present if it were abandoned to the sole movements of matter. The clouds, obedient to the laws of gravity, would fall perpendicularly upon the earth, or ascend in pyramids into the air; a moment afterward the atmosphere would be too dense or too rarefied for the organs of respiration. The moon, either too near or too distant, would at one time be invisible, at another would appear bloody and covered with enormous spots, or would alone fill the whole celestial concave with her disproportionate orb.

Seized, as it were, with a strange kind of madness, she would pass from one eclipse to another, or, rolling from side to side, would exhibit that portion of her surface which earth has never yet beheld. The stars would appear to be under the influence of the same capricious power; and nothing would be seen but a succession of tremendous conjunctions. One of the summer signs would be speedily overtaken by one of the signs of winter; the Cow-herd would lead the Pleiades, and the Lion would roar in Aquarius; here the stars would dart along with the rapidity of lightning, there they would be suspended motionless; sometimes, crowding together in groups, they would form a new galaxy; at others, disappearing all at once, and, to use the expression of Tertullian, rending the curtain of the universe, they would expose to view the abysses of eternity.

No such appearances, however, will strike terror into the breast of man, until the day when the Almighty will drop the reins of the world, employing for its destruction no other means than to leave it to itself.

CHAPTER III.

ORGANIZATION OF ANIMALS AND OF PLANTS.

PASSING from general to particular considerations, let us examine whether the different parts of the universe exhibit the same wisdom that is so plainly expressed in the whole. We shall here avail ourselves of the testimony of a class of men, benefactors alike of science and of humanity: we mean the professors of the medical art.

Doctor Nieuwentyt, in his Treatise on the Existence of God, has undertaken to demonstrate the reality of final causes. Without following him through all his observations, we shall content ourselves with adducing a few of them.

1 In all the passages here quoted from the treatise of Nieuwentyt, we have taken the liberty of altering the language and giving a higher coloring to his subject. The doctor is learned, intelligent, and judicious, but dry. We have also added some observations of our own.

In treating of the four elements, which he considers in their harmonies with man and the creation in general, he shows, in respect to air, how our bodies are marvellously preserved beneath an atmospheric column, equal in its pressure to a weight of twenty thousand pounds. He proves that the change of one single quality, either as to rarefaction or density, in the element we breathe, would be sufficient to destroy every living creature. It is the air that causes the smoke to ascend; it is the air that retains liquids in vessels; by its agitation it purifies the heavens, and wafts to the continents the clouds of the ocean.

He then demonstrates, by a multitude of experiments, the necessity of water. Who can behold, without astonishment, the wonderful quality of this element, by which it ascends, contrary to all the laws of gravity, in an element lighter than itself, in order to supply us with rain and dew? He considers the arrangement of mountains, so as to give a circulation to rivers; the topography of these mountains in islands and on the main land; the outlets of gulfs, bays, and mediterranean waters; the innumerable advantages of seas: nothing escapes the attention of this good and learned man. In the same manner he unfolds the excellence of the earth as an element, and its admirable laws as a planet. He likewise describes the utility of fire, and the extensive aid it has afforded in the various departments of human industry.

When he passes to animals, he observes that those which we call domestic come into the world with precisely that degree of instinct which is necessary in order to tame them, while others that are unserviceable to man never lose their natural wildness. Can it be chance that inspires the gentle and useful animals with the disposition to live together in our fields, and prompts ferocious beasts to roam by themselves in unfrequented places? Why should not flocks of tigers be led by the sound of the shepherd's fife? Why should not a colony of lions be seen frisking in our parks, among the wild thyme and the dew, like the little animals celebrated by La Fontaine? Those ferocious beasts could never be employed for any other purpose than to draw the car of some

1 Modern physics may correct some errors in this part of his work; but the progress of that science, so far from conflicting with the doctrine of final causes, furnishes new proofs of the bounty of Providence.

triumphant warrior, as cruel as themselves, or to devour Christians in an amphitheatre.1 Alas! tigers are never civilized among men, but men oftentimes assume the savage disposition of the tiger!

The observations of Nieuwentyt on the qualities of birds are not less interesting. Their wings, convex above and concave underneath, are oars perfectly adapted to the element they are designed to cleave. The wren, that delights in hedges of thorn and arbutus, which to her are extensive deserts, is provided with a double eyelid, to preserve its sight from every kind of injury. But how admirable are the contrivances of nature! this eyelid is transparent, and the little songstress of the cottage can drop this wonderful veil without being deprived of sight. Providence kindly ordained that she should not lose her way when conveying the drop of water or the grain of millet to her nest, and that her little family beneath the bush should not pine at her absence.

And what ingenious springs move the feet of birds? It is not by a play of the muscles which their immediate will determines, that they hold themselves firm on a branch; their feet are so constructed, that, when they are pressed in the centre or at the heel, the toes naturally grasp the object which presses against them. From this mechanism it follows that the claws of a bird adhere more or less firmly to the object on which it alights, as the motion of that object is more or less rapid; for, in the waving of the branch, either the branch presses against the foot or the foot against the branch, and in either case there results a more forcible contraction of the claws. When in the winter season, at the approach of night, we see ravens perched on the leafless summit of the oak, we imagine that it is only by continual watchfulness and attention, and with incredible fatigue, they can maintain their position amid the howling tempest and the obscurity of night. The truth, however, is, that unconscious of danger, and defying the storm, they sleep amid the war of winds. Boreas himself fixes them to the branch from which we every moment expect to see them hurled; and, like the veteran mariner whose hammock is

The reader is acquainted with the cry of the Roman populace: "Away with the Christians to the lions!" See Tertullian's Apology.

2 The truth of this observation may be ascertained by an experiment on the foot of a dead bird.

slung to the masts of a vessel, the more they are rocked by the hurricane the more profound are their slumbers.

With respect to the organization of fishes, their very existence in the watery element, and the relative change in their weight, which enables them to float in water of greater or less gravity, and to descend from the surface to the lowest depths of the abyss, are perpetual wonders. The fish is a real hydrostatic machine, displaying a thousand phenomena by means of a small bladder which it empties or replenishes with air at pleasure.

The flowering of plants, and the use of the leaves and roots, are also prodigies which afford Nieuwentyt a curious subject of investigation. He makes this striking observation: that the seeds of plants are so disposed by their figure and weight as to fall invariably upon the ground in the position which is favorable to germination.

Now if all things were the production of chance, would not some change be occasionally witnessed in the final causes? Why should there not be fishes without the air-bladder, which gives them the faculty of floating? And why would not the eaglet, that as yet has no need of weapons, have its shell broken by the bill of a dove? But, strange to relate, there is never any mistake or accident of this sort in blind nature! In whatever way you throw the dice, they always turn up the same numbers. is a strange fortune, and we strongly suspect that before it drew the world from the urn of eternity it had already secretly arranged the lot of every thing.

This

But, are there not monsters in nature, and do they not afford instances of a departure from the final cause? True; but take notice that these beings inspire us with horror, so powerful is the instinct of the Deity in man-so easily is he shocked when he does not perceive in an object the impress of his Supreme Intelligence! Some have pretended to derive from these irregularities an objection against Providence; but we consider them, on the contrary, as a manifest confirmation of that very Providence. In our opinion, God has permitted this distortion of matter expressly for the purpose of teaching us what the creation would be without Him. It is the shadow that gives greater effect to the light a specimen of those laws of chance which, according to atheists, brought forth the universe.