terwoven; and let him be assured that this curious structure was finished in a few weeks, by a pair of birds, with no other implements than the bill and the claws-and he would instantly be filled with profound astonishment: and how would this emotion be heightened, when he learned that the birds began to build it just in time to be ready for incubation, that it was the first they had ever made, and that they had therefore no experience of the days or weeks necessary for its completion? If there be no ingenuity, no foresight in the animal, there must be wisdom and contrivance somewhere.

There cannot be a stronger proof of intelligence and design than a deviation from a general and salutary law, accompanied with a provision against the injurious effect which that deviation would otherwise produce.

'Almost all animals come into the world covered with clothing adapted to their condition. Man is an exception, because he can clothe himself. He is not, however, the only exception; nor is he the only animal that can clothe itself. The larva or grub of that species of moth which is called the "clothes' moth," manufactures, as soon as it comes into the world, a coat for itself, of hair or wool, and, for the protection of its tender skin, lines it with silk. This is a curious and singular fact. If this coat were the insect's natural covering, it would grow with the insect's growth; but it is artificialand some provision, therefore, must be made for its enlargement, as the grub increases in size. If additional length only were required, the task would be easy; the covering being cylindrical, all that would be necessary would be effected by adding a ring or two at the top or the bottom. But the coat must be widened; and this is an operation which is not so easily performed; but the little insect, as if it had learned the art of tailoring, accomplishes its object with equal ease and success. It begins, as an experienced workman would do, by making two slits, one on each side, in order to give additional width, and then it introduces two slips of the same materials, to fill up the space; but it sees- -or, at least, acts as if it foresaw-that if the slits were made on each side, from one end to the other, at once, the coat would fall off: it proceeds, therefore, with caution, and at first slits its garment on each side only half-way down; and, when it has completed the enlargement of that half, proceeds in like manner to enlarge the other. What more could be done by a skilful tailor? And, be it observed, that this operation is performed, not by imitation for it never saw the thing done; nor by practice-for it is its first attempt. The facts are curious, and worthy of attention. It comes into existence naked. Whence has it learned that a covering is necessary?—who has taught it to choose the proper materials ?or from whom has it learned to employ those within its reach, and fit them for its use ?-who has taught it to felt and fashion them into a coat?-who has taught it that the coat.must be enlarged, in order to suit its growth ?-whence has it learned to enlarge its covering

without

without taking it off, or leaving itself naked? If ingenuity and foresight are denied to the insect, its instinct shows that there is wisdom somewhere. Do we look for intelligence in a senseless necessity?

'How absurd soever the hypothesis may be, and how repugnant soever to the known and established operations of nature, that man was formed by chance or by necessity, instantaneously perfect and in a state of full maturity, it is evident that, admitting the possibility of such an origin, he must have perished immediately after his formation. How was his animal frame to have been supported? Did he know that it required aliment for its sustenance? He came into the world susceptible of pain and pleasure, but totally ignorant of his necessities, and equally unacquainted with the means of supplying them. He feels, we shall suppose, the pain of hunger and thirst; but does he know the cause, or is he acquainted with the means of relieving them?— certainly not. He is as ignorant that the fruits of the earth would satisfy his hunger, or the water of the brook quench his thirst, as the new-born babe; and if he knew that they would answer these ends, how does he know the mode of administering them? How does he know that his food is to be received by the mouth, masticated by the teeth, and transmitted to the stomach? And, if he knew all this, who teaches him-or how does he know to put the appropriate muscles in motion, when he is ignorant even that a muscle exists? To refer us to nature, is to ascribe intelligence to a name, or to an abstract conception. To tell us that he is taught by instinct, is not to remove, but to shift the difficulty. Instinct implies something implanted. By whom is it implanted?-or, we will dismiss the name, though offered by the atheist, lest we should seem to beg the question, and observe, that an animal acts either with knowledge, or by knowledge. If with knowledge, as implying an acquaintance with means and ends, how can that be acquired without experience? Its existence is impossible. If by knowledge, which implies an ignorance in itself of means and ends, then that knowledge is not its own, and must be referred to an Intelligent Author, acting in it, either mediately or immediately. In short, if there is knowledge, it must either be acquired or implanted. If the former alternative be impossible, the latter necessarily follows. No truth, then, can be more evident than this, that if man had been formed fortuitously, he could not have been sustained fortuitously, but must have perished almost as soon as he came into existence. If chance could account for his formation, it cannot possibly account for his preservation.'

This argument is conclusive against one hypothesis. The other, which maintains that the earth, in its primeval state, possessed a generative power, that it contained the seeds of plants and animals—and that these were expanded from embryo, and gradually grew to full maturity-is not less absurd than it is degrading to our nature. Wretchedly debased, indeed, must be the soul of that man who can reconcile himself to assimilate his origin to that of the mite or the maggot. But if such an origin were possible,

how

how is the infant to be fed and fostered until it be capable of providing for its numerous wants? Without that provision for its sustenance to which we would now direct the attention of the reader, it must, in a few hours, return to its mother earth.

' Of all the animal creation, man comes into the world the most helpless and the most dependent. With an organization complete in all its parts, and every part fitted to perform its function, the infant would perish soon after its birth, if some provision were not made for its protection and support. Aliment is accordingly provided for it, suited to its nature, and adapted to its taste; provided, too, in the breast of its mother, by a process no less, admirable than necessary. And what renders the provision truly wonderful-furnishing an impressive evidence of design-is the exhibition of these three striking and impressive facts:-1st, That this aliment is prepared by a temporary deviation from the previous and usual procedure of nature. 2d. That it is not provided until it becomes necessary. 3d. That the supply ceases when it is not required. Can these extraordinary accommodations to varying circumstances be explained by referring them to random chance, or an ignorant fatality? The atheist may fancy that he explains the phenomena when he traces the various steps of the process, noting antecedents and consequents, and assigning what are termed the immediate causes; but we must remind him that, to know the conjunction of two or more phenomena, is not to know the principle of connexion. The mode or order of action is not to be confounded with the principle of agency. If the particles of the secretory organs act by necessity, it cannot be the necessity of brute ignorance, but their passive obedience to the ordination of intelligence.

'But it would not be sufficient that aliment were provided for the nourishment of the child; it must be administered. How, then, is this to be effected? The question, perhaps, may seem to be idle and unnecessary, so familiar to us is the sight of a mother suckling her little innocent. Much, indeed, it is to be lamented, that the more we are accustomed to see the wonders of nature, the more prone we are to regard them with stoical indifference. Reason, and a sense of duty, might prompt the mother to give her breast to the infant child; but these principles can operate only in cultivated minds; in the brute creation they have no place; and their agency is generally slow and uncertain. They constitute a part of that mental provision which is made for the support of the helpless babe: but other incentives, more quick in their operation, as well as more certain in their effect, concur with the provision of physical nature, and stimulate the mother, with resistless efficacy, to administer to her infant that food which is provided for its sustenance. These are―pain, pleasure, and instinctive affection,-three of the most powerful stimulants of which our nature is susceptible.

If the nutriment for the infant be suppressed or withheld, pain is the necessary consequence. A febrile affection ensues, inflicted, we say, by the Parent of nature for the violation of his laws. This pain

ful

ful sensation can be relieved only by an extraction of the flu idby which the infant should be nourished. The stimulus, therefore, to administer it is almost irresistible; the mother is impelled to relieve herself; this is one, and, indeed, singly, a sufficient provision for securing nutriment to the infant offspring. Again, the pleasure which accompanies the act of suckling is another powerful incentive to the mother to impart her treasure to her hungry child. To be relieved from pain is enjoyment, but there is here a positive and direct gratification, both animal and intellectual, which every mother feels in giving suck to her infant babe, and ministering to its earliest wants. The child is fed, and the mother delighted. Again, in every mother there is implanted an instinctive affection towards her infant offspring. This principle is, in its energy, so powerful, that it subdues every other feeling; self-love is annihilated by its resistless superiority, and the mother cheerfully sacrifices a thousand comforts, nay sometimes life itself to save her child*. To be convinced, indeed, of the mighty influence of maternal love, we have only to consider the infant's incessant calls on a mother's affection during the season she should give to repose, the wakeful hours which she willingly passes in order to consult its ease and administer to its comforts, her anxious solicitude on all occasions to anticipate its wants, and the smiles that light up her countenance when, by the breast, she stills its cries, or lulls it to sleep in a mother's bosom. To a sympathetic heart, no sight can be more delightful, none better calculated to impress us with the conviction of a parental intelligence presiding over all, and providing for our earliest necessities, when we can neither know them nor express them, than the sight of an affectionate mother nursing her infant babe. Nor is this affection confined to the mother, civilized by culture, enlightened by philosophy, or actuated by religious feeling. It is found in the negro and the Indian, nay in the ferocious animal that roams in the desert. The instinct also which directs the infant to the mother's breast-the instinct by which he sucks, an operation which no human ingenuity could teach him-the instinct by which he is taught to breathe through the nostrils, while his lips are closed, present, with the facts already stated, such a concurrence of circumstances, physical and mental, all necessary to the sustenance of the infant, as are wholly inexplicable on the hypothesis of brute necessity. There are various other instincts, indispensable to the safety and sustenance of the animal, which irresistibly lead to the same conclusion.'

Dr. Crombie having, in preceding pages of his work, adduced various parts of the human frame, singly, and their harmony as a whole, with its combined properties and powers, proceeds to exhi

*How forcibly does the following fact, related in a French journal, evince the strength of maternal affection. A woman in the south of France, while she was busied in her garden, had the misfortune to be attacked by a wolf, who tore a hole in her side. The animal was accidentally frightened, and fled. The poor woman, feeling that the injury was mortal, but, even in the extremity of suffering, intent on the wants of her little infant, whom she had left in the house, applied her hand to the wound to close it, and returning to her child, gave suck to the babe, and then expired.

bit the mental constitution of man, as a striking and an additional proof of an intelligent Cause. The attributes of Deity, and the infinitude of his perfections, are subjects which engage a due portion of his attention. In treating of the divine benevolence, Dr. Crombie offers a very curious and original argument, into which, we regret to say, our limits will not permit us to enter. The proofs of a Providence and of a future state are exhibited, and the objections urged by the materialist against the immortality of the soul are overthrown. On no subjects have more obscurity and error prevailed, than on those relating to the nature or essence of matter and of mind. Hobbes has asserted-and others have, with an air of triumph, repeated the assertion-that an incorporeal substance is a contradiction and an absurdity. If ever a mere gratis dictum was obtruded as argument, it is here. We call on the materialist to prove the contradiction. We would challenge him to show, that it is impossible for any substance to exist, but body or material substance-nothing but what may be seen or touched. If he confine the term substance to body, he not only palpably begs the question, but proves himself ignorant of the real meaning of the word. A substance is that in which qualities or properties inhere, whatever these qualities or properties may be. And whenever the materialist has proved that there can be no substance but matter, no quality, no property, no accident, in the whole universe, but what belongs to body, then, and not till then, can his assertion be received as an established fact.

But we will not pursue these abstruse speculations. Though it was proper, and even essential, that the author, in giving to the world a comprehensive treatise on natural theology, should notice and refute objections founded on the doctrine of materialism; yet the question of a future state of existence, being a question of fact, is to be resolved like other questions of fact, not by metaphysical disquisitions, but by experience and induction. Now an inductive progress, analogous to that which proves the existence of God, proves also the immortality of man. Experience assures us of the universal fact, or principle, that in the animal kingdom every function has an appropriate sphere of action. Were a naturalist, upon being cast upon a desert island, there to meet with the foetus of an animal unknown before, an examination of its structure would enable him to infer with certainty its prevailing habits and its element. One formation would enable him to determine whether it were carnivorous, granivorous, or both; another, whether it were terrestrial, aquatic, or amphibious. Now, on what principle would these conclusions of our experienced naturalist be drawn? and on what principle would the world of science assent to them as established? Only on the principles of inductive logic. It is a general fact, established by universal expe

rience,