phiz. Hence it is that the intrinsic worth and merit of a son of Alma Mater is ordinarily calculated from the cast of his visage, the contour of his person, the mechanism of his dress, the disposition of his limbs, the manner of his gait and air, with a number of circumstances of equal consequence and information. The practitioners in this art often make use of a gentleman's eyes to give them light into the posture of his brains; take a handle from his nose to judge of the size of his intellects; and interpret the overmuch visibility and pertness of one ear as an infallible mark of reprobation, and a sign the owner of so saucy a member fears neither God nor man. In conformity to this scheme, a contracted brow, a lumpish downcast look, a sober sedate pace, with both hands dangling quiet and steady in lines exactly parallel to each lateral pocket of the galligaskins, is logic, metaphysics, and mathematics, in perfection. So likewise the belles lettres are typified by a saunter in the gait, a fall of one wing of the peruke backward, an insertion of one hand in the fob, and a negligent swing of the other, with a pinch of right fine Barcelona between finger and thumb, a due quantity of the same upon the upper lip, and a noddle-case loaden with pulvil. Again, a grave solemn stalking pace is heroic poetry, and politics; an unequal one, a genius for the ode, and the modern ballad; and an open breast, with an audacious display of the holland shirt, is construed a fatal tendency to the art military. 'I might be much larger upon these hints, but I know whom I write to. If you can graft any speculation upon them, or turn them to the advantage of the persons concerned in them, you will do a work very becoming the British Spectator, and oblige, Your very humble servant, TOM TWEER." No. 519. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 25, 1712. Inde hominum pecudumque genus, vitæque volantum, VIRG. Æn. vi. 728. Hence men and beasts the breath of life obtain, DRYDEN. THOUGH there is a great deal of pleasure in contemplating the material world, by which I mean that system of bodies into which nature has so curiously wrought the mass of dead matter, with the several relations which those bodies bear to one another; there is still, methinks, something more wonderful and surprising in contemplations on the world of life, by which I mean all those animals with which every part of the universe is furnished. The material world is only the shell of the universe; the world of life are its inhabitants. If we consider those parts of the material world which lie the nearest to us, and are therefore subject to our observations and inquiries, it is amazing to consider the infinity of animals with which it is stocked. Every part of matter is peopled; every green leaf swarms with inhabitants. There is scarce a single humour in the body of a man, or of any other animal, in which our glasses do not discover myriads of living creatures. The surface of animals is also covered with other animals, which are in the same manner the basis of other animals that live upon it; nay, we find in the most solid bodies, as in marble itself, innumerable cells and cavities that are crowded with such imperceptible inhabitants as are too little for the naked eye to discover. On the other hand, if we look into the more bulky parts of nature, we see the seas, lakes, and rivers teeming with numberless kinds of living creatures. We find every mountain and marsh, wilderness and wood, plentifully stocked with birds and beasts; and every part of matter affording proper necessaries and conveniences for the livelihood of multitudes which inhabit it. The author of the Plurality of Worlds draws a very good argument from this consideration, for the peopling of every planet; as indeed it seems very probable, from the analogy of reason, that if no part of matter, which we are acquainted with, lies waste and useless, those great bodies, which are at such a distance from us, should not be desert and unpéopled, but rather that they should be furnished with beings adapted to their respective situations. Existence is a blessing to those beings only which are endowed with perception; and is in a manner thrown away upon dead matter, any further than as it is subservient to beings which are conscious of their existence. Accordingly, we find, from the bodies which lie under our observation, that matter is only made as the basis and support of animals, and that there is no more of the one than what is necessary for the existence of the other. Infinite goodness is of so communicative a nature, that it seems to delight in the conferring of existence upon every degree of perceptive being. As this is a speculation which I have often pursued with great pleasure to myself, I shall enlarge further upon it; by considering that part of the scale of beings which comes within our knowledge. There are some living creatures which are raised * Fontenelle. This book was published in 1686, and is founded on the chimerical Vortices of Descartes. just above dead matter. To mention only that species of shellfish, which are formed in the fashion of a cone, that grow to the surface of several rocks, and immediately die upon their being severed from the place where they grow. There are many other creatures but one remove from these, which have no other sense besides that of feeling and taste. Others have still an additional one of hearing; others of smell, and others of sight. It is wonderful to observe by what a gradual progress the world of life advances through a prodigious variety of species, before a creature is formed that is complete in all its senses; and even among these there is such a different degree of perfection in the sense which one animal enjoys beyond what appears in another, that, though the sense in different animals be distinguished by the same common denomination, it seems almost of a different nature. If after this we look into the several inward perfections of cunning and sagacity or what we generally call instinct, we find them rising after the same manner imperceptibly one above another, and receiving additional improvements, according to the species in which they are implanted. This progress in nature is so very gradual, that the most perfect of an inferior species comes very near to the most imperfect of that which is immediately above it. The exuberant and overflowing goodness of the Supreme Being, whose mercy extends to all his works, is plainly seen, as I have before hinted, from his having made so very little matter, at least what falls within our knowledge, that does not swarm with life. Nor is his goodness less seen in the diversity than in the multitude of living creatures. Had he only made one species of animals, none of the rest would have enjoyed the happiness of existence he has, therefore, specified in his creation every degree of life, every capacity of being. The whole chasm in nature, from a plant to a man, is filled up with divers kinds of creatures, rising one over another, by such a gentle and easy ascent, that the little transitions and deviations from one species to another are almost insensible. This intermediate space is so well husbanded and managed, that there is scarce a degree of perception which does not appear in some one part of the world of life. Is the goodness or wisdom of the Divine Being more manifested in this his proceeding? There is a consequence, besides those I have already mentioned, which seems very naturally deducible from the foregoing considerations. If the scale of being rises by such a regular progress so high as man, we may, by a parity of reason, suppose that it still proceeds gradually through those beings which are of a superior nature to him; since there is an infinitely greater space and room for different degrees of perfection between the Supreme Being and man, than between man and the most despicable insect. This consequence of so great a variety of beings which are superior to us, from that variety which is inferior to us, is made by Mr. Locke, in a passage which I shall here set down, after having premised, that notwithstanding there is such infinite room between man and his Maker for the creative power to exert itself in, it is impossible that it should ever be filled up, since there will be still an infinite gap or distance between the highest created being and the Power which produced him. That there should be more species of intelligent creatures above us, than there are of sensible and material below us, is probable to me from hence: that in all the visible corporeal world we see no chasms, or no gaps. All quite down from us the descent is by easy steps, and a continued series of VOL. VII. T |