claw of the thumb of the fore-foot, which is left free for this and other purposes. Order 8.-Linné evidently degraded man when he placed him in the same Order with the monkey, and even considered his genus Homo as consisting of two species, advancing the Oran Outan' to the honour of being his congener, and a second species of man. Cuvier has, with great propriety, separated man, the heir of immortality, and whose spirit goeth upward. from the beast that perisheth, and whose spirit goeth downward,” and placed them in different Orders. Man has employed some animals in almost every Order, or taken them under his care; but there is only a single instance of a Quadrumane being so used. There is a kind of monkey, a native of Madagascar, which, being of a gentle disposition, the natives of the southern part of that island take when they are young, and educate, as we do hounds, for the chase.* The principal function of these animals is to live and move in the trees, amongst the branches in tropical countries, and they subsist upon fruits, roots, the eggs of birds, and insects. One object of their creation seems to be to hold the mirror to man, that he may see how ugly and disgusting an object he becomes when he gives himself up to vice and the slave of his passions. In fact, in every department of the animal kingdom, the moral instruction of his reasonable creature seems to have been one of the objects of creative wisdom, and the sloth and the glutton may be added to the mandril and baboon as equally calculated to cause him to view vice with disgust and abhorrence; as the bee, the ant, and the beaver, to excite him to industry, and prudence, and foresight; or the dove to peace and mutual love. 1 Written also Ourang Outang, and Orang Olang. 2 Eccles. iii. 21. 4 N. D. D'H. N. xvi. 171, 3 Indris brevicaudatus. CHAPTER XXV. Functions and Instincts. Man. AFTER traversing the whole Animal Kingdom from its very lowest grades, and having arrived at Man, who confessedly stands at the head, and is the only visible king and lord of all the rest, it will be expected that I should devote a few pages to the world's master. Baron Cuvier, with great propriety, places him by himself in a separate Order, distinguished from that which succeeds it, in his system, by the significant appellation of Bimane, indicating that his two hands are the instruments by which he subdues and governs the planet that he inhabits; by which also he is enabled to embody his conceptions, and, as it were, to convert his thoughts into material subsistences. I shall consider him both physically and metaphysically; physically as to his actual position, and as to his action upon his subjects and property, whether vegetable or animal; and metaphysically as to his connection with that world, to which his mind or spirit belongs. When I say that man stands at the head of the creation, I do not mean to affirm that he combines in himself every physical attribute in perfection that is found in all the animals below him; for it is manifest to every one, that many of them far exceed him in the perfection of many of their organs, and in their qualities of various kinds. For sight, he cannot compete with the eagle; for scent, with the hound, or the shark; for swiftness, with the roe-buck; for strength and bulk, with the elephant: but it is in his mind that his superiority lies. There is in him a SPIRIT, an immaterial substance which constitutes him the sole representative here on earth, of the SPIRIT OF SPIRITS. He is the only member of the Animal Kingdom that partakes both of a heavenly and of an earthly nature,-that belongs both to a material and an immaterial world: and on this account it was that God, when he had created man, constituted him king over the whole 1 See above, p. 302. sphere of animals with which he had peopled this globe that we inhabit. When his unhappy fall took place, the Divine Image was impaired, and consequently the dominion over those creatures, which formed a part of it, was proportionably weakened, and reduced to its present standard. But still, though weakened, it is not abrogated; his subjects have not universally broken the yoke and burst the bonds of his dominion-a large portion of them still acknowledge him as their king and master; and those that he has not subdued so as to make them do his bidding, still fear him and flee him: and even of these, there is none so fierce and intractable, that he has not found means to tame and subdue. And this is the position in which he now stands with respect to the animal kingdom; he has that within him that enables him to master them, and apply such of them as are of a convertible nature, if I may so speak, to work his will and answer his purpose. The functions of man, with regard to the world in which he is now placed, are all included in his action upon the sphere of animals and vegetables, and in their re-action upon him. If we survey all nature, wherever we turn our eyes, or wherever we direct our thoughts, we see the action of antagonist powers, a flux and reflux, by which the Great Builder of the universe supports the vast machine, and maintains all the motions that he has generated in it. The same principle is at work in every description of beings in our own planet; every action of man upon any object of the world, without him, produces a reaction from that object, attended often by important results. The action of man upon the world without him, is threefold. His first action upon them is, that of the mind to contemplate them, so as to gain a knowledge of their forms and structureof their habits and instincts-of their meaning and uses. His second action upon them, having studied their natures, and discovered how they may be made profitable to him, is to collect and multiply such species as he finds will, in any way, answer his purpose. His third action upon them is to diminish and keep within due limits those species that experience teaches him are noxious and prejudicial either to himself, or those animals that he has taken into alliance with him, which are principal sources of wealth to him, and minister to his daily use, comfort, and enjoyment. If we consider the predaceous animals, we shall find in them a greater tendency to multiply than in those that content themselves with grazing the herbage; they generally produce more young at a birth; and their period of gestation is often shorter, so as to admit of more than one litter in the year: so that, un less some means were used to reduce their numbers within a certain limit, the whole race of herbivorous animals must perish. Hence arose the first kind of war. Man armed himself to destroy such of his subjects as had rejected his dominion, and even contended with him for the possession of the earth, and to have license to devour at will its more peaceful inhabitants. A similar cause generated the other and more fearful kind of war, of man with man. Whence come wars and fightings amongst you, saith the Apostle; come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? The highest view that we can take of man is that which looks upon him as belonging to a spiritual as well as a material world. The end of the creation of the earth, says the father and founder of Natural History, is the glory of God, from the works of nature, by man only. And, as the same pious author observes, "How contemptible is man," if he does not aim at this end of his creation, if he does not strive to raise himself above the low pursuits that usually occupy his mind! The heavens indeed declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth the work of his hands. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge. The beasts of the field honour him, and all creatures that he hath made glorify him. But man must study the book open before him; and the more he studies it, the more audible to him will be the general voice to his spiritual ear, and he will clearly perceive that every created thing glorifies God in its place, by fulfilling his will, and the great purpose of his providence; but that he himself alone can give a tongue to every creature, and pronounce for all a general doxology. But further, in contemplating them, he will not only behold the glory of the Godhead reflected, but, from their several instincts and characters, he may derive much spiritual instruction. Whoever surveys the three kingdoms of nature with any attention, will discover in every department objects that, without any affinity, appear to represent each other. Thus we have minerals that, under certain circumstances, as it were, vegetate, and shoot into various forms, representing trees and plants: there are plants that represent insects, and, vice versa, insects that simulate plants; and the Zoophytes have received their name from this resemblance. And as we ascend the 1 James, iv. 1. 2 Finis creationis telluris est gloria Dei exopere naturæ per hominem solum, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. Introit. i. 3 O quam contempta res est home nisi supra humana se erexerit. Ibid. scale, every where a series of references of one thing to another may be traced, so as to render it very probable that every created thing has its representative somewhere in nature. Nor is this resemblance confined to forms; it extends also to character. If we begin at the bottom of the scale, and ascend up to man, we shall find two descriptions in almost every class, and even tribe of animals: one, ferocious in their aspect, often rapid in their motions, predaceous in their habits, preying upon their fellows, and living by rapine and bloodshed; while the other is quiet and harmless, making no attacks, shedding no blood, and subsisting mostly on a vegetable diet. Since God created nothing in vain, we may rest assured that this system of representation was established with a particular view. The most common mode of instruction is placing certain signs or symbols before the eye of the learner, which represent sounds or ideas; and so the great Instructor of man placed this world before him as an open though mystical book, in which the different objects where the letters and words of a language, from the study of which he might gain wisdom of various kinds, and be instructed in such truths relating to that spiritual world, to which his soul belonged, as God saw fit thus to reveal to him. In the first place, by observing that one object in nature represented another, he would be taught that all things are significant, as well as intended to act a certain part in the general drama; and further, as he proceeded to trace the analogies of character, in its two great branches just alluded to upwards, he would be led to the knowledge of the doctrine thus symbolically revealed, that in the invisible world there are two classes of spirits, one benevolent and beneficent, and the other malevolent and mischievous; characters, which, after his fall, he would find even exemplified in individuals of his own species. But after the unhappy fall of man, this mode of instruction by natural and other objects used symbolically, though it pervades the whole law of Moses, and the writings of the prophets, as well as several parts of the New Testament, gradually gave place to the clearer light of a revelation, not by symbols, but by the words and language of man, which he that runs may often read; yet still it is a very useful and interesting study, and belongs to man as the principal inhabitant of a world stored with symbols, to ascertain what God intended to signify by the objects that he has created and placed before him, as well as to know their natures and uses. When we recollect what the Apostle tells us, that the invisible things of God from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the |