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will then see how frail, how insecure it is, and how certainly it can rest alone on mental attainments!

"C How poor, how rich, how abject, how august,
How complicate, how wonderful, is man!
How passing wonder He who made him such!
Who center'd in our make such strange extremes!
From different natures, marvellously mix'd,
Connexion exquisite of distant worlds!
Distinguish'd link in being's endless chain !
Midway from nothing to the Deity!
A beam ethereal, sully'd and absorpt!
Tho' sully'd and dishonour'd, still divine!
Dim miniature of greatness absolute!
Au heir of glory! A frail child of dust!
Helpless immortal! insect infinite!
A worm a god!-

CHAP. V.

Some important Reflexions, arising from a Consideration of the Nature of Animals. On the State of Man. His Free Agency. Predestination. The Doctrines of Chance. Atheism.

ONE conclusion may be drawn from what has been advanced in the preceding chapter, if the view of the subject be correct, which is of too much importance to be left without notice; and I should consider myself deeply culpable, were I to leave my opinions open to the most dangerous misrepresentation.

If it be true that inferior animals are possessed of the same mental faculties with man, only in a more limited degree, which I believe to be the case; it may be thought to follow, that, being of the same nature, they may have similar claims to a future existence; because, it could not be clearly and satisfactorily shewn, why mind should

become extinct at the death of one animal, and not of another.

On a subject that must ever be a matter of opinion in this world, no one can pretend to speak decidedly. Whatever is limited to conjecture may be fairly deemed of little importance to our present state. No man knows whether the beasts of the field utterly perish in death, or they do not. In the book of inspiration, that volume which assuredly contains a revelation of the word of God, there are no passages that can be allowed conclusive on this point. It is true, indeed, we are there told, that the beasts shall perish, for the mighty son of Jesse, the favoured bard of the MOST HIGH, hath sung, "Man being in honour abideth not: he is like the beasts that perish.”—And again, "Man that is in honour, and understandeth not, is like the beasts that perish." But this merely proves that some beasts perish, and that it is possible for men to be those beasts. These allusions are of the same nature with

* Psalm xlix. 12, 20.

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many others in the sacred volume, which assert that the wicked shall be as the grass that withereth; which is, that they shall be utterly consumed.

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In another place it is said," that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no pre-eminence above a beast:-All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.-Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?" This passage is a very positive confirmation of the only conclusion to which an investigation of the nature of animals, as to their existence, can be brought, which is, the materiality of mind, as well as of body. The term mind is merely given to designate certain qualities of the brain; and all animals having brains, of apparently similar consistence and organization, have mind and it follows, that if the brain

* Ecclesiastes, iii. 19, 20, 21.

perishes, the mind must be destroyed also.. But let not this view of the subject alarm us, by bringing with it all the terrors of annihilation; since we have comfort in the depths of true philosophy, even though we soar not to the blessed heights of a pure religion.

In the physical world we perceive that every stream hath its fountain; and that light itself, though fluctuating to our vision, proceeds from an orb that burneth and shines with an equal and a perpetual glory, sending forth its beams to the remotest indefinite ramifications. It would be as difficult to say where linger the farthest rays of light, as to point out the atom which is possessed of the least portion of mental intelligence.

There is also an eternal and a never-failing fountain of intelligence; and that fountain is the DEITY; from whom the emanations of mind are imparted to the creatures of His formation in such proportion as He deems fit to carry into effect the various purposes of the creation. Animals are the

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