1. Of some particular plants	5. Of ambergris
2. Sugar not unwholesome	6. Of the corruption of plants and animals
3. Maple sugar	7. General reflections
4. Molasses from apples	8. Essay on the production of plants and animals

1.It remains to give a short account of some remarkable productions of the vegetable kind.

The grass of the submarine meadows is not a span long, and is of a green approaching to a yellow colour. The tortoises seem to live wholly on this: but they bite much more of it than they swallow. Hence the sea is covered with this grass, wherever they feed at the bottom. About once in half an hour they come up, fetch one breath like a sigh, and sink again. They breathe somewhat oftener when on shore; if you hurt them, the tears will trickle from their eyes. They will live out of water twenty days and be fat, if they have twice a clay half a pint of salt-water. -

A submarine sensitive plant has been observed on the Irish coast. It consists of a long slender tube about as thick as the barrel of a goose quill, growing about six or eight inches out of the crevices of the rocks, especially in such hollows as the saltwater remains in, after the tide ebbs away. In the middle of the tube springs up a slender stalk. The top of which is a reddish, round vesicle. If you point a finger to this, as soon as you are near touching it, the stalk withdraws to the very bottom of the tube, and the tube itself bends and becomes flaccid. The plant has no branches, nor can the root be separated from the rock without breaking it. On the Cornish shores, there grows a kind of a sensitive fucus. Bring this so near the fire as just to warm, and its edges shrink up. In this state, move a finger toward them, and they shrink from it, but if the finger is removed, recover their former situation.. Placed on a warm hand, it moves perpetually to and from the hand like an animal struggling for life. It seems this odd effect is owing to the structure of these plants. They are so extremely thin that they yield to the perspiration of the hand; the effluvia being of force sufficient to repel the leaves when they are near.

The vines of hops wind about the poles with the sun, those of kidney-beans against the sun, and that, so obstinately, that although the one or the other be over-night wound the opposite way, yet in the morning it will be found to be got back again to its natural bent.

The herb of Paraguay, as it is called, is the leaf of a tree, of the size of a middling apple-tree. It is sent to Peru and Spain, in great quantities, well dried and almost reduced to powder, being ‘used by the miners and many others, as we use wine, and the Turks opium, to raise the spirits. Indeed the Spaniards believe it to be a preservation from, and remedy for all their disorders. It is opening and diuretic, and what is surprising, produces very different effects at different times. It purges some, and nourishes others : it gives sleep to the restless and spirits to the drowsy. Those who are accustomed to the use of this herb, can scarce ever leave it off, or even take it moderately; though when used to excess, it brings on most of those disorders that attend the too free use of strong liquors. They prepare it nearly as we do tea; but seldom use any sugar with it. Sometimes they take it by way of a vomit: then they drink it lukewarm.

The caa-tree (that is its proper name) thrives best in the marshy bottoms between the mountains of Maracayu, east of Paraguay, in about twenty-five degrees twenty-five minutes south latitude, They sometimes send to Peru alone, in a year, a hundred thousand arobes, (an arobe is 28 pounds,) and each arobe is worth seven French crowns.

By the whole account, this appears to be a species of tea, little differing from some of those which grow in China. The leaf is a third part less, than that of bohea-tea, but much hardier: for it bears the English frost, which that will not. Bohea-tea has a smaller and a darker leaf than green; which is as large and as bright as a bay-leaf, and endures all weathers. All these appear to be of a laurel kind, and I doubt, if laurel, or bay-leaves properly cured, would not equal any of them.

The coco-tree grows straight, without any branches, thirty or forty feet high. Near the top it bears twelve leaves, each ten feet long, and half a foot broad. . These are used in making mats, covering houses, and for many other purposes. Above the leaves grows a large excrescence, in the form of a cabbage. But the taking it off kills the tree. Between the leaves and the top grow several shoots, as thick as a man’s arm, which when cut, yield a ‘white, sweet, agreeable liquor, serving as wine, and equally intoxicating. Yet at the end of four-and-twenty hours, it becomes a Strong vinegar. As long as this liquor distils, the tree bears no fruit; but when these shoots are suffered to grow, it puts forth a large bunch, wherein the coco-nuts are to the number of ten or twelve. In each there is about half a pint of clear cooling water. In a little while this becomes a white, soft pulp, which afterwards condenses into a nut. The tree yields fruit thrice a year. Some of the nuts are as large as a man’s head.

The cacao-tree is of a middling size: the wood is porous, the bark is smooth, and of a cinnamon colour. The flower grows in bunches between the stalks and the wood, of the form of roses, but without scent. The fruit containing the cacao is a sort o pod, of the size and shape of a cucumber. Within this is a pleasant, acid pulp, which fills up the interstices of the nuts till they are ripe. Then they lie close together, in a regular and elegant order. They have a tough shell; within which is the oily substance, whereof the chocolate is made. This fruit grows differently from our European fruits, which always hang upon the small branches: whereas this grows along the body of the great ones, principally at the joints. None are found on the small; a manner of vegetation strange here; but which prevails in several other plants within the tropics.

The tallow-tree, which grows plentifully in China, is about the height of a cherry-tree. Its bark is very-smooth, and its leaves of a deep shining red. Its fruit grows in a pod, like ,a chesnut, consisting of thi’ee white grains: each of which is about the size, and of the form of a small nut. In each is a little stone, surrounded with a white pulp, in consistence, colour, and even smell, like tallow. And this it is, of which the Chinese in general make their candles.

The horse-chesnut contains a saponaceous juice, useful not only in bleaching, but also in washing linens and stuffs: Peel and grind them; then the meal of twenty nuts, is sufficient for ten or twenty quarts of water. Either linen or woollen may be washed in the infusion, without any other soap. It takes out spots of all kinds, rinsing the clothes afterwards in spring water.

If you grind the nut, steep the meal in hot water, and then mix it with an equal quantity of bran, both hogs and poultry will eat it. Both horses and cows will eat the nut itself, mixt with otherwood.

The sago-tree is between twenty and thirty feet high, and about five or six round; it grows in the Molucca islands. Its outward bark is about an inch thick: under this are ligneous fibres, which cover a mass of a kind of gummy meal , When this is ripe, a whitish dust transpires through the leaves. The Malais then cut down the tree, scoop out the mealy substance, dilate it with water, and strain it through a fine cloth. It afterwards gradually dries and hardens, and will keep good for many years.

Palm-trees are male and female. In March or April, when the sheaths that enclose the young clusters of the flowers and. fruit begin to open, at which time the dates are formed, they take a sprig of the male cluster, and insert it into the sheath of the female; or else take a whole cluster of the male tree, and sprinkle the farina of it over several clusters of the female. Where they use the former method, one male suffices to impregnate four or five hundred females.

The palm-tree is in its greatest vigour about thirty years after transplantation, and for seventy years longer bears, yearly, fifteen or twenty clusters of dates, each of fifteen or twenty pounds weight. Afterward they gradually pine away, and usually fall about the latter end of their second century.

To procure the honey of the palm-tree, they cut off its head, and scoop the top of the trunk into the shape of a bason. The sap ascending lodges in this cavity, for the first ten or twelve days, three quarts or a gallon a day. Then it gradually diminishes, till in six or eight weeks, the juices are consumed, and the tree is fit only for firewood. This liquor is a thin syrrup, of a more luscious sweetness than honey. Hence our poet mentions,

“Fruit of palm-tree, pleasant to our thirst

And hunger both.”

Though one would imagine, a liquor of that kind, would not be very proper to quench thirst.

I find, of the number of Sicilian plants, says a late writer, the cinnamon, sarsaparilla, sassafras, rhubarb, and many others commonly thought not to be natives of Europe. The palma Christi too, that plant so much celebrated of late, from the seed of which the castor oil is made, grows in many places of Sicily in the greatest abundance. Our botanists have called it ricinus Americ canus, supposing it only to be produced in that part of the world.

But the most uncommon of all the vegetable productions of Sicily, are some of the trees that grow on the sides of Mount Etna. Three of these are nearly of one size; but one is rather taller than the other two. It rises from one solid stem to a considerable height; after which it branches out. I measured it about two feet from the ground, and found it seventy-six feet round. All these grow on a thick, rich soil, formed originally of ashes thrown out by the mountain.

The balsam-tree grows on rocks, and frequently on the limbs or trunks of other trees. This is occasioned by birds scattering or voiding the seeds, which being glutinous, like those of mistletoe, take root and grow: but not finding sufficient nourishment, the roots spread on the bark till they find a decayed hole wherein is some soil. Into this they enter and become a tree. But the nourishment of this second spot being exhausted, one or two of the roots pass out of the hole, and fall directly to the ground, though at forty feet distance. Here again they take root, and become a much larger tree than before. They flourish on the Bahama islands, and many other of the hot parts of America.

In Italy are many coppice woods, of what our gardeners call the flowering ash. Manna is procured by piercing the bark, and catching the sap, as we do that of birch trees, to make birch wine. It begins to run in the beginning of August, and in a dry season, runs for five or six weeks. But we have no need to be beholden to the king of Naples; for the tree grows as well in England as in Italy. What stupidity is it then, to import, at a large expense, what we may nave at our own doors! The leaves of this tree are the proper senna, and better than any brought from Apulia.

Peruvian bark comes from a tree, about the bigness of a plumb tree. Its leaves are like ivy, and are always green. It is gathered in autumn, the rind is taken off all round, both from the boughs and the tree, and grows again in four months. It bears a fruit, not unlike a chesnut, except its outward shell. This shell is properly called China-China, and is esteemed by the natives, far above the bark, which is taken from the trunk or boughs. And it seems this only was in use, till the demand for it so increased.

The tree which produces cotton, is common in several parts both of the East and West Indies. The fruit is oval, about the size of a nut. As it ripens, the outside grows black, till opening in several places by the heat of the sun, it discovers the cotton, of an admirable whiteness. But as fine cotton is now made in Ireland from flax, as ever grew on the cotton tree.

Pepper grows on a shrub in several parts of the East Indies, which, is of the reptile-kind; and for that reason is usually planted at the foot of some larger tree. It grows in clusters, which at first are green. As the grains ripen, they grow reddish; and after being exposed awhile to the sun, become black. To make white pepper, they moisten it with sea water, and then exposing it to the sun, divest the grains of the outer bark, which of consequence leaves them white.

The tree that bears Jamaica pepper, is about thirty feet high, and covered with a gray, smooth, shining bark. It shoots out abundance of branches, which bears large leaves, like those of the bay tree. At the very end of the twigs ‘grow bunches of flowers, each stalk bearing a flower which bends hack. To these succeeds a bunch of berries, larger when ripe than juniper berries. They are then black, smooth and shining; but they are taken from the tree when unripe, and dried in the sun. They have a mixed flavour of many kinds of spice, and hence they are called all-spice.

The plant which affords ginger, resembles our reed, both if its stem and leaves. The root spreads itself near the surface of the ground, in form not unlike a man’s hand. When it is ripe they dig it up, and dry it. either in the sun, or in an oven.

Nutmegs are. enclosed in four different covers: the first, thick and fleshy, like that of our walnuts: the second is a thin, reddish coat, of an agreeable smell, called mace. The third is a hard blackish shell. The fourth is a greenish film. In this the nutmeg is found, which is properly the kernel of the fruit.

The WILD PINES as it is called, is a wonderful instance of the wise providence of God. The leaves of it are channelled, to catch and convey water into their reservoirs. These reservoirs are so made, as to contain much water. And they close at the top when they are full, to hinder its evaporation. These plants grow on the arms of the trees in the woods, as also on the bark of their trunks. Another contrivance of nature in this vegetable is very admirable. The seed has many long and fine threads, that it may be carried every where by the wind, and that by these, when driven through the boughs, it may be held fast, and stick to the arms or trunks of trees. As soon as it sprouts, although it be on the under part of a bough, its leaves and stalk rise perpendicular, because if it had any other position, the cistern made of hollow leaves could not hold water. In scarcity of water, this reservoir is not only necessary and sufficient for the plant itself, but likewise useful to men, birds and insects. Hither they then come in troops, and, seldom go away ‘without refreshment.

These leaves will hold a pint and a half, or a quart of rainwater. .“ When we find these pines,” says captain Dampier, “we stick our knives into the leaves, just above the root; and that lets out the water, which we catch in our hats, to our great relief.”

The same Providential design is answered by the WATERWITHY of Jamaica. This, which is a kind of vine, grows on dry hills in the woods, where no water is to be found. Its trunk, if cut into pieces, two or three yards long, and held by either end to the mouth, affords a limpid, innocent and refreshing sap, as clear, as water: and that in so great abundance, as gives new life to the weary and thirsty traveller.

An admirable instance of the same good Providence we have in the FOUNTAIN tree, which grows on Hierro, one of the Canary islands. In the rocky cliff which surrounds the island, is a narrow gutter, which begins at the sea and continues to the summit of the cliff, where it falls into a valley which is bounded by the steep front of a rock. On the top of this grows a tree, which has continued many years.. Its leaves constantly distil as much water as is sufficient for the drink of every living creature on the island. It stands by itself a league and a half from the pea, and no one knows of what species it is. Its trunk is about nine feet round, in diameter about three. It is thirty feet high; the circumference of all the branches together is about ninety. The branches are thick, the lowest of them is about an ell from the ground. Its fruit resembles an acorn, its leaves resemble those. of the laurel, but are longer and broader, They come forth in perpetual succession, so that the tree is always green. On the north side of it are two cisterns of rough stone, each fifteen feet square, and twelve deep; one of which contains water for the drink of the inhabitants; the other, for their cattle and all other purposes.

Every morning, near’ part of the island, a mist rises from the sea. This the south easterly winds drive against the forementioned cliff, which it gradually ascends, and thence advances to the end of the valley. Being stopt there by the front of the rock, it rests upon the leaves and branches of the tree, whence it distils the remainder of the day.

But trees yielding water are not peculiar to the island of Hierro. One of the same kind grows on the island of St. Thomas, in the gulf of Guinea. And of. the same nature is that near the mountains of Vera Pogz, whereof we have the following account in Cockburne’s Voyages.

In the morning of the fourth day, we came out on a large plain, in the midst of which stood a tree of an unusual size. Its trunk was above five fathoms round; the soil it grew on was very stony. And on the nicest inquiry we could afterwards makes both of the Spaniards and the natives, we could not learn, that any other such tree had been known in all New Spain.

“Perceiving the ground under it wet, we were surprised, knowing that according to the certain course of the season in that latitude, there had no rain fallen for six months, and that it could not be owing to the dew, for this the sun entirely dried up, in few minutes after its rising. At last, to our great amazement, as well as joy, we perceived water dropping from the end of every leaf; after we had been labouring four days through extreme heat, and were almost expiring for thirst, we could not look upon this, but as liquor sent from Heaven, to relieve us in our extremity. We catched it in our hands, and drank so plentifully, that we could scarce tell when to give over.”

The MANCHINEEL APPLE is most beautiful to the eye, agreeable to the smell, and pleasant to the taste, but the whole tree is so poisonous, that the wood of it, while green, if rubbed against the hand, will raise blisters.

The wood is ‘good for tables, cabinets, and all other curious work. But the virulent nature of the sap, calls for great caution in felling the tree. I was cutting down one of them, Says Mr. Catesby, when some of the milky, juice, spurting in my eyes, I was two days totally blind, my eyes and face being much swelled For four-and-twenty hours,.. I felt a violent pricking pain, which then gradually abated.

Indeed, it is reported, and generally believed, of this tree, ‘that the wound of an arrow dipped in its juice is mortal; that the rain which washes the leaves, will raise blisters on. the skin; and that even. its shadow is so ‘noxious, that the bodies of those that sleep under it swell. Yet a pregnant woman ate three of the apples ‘without any inconvenience: and a robust man of about forty-five years of age, ate more than two dozen without being disordered more than twenty-four hours. About an hour after he had eaten them, his belly swelled, and he complained of a burning heat in his bowels. He could not keep his body in an erect posture; his lips, were ulcerated, and, he was seized with cold sweats; but he was relieved from all these symptoms by a decoction of the leaves of ricinus, the avellana fzurgatrix, in water, which being drank plentifully, produced a violent vomiting-and purging, for four hours; after this he was made to walk about, and some rice gruel perfected the cure.

The negroes in Africa se a poison of an extraordinary nature. The dose is very small, and hath no ill taste. The symptoms are various, according as the dose is. It kills sometimes in a few hours, sometimes in months; at others, in some years. If a great quantity is given, death follows in six or seven hours. (The negroes turn white:) If the dose is but small, the sick loses his appetite, feels pain in his head, arms, and limbs, a weariness all over, soreness in his breast, difficulty in breathing, and at last dies languishing. Probably it is the same poison which is used in Spain and Italy. This hath but one specific antidote, the knowledge of which a famous negro-poisoner, was at length persuaded to impart. The antidote is the root of the sensitive plant. Take none of the root but what is in the ground; wash it well, and split it in two. Take a good handful of these split roots; steep them in three quarts of fair water, in an earthen glazed pot, having a cover. Use but a moderate fire, that it may boil gently. The decoction has no ill taste : you may add sugar, as you think best. Give the patient a good glass of this decoction as warm as he can drink it; an hour after give another, and so for some time, till you make a perfect cure. There is no danger of giving too much, it can do no harm at all.

In the valley of the Lancy, which runs between the mountains of Juria, grows a plant like the dorinicum, near the roots whereof is found pure quicksilver, running in small grains like pearls One would not imagine the plant had any influence on this, but for the following experiment. Express the juice expose it to the air ma clear night, and there will be found as much mercury as there is lost of juice.

But of all productions of the vegetable kind, there is none more remarkable than the aloe. It grows exceeding slowly. But the slowness of its growth is afterwards compensated by the bulk to which it arrives, the velocity with which it shoots, and the prodigious number of flowers it produces, which ordinarily amount to several thousands. It usually takes up three months,. May, June, and July, from the first budding of the stem, to the finishing of the flowers. There are however exceptions to this rule. The aloe in the garden of cardinal Farnese at Rome, shot up in the space of one month, to the height of twenty-three feet. Another at Madrid grew ten feet in one night, and twenty-five more in the night following.

The progress of the Venetian aloe, in the garden of signior Papatava, was as follows. It began to shoot its stem on the 20th of May, which by the 19th of June, was risen four Paduan feet and an inch. On the 24th it had gained ten inches more, and on the 29th eight more, on which day it began to emit branches. On the 6th of July it had gained one foot one inch; on the 17th one foot eight inches more; on the 7th of August one foot and a half. From that day to the 30th, it grew very slowly, but continued emitting branches and flowers. The trunk was at the bottom a foot thick; the branches were twenty-three in number. On the top of each was a knot or collection of flowers. On each of the first branches there were and hundred and twelve: on others a hundred and ten, and on others a hundred. They yielded little smell: but what was of it was agreeable.

When the tree has once flowered, it quickly dies, being quite exhausted by so copious a birth. They seldom flower till they are of a considerable age, when they are of a large size and a great height. As soon as the flower stem begins to shoot from the middle of the plant, it draws all the nourishment from the leaves, so that as that advances, these decay. And when the flowers are fully blown, scarce any of the leaves remain alive. But whenever this happens, the old root scuds forth a numerous quantity of offsets for increase.

Perhaps there is scarce any plant in the creation which is of so general use. The wood of it is firm, and serves for fences, and for the use of the carpenter. The leaves make coverings for houses: the strings and fibres serve, in the room of hemp, flax and cotton. Of the prickles are made nails and awls, as also pins and needles. And from a large aloe, when rightly tapped, may be drawn three or four hundred gallons of juice, which by destillation grows sweeter and thicker till it becomes sugar.

If there be a more beautiful flower than that of the aloe, it grows on a species of CEREUS (or prickly pear, as they call it in America), which grows well in our stoves: about the middle of July the flower is grown to its bigness. Till then it appears like a bit of wool on a dead stem. It usually begins to open about five in the evening, is full blown about eight, and Continues so till about four the next morning. It then gradually closes, and is shut up about six o’clock, covered with a cold moisture. The calyx or empalement is a foot in diameter, divided into sixty segments; the outside of a fine gold colour, the inside of a splendid yellow, spreading like the rays of a star. The petals are about thirty, in form of a of a pure white. There is one style surrounded by great number of stamina. It sends forth a very fragrant perfume, like the gum Benjamin while in blossom; the empalement and petals open one by one with great elasticity.

There is not in nature any flower of greater beauty, or that makes a more magnificent appearance.. What pity, that it is only an ephemeron ! Literally the creature of a day!

It has been before observed, that as all animals are from eggs, so all vegetables are from seeds. But many have supposed there is one sort of vegetable, which is an exception to this; namely mushroOms, the seeds whereof have been long šought in vain. And it is certain, if you only range in April, balls of horse dung, as big as one’s fist, in lines three feet distant from each other, and one foot under ground, covering them all over with mould, and that again with horse dung, in the beginning of August the upper pieces of dung will begin to grow white: being covered with fine white threads, woven about the straws whereof the dung is compošed. By degrees the extremities of these threads grow round into a kind of a button: which enlarging itself by little and little, at length forms itself into a mushroom. At the foot of each, when at its full growth, is an infinity of little ones. The white threads of the dung preserve themselves a long time without rotting, if kept dry. And if they are laid again in the ground, they will produce new mushrooms.

“ Are these then any thing else than the mouldiness or putrefaction of horse dung “ Yes, certainly. Indeed all mouldiness, so called, is a congeries of very small plants. And these in particular, like other plants, have their origin from seeds. But before the seeds can vegetate, there are required, certain juices,. proper to penetrate their coats, to excite a fermentation in them, and to nourish the minute parts thereof. Hence arises that vast diversity of places, wherein different sorts of this plant are produced. Some will only grow on other particular plants, whose trunk or roots have the juices proper for them. Nay, there is one sort which grows only on the fillets and bandages of the patients, in the hospital at Paris. It is not therefore at all surprising that horse dung should be a fit soil for common mushrooms. It is probable the seeds of these are spread in numberless ‘places, well nigh throughout the whole earth.. And the same may be said concerning the seeds of many plants, as well as the eggs of many insects: more especially of those which are so minute, that we can scarce discern them even with glasses: seeing the smaller they are, the more easily may the least wind convey them hither and thither. So that in truth the earth is full of an inconceivable number both of animals and vegetables, perfectly formed mall their parts, and designed as it were in miniature; only waiting for certain favourable circumstances to enable them to make their appearance at large. How rich then must that hand be, which hath sown them with so much ‘profusion!

It may not be improper, before concluding this head, to describe one more species of sea-plants. Coral grows chiefly in grottoes, which open to the south, and whose concave arch is nearly parrallel to the surface of the earth. It will not grow at all, but where the Sea is quiet as, a pond. It vegetates the contrary way to all other plants; its root adhering to the top of the grotto, and its branches shooting downward. The root takes the exact form of the solid it grows to, and covers it, as far as it goes, like a plate; and this is a probable proof, that its substance was originally fluid. Accordingly corals sometimes line the inside of a shell, which they could not have entered but in a fluid form. All its organism, with regard to vegetation, seems to consist in its rind, in the little tubes whereof the juice runs to the extremities of the branches. And this juice petrifying, both in the cells that encompass the coralline substance, and in those at the extremity of the branches, whose substance is not yet formed, by this means enlarges the plant to its full dimensions, both in height and bulk. It is vulgarly believed, that coral is soft while in the water. But experiment proves the contrary.

It is observable that all sea-plants, (except the alga) are with-out roots. Nor have they any longitudinal, capillary sap-vessels, through which rooted plants draw nourishment to every part But the whole substance of sea-plants is composed of vesicles, which receive their nourishment immediately from the surrounding water. Consequently they can have no circulation of the Salt, having no vessels to convey it from one end of the plant to the other.

2 Many physicians affirm, that sugar is unwholesomes and most, that it destroys the teeth. But how will this agree with the following account “My grandfather,” says Dr. Slare,.” took as much sugar as his butter spread upon bread would receive for his daily breakfast. He put sugar into all his ale and beer, and into all the sauces he used to his meat. At eighty years old he had all his teeth strong and firm (having never had the tooth-ache) and never refused the hardest crust. In his 82d year one of his teeth came out, and in two or three years all the rest. But others filled up their room, and in a. short time he had a new set quite round. His hair alšo from very white became dark. He continued in health and strength, and died without any disease, in his ninety-ninth or hundredth. year.”

3. It is not only from the canes that sugar is extracted. in New-England much of it is made from the ‘juice of the upland maple. They first make a hole in the tree, within a foot of the ground, shelving inward, so as to hold about a pint. Then they tap this hole, and by a reed draw off the liquor into a vessel. A. large tree will yield, between the beginning of February and the end of April, twenty gallons of juice. A gallon, in boiling sixteen hours, is reduced to three pints, and yields more than two pounds of sugar, which our physicians prefer to all other for medicinal uses.

4. Molasses likewise may be procured without sugar-canes. This was discovered a few years ago, by Mr. Chandler, of Wood-stock, in New-England, an inland .town, where the common molasses is scarce and dear. Ever since both he and his neighbours supply themselves with it, out of their own orchards. The apple that produces it, is a summer sweeting,. of a middling size, and full of juice. They grind and press the apple and then gently boil the juice for about six hours. In that time it comes to the sweetness and consistency, and answers all the purposes, of other molasses.

5. There is one sea production, if it may be so termed, that is not commonly understood. Some have maintained, that ambergris was a substance naturally bred in one species of whales, in a bag three or four feet long. But this bag is in truth only the bladder of the whales, and the supposed ambergris is only a calculus of the bladder. The largest of these ever found in a whale weighed twenty-one pounds. But pieces of ambergris have been found, which were six feet long, and weighed above 180 pounds.

It seems, 1. That ambergris, like yellow amber, comes out of the earth into the sea. 2. That it comes not like napththa, but in a thicker viscid and tenacious consistence. 3. That in the first formation thereof, a liquid bitumen or napththa is mixed with it. 4. That large pieces may be generated at the same time; but usually a small one rises first, to which another soon adheres, and so more and more, forming irregular figures, under which it is soft, so that various substances stick to it: but it gradually hardens to the consistence of wax.

However one would not be positive, as to the manner of its generation. For who can explain in what manner amber is produced Or how metals, semi-metals, precious stones, and innumerable other mineral substances are generated We know what they are, but how they are formed, we know not with any degree of certainty.

6.The principle of corruption in plants and animals, is probably the very same, which during a state of circulation, is the principle of life: namely the air, which is found in considerable quantities, mixed with all sorts of fluids. This has two very different motions; an expansive one, arising from its natural elasticity, by which it gives their fluids an intestine motion, and gradually extends the parts that contain them: and a progressive motion. It does not appear that this is essential to it. Rather it is occasioned by the resistance of the solid parts. This restraining its expansion, obliges it to take the course that is more free and open, which is through the vessels of plants and animals.

When this course is stopped, the expansive motion remains, and still continues to act, till it has so fully overcome the including bodies as to bring itself to the same degree of expansion with the outward air. But this it cannot do, without destroying the texture and continuity of those solids, which we call corruption.

The destructive quality of the air is promoted, either by weakening the tone or cohesion of the including parts; as when fruit is bruised, which corrupts in that part much sooner than in the others: or by increasing the expansive force of the air, by heat, or some other cooperating circumstance.

And certainly there is no corruption or putrefaction, without air. Hence either vegetable or animal bodies buried deep in the earth or water, remain for ages entire, which when exposed to the air, quickly moulder away. And hence such vegetables as are most apt to putrify, remain unchanged in vacuo.

Yet various experiments seem to shew, that air must be impregnated by water, before it can occasion putrefaction, either in animal or vegetable substances. For take a pound of fresh flesh, and keep it in a moderate heat, and it will thoroughly putrify in a few days. But if you first extract the moisture, it will harden like a stone. And it may then be kept for ages, without any putrefaction. Even blood, if you deprive it of its watery part, may be kept for fifty years. But if you then dissolve it in water, and place it in a gentle warmth, it will putrefy immediately.

The process of putrefaction may be learned from an easy experiment. Take the green, juicy parts of any fresh vegetable, throw them together in a large heap, in a warm air, and lay a weight upon them. The middle part of the heap will soon conceive a small degree of heat. It will come hotter and hotter, till it comes to a boiling heat, and is perfectly putrefied.

In three days from the first putting them together, the. heat will equal that of a human body in health. By the fifth day the heat will be such as the hand can hardly bear. By the seventh or eighth, all the juices are generally ready to boil. Sometimes the matter will even flame, as does moist hay, till it burns away. But commonly it acquires a cadaverous taste and smell, and turns into one soft, pulpy mass, much resembling human excrements in the scent, and putrified flesh in the taste:

If this be distilled, there will come from it, 1. An urinous spirit, perfectly like that obtained from animals, and separable by fresh distillation into pure water, and, a large quantity of white, dry, volatile salt, not to be distinguished from animal salts. An oily salt, which shoots into globes. S. A thick, foeted oil, both which are entirely like those of animals. 4. The remainder being calcined in an open fire, yields not the least particle of fixed salt just as if the subject had been of the animal, not the vegetable kingdom. And this process holds equally in all kinds of vegetables, though of over so different natures. Yea, in dry vegetables, so they be moistened by water before they are thrown into heaps.

By this means the difference between one vegetable and another is entirely taken away. By this process, they are all reduced .to one common nature: so that wormwood, for example, and sage, become one and the same thing. Nay, by this means the difference between vegetables and animals is quite taken away; putrefied vegetables being no way distinguishable from putrefied flesh. Thus is there an easy and reciprocal transition of animal into vegetable, and vegetable into animal.

So true it is, that matter, as matter, has no concern, in the qualities of bodies. All depend on the arrangement of the particles, whereof each particle consists. Hence water, though tasteless, feeds aromatic mint, and the same earth gives nourishment to bread and poison.

As to this arrangement, the first view of a vegetable gives us an idea, of infinitely numerous and various parts: and so complex, that many have been discouraged from prosecuting the research. But upon examination, the parts which appear so numerous, are reduced to a very small account. For a careful maceration in soft water will shew, that the parts really distinct are only seven. These are, 1. An outer bark. 2. An inner rind, 3. A blea 4. A fleshy substance. 5. A pith. There is between the flesh and the blea, 6. A vascular series. And, 7. Cones of vessels take their course within the flesh.

Whatever part of the plant we examine, we find these, be it a fibre, the root or the stem. We never find more: and tracing these, we see the other parts of the plants are only the productions of them. Thus the root, its descending fibre, and the ascending stalk, we find are one, not three substances. The same seven parts are continued from one to the other, and what are supposed at its summit, to be many new and strange parts, are found to be no more than the terminations of these seven. The external parts are also seven. 1. The cup. 2. The outer petals. 3. The inner petals. 4. The nectaria, either distinct, or connected in one ring. 5. The filaments. 6. The receptacle of seeds. And, 7. The seed-vessel or seeds. And these are only the terminations of the seven constituent substances of the plant. The outer bark terminates in the ‘cup, the inner rind in the outward petals; the blea forms the inner petals, the vascular series ends in the nectaria, and the flesh in the filaments: the cones form the receptacle, the pith, the seed, and their capsules. These are universal in plants, though their course be less plain in some, and their terminations less distinct in others.

Every piece therefore, cut from a plant transversely, contains all the parts of the plant, ready to grow in length into a stalk upwards, and into a root downwards, and to separate at a due height from the root, into the several parts of the flower.

Thus we see the arrangement of the common particles of matter into a vegetable body, although it be a work worthy of his band who formed it, yet is not so complex a thing as it appears. And this arrangement being once made in one individual, the species is created for ever. For growth is the consequence of the arrangement, when it has heat and moisture.

Upon the whole: if we consider every part of a plant, we shall find none without its use. The root draws nourishment-from the earth: the fibres convey the sap: the larger vessels contain the specific juice of the plant: others carry air for such a respiration as it needs. The outer and inner bark in trees, defend them from. heat and cold and drought, and convey that sap which is required for the annual increase of the tree. And in truth every tree may in some sense be said to be an annual plant. For both leaf, flower and fruit, proceed from the coat that was superinduced over the wood the last year. And this never bears more, but together with the old wood serves as a block to sustain the succeeding annual coat. The leaves serve, before the bud unfolds, to defend the flower and fruit, which is even then formed; and afterward to preserve them and the branches from the injuries of the summer sun. They serve also to hinder the too hasty evaporation of the moisture about the root. But their chief use is to concoct the sap, for the nourishment of the whole plant: both that they receive from the root, and that they take in from the dew, the rain, and the moist air. Add to this, that they are as lungs, which supply the plant with the necessary quantity of air, and as excrementary ducts, which throw off superfluities by insensible’ perspiration. And so necessary is their service, that most trees, if quite ,stript of their leaves, will die. And if in summer you strip a vine-branch of its leaves, the grapes will never come to maturity. Not that they are hurt by the sun: expose them to this as you please, so the leaves remain, and they will ripen well.

Another point worthy our consideration is, the immense smallness of the seeds of some plants. Some are so extremely minute, as not at all to be discovered by the naked eye. Hence the number of seeds produced by some plants, is beyond imagination. A plant of red mace, for instance, and many sorts of fern, produce above a million: a convincing argument of the infinite understanding of the former of them.

And it is remarkable, that such mosses as grow upon walls, the roofs of houses and other high places, have seeds so excessively small, that when shaken out of their vessels, they appear like smoke or vapour. These therefore may either ascend of themselves, or by an easy impulse of the wind be raised to the tops of walls, houses, or rocks. And we need not wonder how the mosses got thither, or imagine they sprung up spontaneously.

Concerning vegetables in general, we may farther remark, 1. That because they are intended to be food for numberless species of animals, therefore nature has taken so extraordinary care, and made so abundant provision, for their propagation and increase. So that they are propagated and multiplied, not only by the seed, but also by the root: producing shoots or off-sets in some, creeping under ground in others. Some likewise are propagated by slips or cuttings; and some by several of these ways. Secondly, for the security of such species as are produced only by seed, most seeds are endued with a lasting vitality; so that if by reason of excessive cold or drought, or any other accident, they happen not to spring up the first year, they may continue their fruitfulness. I do not say six or seven only, but even twenty or thirty years. Nay, after this term, if the hinderance be removed, they will spring, and bring forth fruit. Hence it is, that plants are sometimes lost for a considerable time, in places wherein they abounded before. And after some years appear anew. They are lost either because of the unfavourable seasons; because the land was fallowed; or because plenty of weeds, or other plants, prevented their coming up. And as soon as these impediments are removed they spring up again. Thirdly, many vegetables are armed with prickles or thorns, to secure them from the browzing of beasts; as also to defend others, which grow under their shelter. Hereby likewise they are made particularly useful to man, either for quick or dead fences. Fourthly, such vegetables as are weak and not able to support themselves, have a wonderful faculty, to use the strength of their neighbours, embracing and climbing up upon them, and. using them as crutches to their feeble bodies. Some twist themselves about others like a screw: some lay fast hold upon them, by their curious claspers or tendrils, which herein are equivalent to hands. Some strike in a kind of root: others by the emission of a natural glue, firmly adhere to any thing which has strength sufficient to support them. Claspers are of a compound nature, between a root and a branch. Sometimes they serve for support only; as in the claspers of vines, whose branches being long and slender, would otherwise sink with their own weight: sometimes, for a supply of nourishment also; as in the trunk-roots of ivy, which mounting very high, and being of a close and very. compact nature, the sap would not be sufficiently supplied to the upper sprouts, unless these assisted the mother root. Fifthly, The best of all grain, and what affords the most wholesome and agreeable nourishment is wheat. And it is most patient of all climates, bearing the extremes both of heat and cold. It grows, and brings its seed to maturity, not only in the temperate countries, but also in the cold regions of Scotland, Denmark, Norway, and Muscovy, on the one hand; and on the other, in the sultry heat of Spain, Egypt, Barbary, Mauritania, and the East-Indies. Nor is it less observable, that nothing is more fruitful. One bushel when sown in a proper soil, having been found to yield a hundred and fifty, and in some instances abundantly more.

7. It may be of use to subjoin here, first a general view of vegetation. Secondly, Some additional reflections on the vegetable kingdom.

And first. As to vegetation itself, we are sensible all our reasonings about the wonderful operations of nature, are so full of uncertainty, that, as the wise man truely observes, “Hardly do we guess aright at the things that are upon earth, and with labour do we find the things that are before us.” This is abundantly verified in vegetable nature. For though its productions are so obvious to us, yet are we strangely in the dark concerning them, because the texture of their vessels is so fine and intricate, that we can trace but few of them, though assisted with the best microscopes. But although we can never hope to come to the bottom of the first principle of things, yet may we every where see plain signatures of the hand of a Divine Architect.

All vegetables are composed of water and earth, principles which strongly attract each other: and a large portion of air, which strongly attracts when fixed, and strongly repels when in an elastic state. By combination, action, and re-action of those. few principles, all the operations in vegetables are effected.

The particles of air distend each ductile part, and invigorate their sap, and meeting with the other mutually attracting principles, they are by gentle heat and motion enabled to assimilate into the nourishment of the respective parts. Thus nutrition is gradually advanced, by the nearer and nearer union of these prin.ciples, till they arrive at such a degree of consistency, as to form the several parts of vegetables. And at length, by the flying off of the watery vehicle, they are compacted into hard substances

But when the watery particles again soak into and disunite them, then is the union of the parts of vegetables dissolved, and they are prepared by putrefaction, to appear in some new form, whereby the nutritive fund of nature can never be exhausted.

All these principles are in all parts of vegetables. But there is more oil in the more exalted parts of them. Thus seeds abound with oil, and consequently with sulphur and air. And indeed as they contain the rudiments of future vegetables, it was necessary they should be stored with principles, that would both preserve them from putrefaction, and also be active in promoting germination and vegetation.

And as oil is an excellent preservative against cold, so it abounds in the sap of the more northern trees. And it is this by which the evergreens are enabled to keep their leaves all the winter.

Leaves not only bring nourishment from the lower parts within the attraction of the growing fruit, (which like young animals is furnished with proper instruments to suck it thence) but also carry off redundant watery fluids, while they imbibe the dew arid rain, which ‘contain much salt and sulpher, for the air is full of acid and sulphureous particles; and the various combinations of these, are doubtless very serviceable in promoting the work of vegetation. Indeed, so fine a fluid as the air, is a more proper medium, wherein to prepare and combine, the more exalted principles of vegetables, than the gross watery fluid of the sap. And that there is plenty of these particles in the leaves is evident, from the sulphureous exuclations often found on their edges. To these refined real particles, not only the most racy, generous taste of fruits, but likewise the most grateful odours of flowers, yea, and their beautiful colours, are probably owing.

In order to supply tender shoots with nourishment, nature is careful to furnish, at small distances, the young shoots of all sorts of trees with many leaves throughout their whole length, which as so many jointly acting powers, draw plenty of sap to them.

The like provision has nature made, in the corn, grass, and reed-kind: the leafy spires, which draw nourishment to each joint, being provided long before the stem shoots: the tender stems would easily break, or dry up, so as to prevent their growth, had not these scabbards been provided, which both support and keep them in a supple and ductile state.

The growth of a young bud to a shoot, consists in the gradual dilation and extension of every part, till it is stretched out to its full length. And the capillary tubes still retain their hollowness, notwithstanding their being extended, as we see melted glass tubes remain hollow, though drawn out to the finest thread.

The pith of trees is always full of moisture, while the shoot is growing, by the expansion of which, the tender, ductile shoot is distended in every part. But when each year’s shoot is fully grown, then the pith gradually dries up. Mean time nature carefully provides for the growth of the succeeding year, by preserving a tender, ductile part in the bud, replete with succulent pith. Great care is likewise taken to keep the parts between the bark and wood always supple with slimy moisture, from which ductile matter the woody fibres, vesicles, and buds are formed.

The great variety of different substances in the same vegetable proces, that there are peculiar vessels for conveying different’ sorts of nutriment. In many vegetables some of those vessels are plainly to be seen full of milky, yellow, or red nutriment.

Where a secretion is designed to compose a hard substance, viz, the kernel or seed of hard-stone fruits, it does not immediately grow from the stone, which would be the shortest way to convey nourishment to it. But the umbilical vessel fetches a compass round the concave of the stone, and then enters the kernel near its cone. By this artifice the vessel being much prolonged, the motion of the sap is thereby retarded, and the viscid nutriment conveyed to the seed, which turns to a hard substance.

Let us trace the vegetation of a tree, from the seed to its full maturity. When the seed iS sown, in a few days it imbibes so much moisture, as to swell with very great force, by which it is enabled both to strike its roots down, and to force its stem out of the ground. As it grows up, the first, second, third, and fourth order of lateral branches shoot out, each lower order being longer than those immediately above them: not only as shooting first, but because inserted nearer the root, and so drawing greater plenty of sap. So that a tree is a complicated engine, which has as many different powers as it has branches. And the whole of each yearly growth of the tree, is proportioned to the whole of the nourishment they attract.

But leaves also are so necessary to promote its growth, that nature provides small, thin, expansions, which may be called primary leaves; they draw nourishment to the buds and young shoots, before the leaf is expanded. These bring nutriment to them in a quantity sufficient for their small demand: a greater quantity of which is afterward provided, in proportion to their need, by the greater expansion of the leaves. A still more beautiful apparatus we find in the curious expansions of blossoms and flowers, which both protect. and convey nourishment to the embryo, fruit and seeds. But as soon as the calix is formed into a small fruit, containing a minute, seminal tree, the blossom falls off, leaving it to imbibe nourishment for itself, which is brought within the reach of its suction, by the adjoining leaves.

I proceed to make some additional reflections upon the vegetable kingdom.

All plants produce seeds: but they are entirely unfit for propagation, till they are impregnated. This is performed within the flower, by the dust of the anther falling upon the moist stigmata, where it bursts, and sends forth a very subtle matter, which is absorbed by the style and conveyed down to the seed. As soon as this operation is over, those organs wither and fall. But one flower does not always contain all these: often the male organs are on one, the female, on another. And that nothing may be wanting, the whole apparatus of the anther and stigmata is in all flowers contrived with wonderful wisdom. In most, the stigmata surround the pistle, and are of the same height. But where the pistil is longer than the, stigmata, the flowers recline, that the dust may fall into the stigma, and when impregnated rise again, that the seeds may not faIl out. In other flowers the pistil is shorter, and there the flowers preserve an erect situation. Nay, when the flowering season comes’ on, they become erect though they were drooping before. Lastly, when the male flowers are placed below the female, the leaves are very small and narrow, that they may not hinder the dust from flying upwards like smoke: and when in the same species one plant is male, and the other female, th ere the dust is carried in abundance by the wind from the male to the female. We cannot also without admiration observe, that most ‘flowers expand themselves when the sun shines, and close when either rain, clouds, or evening is coming on, least the genital dust should be coagulated, or otherwise rendered useless. Yet when the impregnation is over, they do not close, either upon showers, or the approach of evening.

For the scattering of seed nature has provided numberless ways. Various berries are given for food to animals; but while they eat the pulp, they sow the seed. Either they disperse them at the same time ; or if they swallow them, they are returned with interest. The mistletoe always grows on other trees; because the thrush that eats the seeds of them, casts them forth with his dung.’ The junipers also, which fill our woods, are sown in the same manner. The cross-bill that lives on fir-cones, and the haw-finch which feeds on pine-cones, sow many of those seeds, especiallywhen they carry the cone to a stone or stump, to strip off its scales. Swine likewise, and moles by throwing up the earth, prepare it for the reception of seeds.

The great Parent of all decreed, that the whole earth should be covered with plants. In order to this he adapted the nature of each to the climate where it grows. So that some can bear intense heat, others intense cold. Some love a moderate warmth. Many delight in dry, others in moist ground. The Alpine plants love mountains whose tops are covered with eternal’snow. And they blow and ripen their seeds very early, lest the winter should overtake and destroy them. Plants which will grow no where else, flourish in Siberia, and near Hudson’s bay. Grass can bear almost any temperature of the air, in which the good providence of God appears: this being so necessary all over the globe, for the nourishment of cattle.

Thus, neither the scorching sun nor the pinching cold hinders any country from having its vegetables. Nor is there any soil which does not bring forth some. Pond-weed and water-lillies inhabit the waters. Some plants cover the bottom of rivers and seas: others fill the marshes. Some clothe the plains: others grow’ in the driest woods, that scarce ever see the sun. Nay, stones and the trunks of trees are not void, but covered with liver-wort.

The wisdom of the Creator appears no where more, than in the manner of the growth of trees As their roots descend deeper than those of other plants, they do not rob them of nourishment. And as their stems shoot up so high, they are easily preserved from cattle. Their leaves falling in autumn guard many plants against the rigour of winter: and in summer afford both them and. us a defence against the heat of the sun. They likewise imbibe the water from the earth, part of which transpiring through their leaves, is insensibly dispersed, and helps to moisten the plants that are round about. Lastly, the particular structure of trees contributes very much to the propagation of insects. Multitudes of these lay their eggs upon their leaves, where they find both food and safety.

Many plants and shrubs are armed with thorns, to keep the animals from destroying their fruits. .At the same time these cover many other plants, under their branches, so that while the adjacent grounds are robbed of all plants, some may be preserved to continue th’e species.

The mosses which adorn the most barren places, preserve the smaller plants when they begin to shoot from cold and drought They also hinder from putting earth from forcing the roots of plants upward in the spring, as we see happen annually to trunks of trees. Hence few mosses grow in southern climates, not being necessary.

Sea-matweed will bear no soil but pure sand. Sand is often blown by violent winds, so as to deluge as it were meadows and fields.. But where this grows, it fixes the sand, and gathers it into hillocks. Thus other lands are formed, the ground increased, and the sea repelled, by this wonderful disposition of nature.

How careful is nature to preserve that useful plant grass! The more its leaves are eaten, the more they increase. For the Author of nature intended, that vegetables which have slender stalks and erect leaves should be copious and thick set, and thus afford food for so vast a quantity of grazing animals. But what increases our wonder, is, that although grass is the principal food of such animals, yet they touch not the flower and seed bearing stems, that so the seeds may ripen and be sown.

The caterpillar of the moth, which feeds upon grass to the destruction thereof, seems to be formed in order to keep a due proportion between this and other plants. For grass when left to grow freely, increases to that degree as to exclude ‘all other plants, which would consequently be extirpated, unless the insect sometimes prepared a place for them. And hence it is, that more species of plants’ appear, ‘when this caterpillar has laid waste the pasture the preceding year, than at any other time.

But all plants, sooner or later, must submit to death. They spring up, they grow, they flourish, they bear fruit, and having finished their course, return to the dust again. Almost all the black mould which covers the earth Is Owing to dead vegetables. Indeed after the leaves and stems are gone, the roots of plants remain: but these too, at last rot and change into mould. And the earth thus prepared, restores to plants what it has received from them. For when seeds are committed to the earth, they draw and accommodate to their own nature the more subtle parts of this mould: so that the tallest tree is in reality nothing but mould wonderfully compounded with air and water. And from these plants, when they die, just the same kind of mould is formed as gave them birth. By this means fertility remains continually uninterrupted: whereas the earth could not make good its annual consumption, were it not constantly recruited.

In many cases, the crustaceous liverworts are the first foundation of vegetation. Therefore, however despised, they are of the utmost consequence, in the economy of nature. When rocks first emerge out of the sea, they are so polished by the force of the waves, that hardly any herb is able to fix its habitation upon them. But crustaceous liverworts soon begin to cover these dry rocks, though they have no nourishment but the little mould and imperceptible particles, which the air and rain bring thither. These liverworts dying turn into fine, earth, in which a larger kind of liverworts strike their roots. These also die and turn into mould: and then the various kinds of mosses find nourishment. Lastly, these dying yield such plenty of mould, that herbs and shrubs easily take root and live upon it

That trees, when dry or cut down, may not remain useless to the world, and lie melancholy spectacles, nature hastens on to their destruction, in a singular manner. First the liverworts begin to strike root in them; afterward the moisture is drawn out of them, whence putrefaction follows. Then the mushroom-kind find a fit place to grow on, and corrupt them still more. A particular sort of beetle next makes himself a way between the bark and the wood. Then a sort of caterpillar-, and several other sorts of beetles, bore numberless holes through the trunk. Lastly, the woodpeckers conic, and while they are seeking for insects, shatter the tree, already corrupted, and exceedingly hasten its return to the earth from whence it came. But how shall the trunk of a tree, which is immersed in water, ever return to earth A particular kind of worm performs this work, as sea-faring men know.

But why is so inconsiderable a plant as thistles, so armed and guarded by nature Because it is one of the most useful plants that grows. Observe a heap of clay, on which for many years no plant has sprung up: let but the seeds of a thistle fix there, and other plants will quickly come thither, and soon cover the ground. For the thistles by their leaves attract moisture from the air, and by their roots send it into the clay, and by that means not only thrive themselves, but provide a shelter for other plants.

I shall .add only one observation more, concerning the difference between natural and artificial things. If we examine the finest needle by the microscope, tire point of it appears about a quarter of an inch broad, and its figure neither round, nor fiat, but irregular and unequal. And the surface, however smooth and bright it may seem to the naked eye, is then seen full of raggedness, holes, and scratches, like an iron bar from the forge. But examine in the same manner the sting of a bee, and it appears to have in every part a polish most amazingly beautiful, without tire least flaw or inequality, and ends in a point too fine to be discerned by any glass whatever. And yet this is only the outward sheath of far more exquisite instruments,

A small piece of the finest lawn, from the distance and holes between its threads, appears like a lattice or hurdle. And the threads themselves seem coarser than the yarn wherewith ropes are made for anchors. Fine Brussels lace will look as if it were made of a thick, rough, uneven hair-line, intwisted or clotted together in a very awkward and unartful manner. But a silk worm’s webb on the nicest examination appears perfectly smooth and shining, and as much finer than any spinster in the world can make, as the smallest twine is than the thickest cable. A pod of this silk winds into nine hundred and sixty yards. And as it is two threads twisted together all the length, so it really contains one thousand eight hundred and sixty: and yet weighs but two grains and a half. What an.exquisite fineness! and yet this is nothing to the silk that issued from the worm’s mouth when newly hatched.

The smallest dot which can be made with a pen, appears through a glass, a vast irregular spot, rough, jagged and uneven about all its edges. The finest writing, such as the Lord’s prayer in the compass of a silver penny, seems as shapeless and uncouth as if wrote in Runic characters. But the specks of moths, beetles, flies, and other insects, are most accurately circular; and all the lines and marks above them are drawn to the utmost possibility of exactness.

Our finest miniature paintings appear, before a microscope, as mere daubings, plaistered on with a trowel. Our smoothest polishings are shewn to be mere roughness, full of gaps and flaws. Thus do the works of art sink, upon an accurate examination. On the contrary, the nearer we examine the works of nature, even in the least and meanest of her productions, the more we are convinced, nothing is to be found there but beauty and perfection. View the numberless species of insects; what exactness and symmetry shall we find in all their organs ! What a profusion of colouring, azure, green, vermullion; what fringe and embroidery on every part! How high the finishing, how inimitable the polish we every where behold! Yea, view the animalcula, invisible to the naked eye, those breathing atoms, so small they are almost all workmanship: in them too we discover the same multiplicity of parts, diversity of figures, and variety of motions, as in the largest animals. How amazingly curious must the internal structure .‘ of these Creatures be! How minute the bones, joints, muscles, and tendons ! How exquisitely delicate the veins, arteries, nerves! What multitudes of vessels and circulations must be contained in this narrow compass! And yet all have sufficient room for their several offices, without interfering with each other.

The same regularity and beauty is found in vegetables. Every stalk, bud, flower, and seed, displays a figure, a proportion, a harmony, beyond the reach of art. There is not a weed whose every leaf does not shew a multiplicity of pores and vessels curiously’ disposed for the conveyance of juices, to support and nourish it, and which is not adorned with innumerable graces to embellish it.

But some may ask, to what purpose has nature bestowed so much expense on so insignificant creatures I answer, this very thing proves they are not so insignificant, as we fondly suppose. This beauty is given them either for their own sake, that they themselves may be delighted with it: or for ours, that we may observe in them the amazing power and goodness of the Creator. If the former, they are of consequence in the account of their Maker, and therefore’ deserve our regard. If the latter, then it is certainly our dirty to take notice of, and admire them.

In short, the whole universe is a picture, in which are displayed the perfections of the Deity. It shews not only his existence, but his unity, his power, his wisdom, his independence, his goodness. His unity appears in the harmony we cannot but see in all the parts of nature; in that one simple end to which they are directed, and the conformity of all the means thereto. On every side we discern either simple elements or compound bodies, which have all different actions and offices. What the fire inflames,’ the water quenches: -what one wind freezes, another thaws. But these anti a thousand other operations, so seemingly repugnant to each other, do nevertheless all concur in a wonderful manner, to produce one effect. And all are so necessary to the main design, that were the agency of any one destroyed, an interruption of the order and harmony of the creation must immediately ensue.

Suppose, for instance, the wind to be taken away, and all society is in the utmost disorder. Navigation is at a stand, and all our commerce with foreign nations destroyed. On the other hand, the vapours raised from the sea would remain suspended just where they rose. Consequently we should be deprived of that useful covering, the clouds, which now screens us from the scorching heat: yea, and of the fruitful rains. So our land would be parched up the fruits of the earth wither, animals die, through hunger and thirst, and all nature languish and droop.

All the parts of nature therefore were constituted for the assistance of each other, and all undeniably prove the Unity of their Omniscient Creator.

His power appears in the whole frame of creation, and his wisdom in every part of it. His independence is pointed out in the inexhaustible variety of beasts, birds, fishes and insects: and his goodness, in taking care of every one of these, opening his hand, and filling all things living with plenteousness.

Every thing is calculated by Divine Wisdom, to make us wiser and better. And this is the substance of true philosophy. We cannot know much. In vain does our shallow reason attempt to fathom the mysteries of nature, and to pry into the secrets of the Almighty. His ways are past finding out. The eye of a little worm is a subject capable of exhausting all our boasted speculations. But we may love much. And herein we may be assisted by contemplating the wonders of his creation. Indeed he seems to have laid the highest claim to this tribute of our love, by the care he has taken to manifest his goodness in the most conspicuous manner, while at the same time he has concealed from us the most curious particulars, with regard to the essences and structure of his works. And to our ignorance it is owing, that we fancy so many things to be useless in the creation. But a deep sense of his goodness will satisfy all our doubts, and resolve all our scruples.

8. I cannot conclude this part better, than with an essay on the production, nourishment, and operation of plants and animals.

SECTION I.

Creatures produce their own kind.

When I survey the works of nature with an attentive eye, I am surprised to find with what marvellous exactness every creature draws its own picture, or propagates its own likeness, though in different manners of operation. The fox produces a living fox; the goose drops her egg, and hatches the young goose; and the tulip lets ‘fall its seed into the earth, which ferments and swells, and labours long in the ground, till at last it brings forth a tulip.

Is it the natural sagacity of foxes that enables them to form their own image so accurately By no means: for the goose and the flower do the like: the sprightly and the stupid, the sensible and the senseless, work this wonder with equal regularity and perfection; and the plant performs it as well as the animal.

It is not possible that any of them should effect this by any peculiar rules of art and contrivance: for neither the one nor the other are at all acquainted with the composition or progress of their work. The bird is entirely ignorant of the wondrous vital ferment of her own egg, either in the formation of it, or the umcubation: and the mother-plant, knows as much of the parts of the young plant, as the mother-animal knows of the inward springs and movements of the young little animal. There could be. no contri— vance here: for not any of them had any thought or design of the final production: they were all moved, both the beast, bird: and flower, by the material and mechanical springs of their own nature to continue their own species, but without any such intent or purpose.

Give souls to all the animal race, and make those souls as intelligent as you can; attribute to them what good sense you please in other affairs of their puny life; allow the brutes to be as rational and as cunning as you could wish or fancy, and to perform a thousand tricks by their own sagacity; yet in this matter, those intellectual powers must all stand by as useless: the senseless vegetable has as much skill here as the animal: the goose is as wise as the fox or the greyhound; they draw their own portraits with an exquisite art and accuracy, and leave as perfect images behind them to perpetuate their kind. Amazing proof and incontestible argument of some superior wisdom: some transcendent contriving mind: some divine artificer that made all these wondrous machines, and set them at work! The animal and the vegetable in these productions are but mere instruments under his supreme ruling power; like artless pencils in a painter’s hand, to form the images that his thought had before designed: and it is that God alone, who before all worlds contrived these models of every species in his own original idea, that appoints what under agents he will employ to copy them.

In the week of the creation, he bade earth teem with beasts and plants: and the earth like a common mother brought forth the lion, the fox and the dog, as well as the cedar and the tulip. Gen. i. 11.

24. He commanded the water to produce the first fish and fowl: and behold the waters grow pregnant; the trout and the dolphin break forth into life; the goose and the sparrow arise and shake their wings. Gen. i. 20, 21. But two common parents, earth and water, to the whole animal and vegetable world! A God needs no more. And though he was pleased to make use of the water and the earth in these first productions, yet the power and the skill were just the same as if he had made them immediately with his own hands.

Ever since that week of creative wonders, God has ordered all these creatures to fill the world with inhabitants of their own kind; and they have obeyed him in a long succession of almost six thousand years. He has granted (shall I say) a divine patent to each creature for the sole production of its own likeness, with an utter prohibition to all the rest; but still under the everlasting influence of his own supreme agency upon the moving atoms that form these plants or animals. God himself is the creator still.

And it is evident that he has kept a reserve of sovereignty to himself, and has displayed the ensigns of it in some important hours. Egypt was once a glorious and tremendous scene of this: sovereignty: it was there that he ordered the rod of Moses, a dry and lifeless vegetable, to raise a swarm of living animals, to call up a brood of lice in millions, without a parent, and to animate the dust of the ground into a noisome army.

It was there he bid Moses wave the same rod over the’ streams and the ponds, and the silent rod under divine influence would bring forth croaking legions out of the waters without number.

But these are his works of miracle and astonishment, when he has a mind to shew himself the sovereign and the controller of nature: without his immediate commission not one creature can invade the province of’ another, nor perform any thing of this work but within its own peculiar tribe’. Even man, the glory of this lower creation and the wisest thing on earth, would in vain attempt to make •one of these common vegetables, or these curious animated moving machines. Not all the united powers of human nature, nor a council of the nicest artificers with all their enginery and skill, ‘can form the least part of these works, can compose a fox’s tail, a goose-quill, or a tulip-leaf. Nature is the art of God, and it must for ever be unrivalled by the sons of men.

Yet man can produce a man. Admirable effect, but artless cause! A poor, limited, inferior agent! The plant and the brute in this matter are his rivals, and his equals too. The human parent and the parent bird form their own images with equal skill, and are confined each to its own work. So the iron seal transfers its own figure to the clay with as much exactness and curiosity as the golden one: both can transfer only their own figure.

This appears to me a glorious instance wherein the wisdom and power of God maintain their own supremacy, and triumph over all the boasted reason and intellectual skill of men: that the-wisest son of Adam, in this noblest work of nature, can do no more than a flower or a fly; and if he would go out of his species, and the appointed order of things, he is not able to make a fly, or a flower; no, not a worm, nor a simple bulrush. In those productions wherein mankind are merely the instruments of the God of nature, their work is vital and divine; but if they would set up for prime artificers, they can do nothing: a dead statue, a painted shadow on a canvas, or perhaps a little brazen clock-work is the supreme pride of their art, their highest excellence and perfection-

Let the atheist then exert his utmost stretch of understanding:

let him try the force of all his mechanical powers, to compose the wing of a butterfly, or the meanest feather of a sparrow: let him labour, and sweat and faint, and acknowledge his own weakness: then let him turn his eye, and look at those wondrous composures, his son, or his little daughter, and when their infant tongues shall inquire of him, and say, Father, who made us let him not dare assume the honour of that work to himself, but teach the young creatures that there is a God, and fall ‘down on his .face, and repent and worship.

It was God who said at first;” Let the earth bring forth grass, and the herb yielding seed, after his kind, and the living creature after his kind :“ and when this was done, then with a creating yoice he bid those herbs and those living creatures,” be fruitful and multiply” to all future generations. " Great things cloth he which we cannot comprehend. But he sealeth up the hand of every man, that all men may know his divine work.” Gen. i. 11.

25. Job, xxxvii. 5. 7.

SECTION II.

The laws of nature sufficient for the production of animalsand vegetables.

WILL YOU suppose that it derogates from the glory of divine Providence, to represent the great engine of this visible world, as moving onward in its appointed course, without the continual interposure of his hand It is granted, indeed, that his hand is ever active in preserving all the parts of matter, in all their motions, according to these uniform laws: but I ,think it is rather derogatory to his infinite wisdom, to imagine that he would not make the vegetable and animal, as well as the inanimate world, of such sort of workmanship, as might regularly move onward in this manner for five or six thousand years, without putting a new hand to it ten thousand times every hour:

I say, ten thousand times every hour: for there is not an hour nor a moment passes, wherein there are not many millions of plants and animals actually forming in the southern or northern climates.

He that can make a clock, with a great variety of beauties and motions, to go regularly a twelvemonth together, is certainly a skilful artist; but if he must put his own hand to assist those motions every hour, or else the engine will stand still, or the wheels move at random, we conceive a much meaner opinion of his performance and his skill. On the other hand, how glorious and divine aim artificer would he be called, that should have made two of these pieces of clock-work above five thousand years ago, and contrived such hidden springs and motions within them, that they should have joined together, to perpetuate the species, and thus continue the same sort of clocks in more than a hundred successions down to this day! though each of their springs might fail in forty years time, and their motions cease, or their materials decay, yet that by the means of these two original engines, there should be engines of the same kind multiplied upon the face of the earth, by the same rules of motion which the artist had established in the day when he first formed them

Such is the workmanship of God; for nature is nothing but his art. Such is the amazing, penetration of divine skill; such the long reach of his foresight, who has longs ago set his instruments at work, and guarded against all their possible deficiencies; who has provided to replenish the world with plants and animals to the end of time, by the wondrous contrivance of his creation, and the laws he then ordained.

Thus every whale, eagle and apple-tree, every lion and rose, fly and worm in our age, are as really the work of God, as the first which he made of the kind. It is so far from being a ‘derogation to his honour, to perpetuate all the species by such instruments of his agency for many ages, that it rather aggrandizes the character of the Creator, and gives new lustre to Divine Wisdom: for if any thing can be said to be easier or harder in this sort of Almighty work,’ we may suppose it a more glorious difficulty for a God to employ a sparrow or an oyster to make a sparrow or an oyster, than to make one immediately with his own hand. Perhaps there is not a wasp or a butterfly now in the world, but has gone through almost six thousand ancestors, and yet the work of the last parent is exquisitely perfect in shape, in colour, and in every perfection of beauty: but it is all owing to the first cause.

This is wisdom becoming a God, and demands an eternal tribute of wonder and worship.

SECTION III.

Of the nourishment and growth of plants.

IN the beginning of time and nature, at the command of God, the earth brought forth plants and herbs, and four-footed animals in their various kinds; but the birds of the air, as well as the fishes, were produced by the same command out of the waters. This was intimated in a former section. The water and the earth were the first appointed mothers, if I may so express it, of all the animal and Vegetable creation. Since that time they cease to be parents indeed, but they are the common nurses of all that breathes, and of all that grows. Nor is the wisdom of God much less conspicuous in constituting two such plain and simple beings as the earth and water, to be the springs of nourishment and growth to such .an innumerable variety of creatures, than it was in the formation of them out of two such materials. Is it not counted an admirable piece of divine contrivance and wisdom, that the single principle of gravitation should be employed by the Creator, to answer so many millions of purposes among the heavenly bodies in their regular revolutions, as well as among the inhabitants, and the furniture of this earthly globe where we dwell And may it not be esteemed astonishing an effect of the same Supreme wisdom, that two such simple things as water and earth should be the common materials out of which all the standing ornaments, the vegetable beauties, and the moving inhabitants, of this our world, whether flying or creeping, walking or swimming, should receive their Continual sustenance, and their increase.

Let us first consider this as it relates to the vegetable part of the creation. What a profusion of beauty and fragrancy, of shapes and colours, of. smells and tastes, is scattered among the herbs and flowers of the ground, among the shrubs, the trees, and the fruits of the field! Colouring in its original glory and perfection triumph’s here; red, yellow, green, blue, purple, with vastly more diversities than the rainbow ever knew, or the prism can represent, are distributed among the flowers and blossoms. And what variety of tastes, both original and compounded, of sweet, bitter, sharp, with a thousand namelesss flavours, are found among the herbs of the garden! What an amazing difference of shapes and sizes appears amongst the trees of the field and forest in their branches and their leaves! And what a luxurious and elegant distinction in their several fruits! How very numerous are their distinct properties, and their uses in human life! And yet these two common elements, earth and water, are the only materials out of which they are all composed, from the beginning to the end of nature and time!

Let the gardener dress for himself one field of fresh earth, and make it as uniform as he can; then let him plant therein all the varieties of the vegetable world, in their roots or in their seeds, as he shall think most proper: yet out of this common earth, under the droppings of common water from Heaven, every one of these plants shall be nourished, and grow up in its proper form; all the infinite diversity of shapes and sizes, colours, tastes and smells which constitute and adorn the vegetable world, (would the climate permit) might be produced out of the same clods. What rich and surprising wisdom appears in that Almighty Operator, who out of the same matter shall perfume the bosom of the rose, and give the garlic its offensive and nauseous powers! Who, from the same spot of ground, shall raise liquorice and the wormwood, and dress the cheek of the tulip in all its glowing beauties! What a surprise, to see the same seed furnish the pomegranate and the orange tree with the juicy fruit, and the stalks of corn with their dry and husky grains To observe the oak raised from a little acorn, into its stately growth and solid timber, out of the same bed of earth that sent up the vine with such soft and feeble limbs! What a natural kind of prodigy is it, that chilling and burning vegetables should arise out of the same spot! That the fever and the frenzy should start up from the same bed, where the palsy and the lethargy lie dormant in their seeds Is it not exceeding strange, that healthful and poisonous juices should rise up in their proper plants out of the same common glebe, and. that life and death should grow and thrive within an inch of each other

What wondrous and inimitable skill must be attributed to that Supreme Power, that first cause, who can so infinitely diversify effects, where the servile second cause is always the same!

It is not for me in this place to enter into a long detail of philosophy, and shew how the minute fibres and tubes of the different seeds and roots of vegetables take hold of, attract, and receive the little particles of earth and water proper for their own growth; how they form theta at first into their own shapes, and send them up aspiring above ground by degrees, and mould them so as to frame the stalks, the branches, the leaves and the buds of every flower, herb, and tree. But I presume the world. is too weary of substantial forms, and plastic powers, to be persuaded that these mere creatures of fancy should be the operators in this wondrous work. It is much more honourable to attribute all to the design and forethought of God, who formed the first vegetables in such a manner, and appointed their little parts to. ferment under the warm sunbeams, according to such established laws of motion, as to mould the atoms of earth and water which were near them into their own figure, to make them grow up into trunk and branches, which every night. should harden into firmness and stability; and again, to mould new atoms of the same element into leaves and bloom, fruit and seed, which last being dropt into the earth, should produce new plants of the same likeness, to the end of the world.

It is easier for the sons of men to stand and wonder, and adore God the Creator, than to imitate, or even to describe his admirable works. In the best of their descriptions and their imitations of this divine artist, they do but chatter like Hottentots, and Paint like Goths and Vandals.

SECTION IV.

Of the nourishment and growth of animals.

LET us proceed in the next place to survey new wonders. All the animals of the creation, as well as the plants, have their original nourishment from these simple materials, earth and. water. For all the animal beings which do not live upon other animals, or the produce of them, take some of the vegetables for their food; and thus the brutes of prey are originally indebted to the plants and herbs, i. e. to the earth, for their support, and their drink is the watery element, That all flesh is grass, is true, in the literal, as well as the metaphorical sense. Does the lion eat the flesh of the lamb Doth the lamb suck the milk of the ewe But the ewe is nourished by the grass of the field. Does the kite devour the chicken, and the chicken the little caterpillars, or insects of the spring But these insects are ever feeding on the tender plants, and the green products of the ground. The earth moistened with water is the common nurse of all. Even the fishes of the sea are nourished with vegetables that Spring up there, or by preying on lesser fishes which feed on these vegetables.

But let us give our meditations a loose on this entertaining subject, and we shall find numerous instances of wonder in this scene of Divine contrivance.

I. What very different animals are nourished by the same vegetable food! The self-same herbage or fruits of the earth by the divine laws of nature and providence, are converted into animated bodies of very different kinds. Could you imagine that half the fowls of the air, as different as they are, from the crow to the tit-mouse, should derive their flesh and blood from the productions of the same tree, where the swine watch under, the boughs of it, and are nourished by the fruit Nor need I stay to take notice what numerous insects find their nests and their food all the summer season, from the same apples or apricots, plumbs or cherries, which feed hogs and crows, and a hundred small birds. Would you think that the black and the brindled kine, with the horses both gray and bay, should clothe themselves with their hairy skins of so various colours, out of the same green pasture where the sheep feed, and cover themselves with their white and woolly fleece And at the same time the goose is cropping part of the grass to nourish its own flesh, and to array itself with down and feathers. Strange and stupendous texture of the bodies of these creatures, that should Convert the common green herbage of the field into their different natures, and their more different clothing! But this leads me to another remark.

2. What exceeding great diversity is found in the several parts, limbs and coverings even of the same creature ! An animated body is made up of flesh and blood, bones and membranes, long, hollow tubes, with a variety of liquors contained in them, together with many strings and tendons, and a thousand other things which escape the naked sight, and for which anatomy has hardly found a name; yet the very same food is by the wondrous skill and appointment of the God of nature, formed into all these amazing differences. Let us take an ox to pieces, and survey the wondrous composition. Besides the flesh of this huge living structure, and the bones on which it is built, what variety of tender coats and humours belong to that admirable organ the eye! How solid and hard are the teeth which grind the food ! How firm the general ligaments that tie the joints of that creature together! What horny hoofs are his support, and with what different sort of horny weapons has nature furnished his forehead! Yet they are all framed of the same grassy materials; the calf grazes upon the verdant pasture, and all its limbs and powers grow up out of that food to the size and firmness of an ox. Can it be supposed, that all these corpuscles, of which the several inward and outward parts of the brute are composed, are actually found in their different and proper forms in the vegetable food Does every spire of grass actually contain the specific parts of the horn and the hoof, the teeth and the tendons, the glands and membranes, the humours and coats of the eye, the liquids and solids, with all their innumerable varieties, in their proper distinct forms This is a most unreasonable supposition. No, it is the wisdom of the God of nature that distributes this uniform food in the several parts of the animal, by his appointed laws, and gives proper nourishment to each of them.

Again, 3. If the food of which one single animal partakes, be never so various and different, yet the same laws of motion, which God has ordained in the animal world, convert them all to the same purposes of nourishment for that creature. Behold the little bee gathering its honey from a thousand flowers, and laying up the precious store for its winter food! Mark how the crow preys upon a carcase; anon it crops a cherry from the tree, and both are changed into the flesh and feathers of a crow. Observe the kine in the meadows, feeding on a hundred varieties of herbs and flowers; yet all the different parts of their bodies are nourished thereby in a proper manner: every flower in the field is made use of to increase the flesh of the heifer, and to make food for men: and out of all these varieties, there is a noble milky, juice flowing to the udder, which provides nourishment for young children.

So near akin is man, the lord of the creation, in respect of his body, to the brutes that are his slaves, that the very same food will compose the flesh of both, and make them grow up to their appointed stature. This is evident beyond doubt in daily experiments. The same bread-corn which we eat at our tables will give rich support to sparrows and pigeons, to the turkey and the duck, and all the fowls of the yard: the mouse Steals it and feeds on it in his dark retirements; while the hog in the sty and the horse at the manger, would be glad to partake of it. When the poor cottager has nursed up a couple of geese, the fox seizes one of them for the support of her cubs, and perhaps the table of the landlord is furnished with the other to regale his friends. Nor is it an uncommon thing to see the favourite lap—clog fed out of the same bowl of milk which is prepared for the heir of a wealthy family, but which nature had originally designed to nourish a calf. The same milky material will feed calves, lap-dogs, and human bodies.

How various are our dishes at an entertainment! How has luxury even tired itself in the invention of meats and drinks in an excessive ‘and endless variety! Yet when they pass into the common boiler of the stomach, and are carried thence through the intestines, there is a white juice strained out of the strange mixture, called chyle, which from the lacteal vessels is converted into the blood, and ‘by the laws of nature is Conveyed into the same crimson liquor. This being distributed through all the body by the arteries, is farther strained again through proper vessels, and becomes the spring of nourishment to every different part of the animal. Thus the God of nature has ordained, that how diverse soever our meats are, they shall first be reduced to an uniform milky liquid, that by new contrivances and Divine art, it may be again diversified into flesh and bones, nerves and membranes. ‘

How conspicuous, arid yet how admirable are the operations of Divine Wisdom in this single instance of nourishment! But it is no wonder that a God who could create such astonishing and exquisite pieces of machinery, as plants and animals, could prescribe such laws to matter and motion, as to nourish and preserve the individuals, as well as to propagate the species,. through all ages, to the end of time.

SECTION V.

The similar operations of plants and animals.

IT is with admiration and pleasure we take notice of the regular actions of animals even in their earliest hours of life, before they can possibly be taught any thing by remark or imagination. Observe the young sparrows in the nest: see how the little, naked creatures open their mouths wide to their dam, as though they were sensible of their dependence on her care for food and nourishment. But the chicken just released from the prison of the shell, can pick up its food with its own bill, and therefore it doth not open its mouth to beg food of the hen that hatched it. Yet the chicken seems to shew its dependence too: for when the first danger appears, you see it run and fly to the wing of its dam for protection; as if it knew, that though it could feed itself, yet it was not able to defend itself, but must trust to the better security of a parent’s wing.

We admire these ‘little creatures and their remarkable sagacity; we are surprised to find that they distinguish so happily, and pursue their proper interest; that they are so soon acquaint ed with their abilities and their wants, and come to use their understanding so very early; for it is evident, that the mere faculty of sense, that is, the passive reception of images or ideas, can never be sufficient to account for these wondrous imitations of reason; sense has nothing to do but with the present impression, and includes no reflection or prospect of the past or the future, no contrivance of means to an end, nor any action in order to obtain it.

But what shall we say, ‘or how shall we account for it, if ‘we are told there are instances almost as admirable as these to be found in the vegetable world, where we never suspect sense or reason The vine, as though it were sensible of its own weakness, thrusts forth its long tendrils, which curl round the branches of any stronger tree that stands near, and thus it ‘hangs its weighty clusters upon the arms of the elm that support it. Nay, every cluster has a tendril belonging to it, and if any stronger twig of its own be within its reach, it hangs itself there by this tendril for support. The hop and the lupin, or French bean, as though they knew they could not stand by themselves, find another way to raise their heads on high: they twine the whole length of their bodies round the poles or the rods which are planted near them; and thus their growth and their fruit are upheld from rotting upon the ground. The ivy, for the same reason, but by another contrivance, climbs up the oak, and sticks close to its sides: and the feeble plant, which we vulgarly call the creeper, that can hardly raise itself three feet high alone, thrusts out its claws at proper distances, fixes them fast in the neighbouring wall or building, and mounts by this means to the tops of the highest houses. What variety of artifice is found here among these feeble vegetables to support themselves!

Yet we believe these plants have no understanding, and mankind are all agreed they have no such thing as sense belonging to them; and we immediately recur to the wisdom of God the Creator, and ascribe the contrivance and the honour of it to him alone. It was he, we say, who gave the vine its curling tendrils, and the creeper its hooky claws: it was he instructed the one to bind itself with natural winding cords to the boughs of a stronger tree; and he taught the other, as it were, to nail itself against the wall. It was he shewed the ivy to ascend straight up the oak; and the hop and the lupin, in long spiral lines, to twine round their proper supporters.

Let us inquire now, “ What do we mean by such expressions as these “ Truly nothing but this: that God formed the natures of these vegetables in such a manner, as that by certain and appointed rules of mechanical motion, they should grow up and move their bodies and their branches, so as to raise and to uphold themselves and their fruit. Thus the wisdom of God, the great Artificer, is glorified in the vegetable world.

And why should we not give God the Creator the same honor of his wisdom in the animal world also Why may we not suppose that he has formed the bodies of brute creatures, and all their inward springs of motion, with such exquisite art, as even in their youngest hours, without reasoning and without imitation, to pursue those methods as regularly which are necessary for their life and their defence, by the same laws of motion and the same unthinking powers This is nature, when God has appointed it. This seems to be the true idea, and the clearest explication of that obscure word, instinct.

If we allow these young animals to perform all their affairs by their own contrivance and sagacity, why do not we ascribe the same sagacity and artifice to vines and ivy, that we do to young sparrows or chickens. The motions of the plants are slower indeed, but as regular and rational as those of the animals; they shew as much design and contrivance, and are as necessary and proper to attain their end.

Besides, if we imagine these little young birds to practise their different forms of motion for their nourishment or defence, by any springs Of reason, meaning or design in themselves, do we not ascribe understanding to them a little too soon, and confess their knowledge is much superior to our own, and their reason of morn early growth Do we not make men, or rather angels of them, instead of brute creatures But if we suppose them to be actuated by the peculiar laws of animal motion, which God the Creator, by a long foresight has established amongst his works, we give him the honour of that early and superior reason, and we adore the Divine Artificer. Psalm cxlv. 10. “ All thy works shall praise thee, 0 Lord.”

But we are lost among these wonders of thy wisdom! We are ignorant of thy divine and inimitable contrivances! What shall we say to thee, thou All-wise, Creating Power! Thy works surprise us: the plants and the brutes puzzle and confound our reasonings: we gaze at thy workmanship with sacred amazement: thy ways in the kingdom of nature are untraceable, and thy wonders past finding out.

But what will some readers say when they peruse these discourses Are plants and brutes so very near akin to each other Creatures which we have always distinguished into the sensible and the senseless! Have birds and beasts no more perception or feeling, knowledge or consciousness, understanding or will, than the herbs, the trees and the flowers Is the grass of the field as sensible as the animal which eats it Excuse me here, my friends: I dare assert no such paradoxes. What if some of the early actions of brute creatures are merely the effects of such machinery and instinct as I before described It does not follow thence, that all the operations of their lives must be ascribed to such a mechanical principle. Even in human nature, where there is an undoubted principle of sense and reasoning, there are some early actions which seem to be the proper effects of such instinct or mechanism, and are owing to the wondrous divine artifice in the contrivance of their animal bodies, and not to any exercise of their own reasoning powers. How doth the infant hunt after the breast, and take it into its mouth, moving the lips, tongue and palate in the most proper forms for sucking in the milk to nourish it How does it readily shut the eyes, to cover them from any danger near! How does it raise its cries and wailing aloud for help when it is hurt! These are certainly the effects of instinct in their outward members, as much as the circulation of their blood and the digestion of their food in their bowels and their inward parts.

It is certain, there are several operations in the lives of brute creatures, which seem to be more perfect imitations of reason, and bid fairer for the real effect of a reasoning principle within them, than these early actions which I have mentioned. What strange subtilty and contrivance seem to be found in the actions of dogs and foxes ! What artifices appear to be used both by birds and beasts of prey, in order to seize the animals which were appointed for their food, as well as in the weaker creatures, to avoid and escape the devourer ! How few are there of the passions, as well as the appetites of human nature, which are not found among several of the brute creatures ! What resentment and rage do they discover! What jealousy and fear, what hope and desire, what wondrous instances of love and joy, of gratitude and revenge! What amazing appearances of this nature are observed in birds and beasts of the more docile and domestic kind ! Such as puzzle the wisest of philosophers to give a plain, fair and satisfactory account how all these things can be performed by mechanism, or the mere laws of matter and motion! But how many actions soever may be performed by brute creatures, without any principle of sense or consciousness, reason or reflection, yet these things can never be applied to human nature. It can never be said, that man may be an engine too, that man may be only a finer sort of machine, without a rational and an immortal spirit. And the reason is this. Each of us feel and are conscious within ourselves, that we think, that we reason, that we reflect, that we contrive and design, that we judge and choose with freedom, and determine our own actions: that we can have no stronger principle of assent to any thing than present, immediate, intellectual consciousness. If I am assured of the truth of any inference whatsoever, it is because I am sure of my consciousness of the premises and of my consciousness that I derive this inference from them. My consciousness of these premises therefore is a prior ground of assurance, and the foundation of all my certainty of the inferences. Let a thousand reasons therefore be laid before me, to prove that I am nothing but an engine, my own inward present consciousness of this propositions that I have thoughts, that I have reasoning powers, and that I have a will and free choice, is a full evidence to me that these are false reasonings and deceitful arguments: I know and am assured, by what I feel every moment, that I have a spirit within me capable of knowing God, and of honouring or dishonouring my Maker, of choosing good or evil, of practising vice or virtue, and that I hereby am bound to approve thyself to the Almighty Being that made and governs me, ‘who will reward me in Some future state or other, according to my behaviour in this.

And as I can certainly ‘determine this truth, with regard to my own nature, so when I see creatures round about me of the very same species with myself, I justly infer the same truth concerning them also: I conclude with assurance, that they are not mere engines, but have such reasonable and immortal spirits in them, as I find in myself. It is this inference of similar and equal causes from similar and equal effects that makes a great part in the science of mankind.

Besides, I daily hear men discoursing with me on any subject, and giving as regular and reasonable answers to my inquiries, as I do to theirs; I feel within myself, it is impossible for me to do this without thinking, without the careful exercise of my intellectual and reasoning faculties, superior to all the powers of mechanism; and thence I infer, it is as impossible for them to practice the same discourse or conversation, without the powers of a rational and intelligent spirit, which in its own nature is neither material nor mortal.

Let the question therefore which relates to brute creatures be determined to any side, it does not at all affect the nature, the reason, or the religion of mankind. It is beyond all doubt, that man is a creature which has an intelligent mind to govern the machine of his body; that man has knowedge, and judgment, and free choice; and unless he approve his conduct to the eyes of his Creator and his Judge, in this state of mortality and trial, be exposes himself to the just vengeance of God in his future and immortal state.

It is certain, that the all-wise and all-righteous Governor of intelligent creatures, will not appoint the very same fate and period to the pious and the profane; neither his wisdom, his equity, nor his goodness, will suffer him to deal out the ‘same blessings and the same events in every state of existence, to those ‘who have loved him with all their souls, and those who have hated and blasphemed his name. It is the glory and the intent of the Supreme Ruler of the universe, to make a conspicuous and awful distinction in one world or another, between those who have endeavoured to serve him, and to render his majesty honourable among men, and those who have impiously abused all his favours, ridiculed his thunder, and robbed him of his choicest honours. But if philosophy should fail us here, if it were possible for creatures of such different characters to have nothing in their own natures which was immortal, yet it is a very reasonable thing, that the great Judge of all should prolong their, beings beyond this mortal state, that the Sons of vice might not go triumphant off the stage of existence, and that the men of virtue might not be always oppressed, nor come to a period of their being, without some testimony of the approbation of the God that made them.