Abridgment of the Contemplation of Nature By Mr. Bonnet, of GENEVA

 

  1. The relations which the plant bears to those beings that surround it, and from whence it derives its substance, are purely corporeal, or comprehended entirely within the sphere of the properties of bodies. The animal, which is more excellent, is allied to nature by other connexions, and by such as are of a more exalted kind. Like the plant, it vegetates: like her, it receives that nourishment from without, which promotes the growth of it; and like her it multiplies. But to those different actions are superadded feeling: or the perception of what passes within him. This sense of feeling is connected with several others, which are produced various ways; and they are all accompanied either with pleasure or pain.

Agreeable sensations inform the animal of the relations which certain bodies have to its preservation or welfare: disagreeable or painful sensations advertise him of qualities which are hurtful. He is then the centre to which diverse objects are directed: he draws near some, and keeps at a distance from others. The nerves, or that cluster of small fibres which extend themselves from the brain to all parts, like small cords, constitute the immediate organ of feeling.

2. Does spiritual perfection always answer to corporeal in animals If this be true, how comes it to pass, that the simple ostrich appears inferior in understanding to the lion pismire, which is placed so much beneath it in respect to structure

Let us not mistake. The marks of understanding exhibited to us in some insects are surprising, inasmuch, as we do not expect to meet with them in those animals we scarce think capable of feeling. Our imagination is warmed, and we ascribe to those insects more genius than they really have.

On the contrary, we form high expectations from larger animals; so that we are very apt to degrade them, as soon as we perceive they fall beneath the idea we entertained of them. T here are some. however, whose mind does not display itself by striking marks, but by a great number of less sensible ones, which, being united, form a degree of understanding superior to that of the most industrious insect. Such, without doubt, would appear to be the case of the ostrich, were she better observed. We reproach her, with indifference towards her eggs. It is affirmed, that she leaves the care of hatching them to the sun. This reproach is turned into a commendation, with regard to the ostriches of Senegal, since an exact observer has bestowed on them the attention they require. In these scorching climates, the sun sufficiently heats in the day time, an ostrich’s eggs that are hid in the sand. The warmth of the mother would be then unnecessary, or even hurtful to them: she would keep the sun from them, whose rays are more active and efficacious. But the nights in Senegal are very cool, and the eggs would be in danger of growing cold. Then the mother never fails to procure them heat, by sitting upon them during that time.

At the Cape of Good Hope, where it is not so hot as at Senegal, the ostrich sits night and day, like other birds. The young ones peck in a few hours after they are hatched; but they are not able to walk till several days afterward: the dam takes care to place near them such food as is proper for them.

Lastly, it is to be remarked, that there is a kind of society among large animals. Their memory retains faithfully a certain number of signs and sounds. Their soul is affected by a variety of perceptions sight and hearing alone furnish an abundant source to them. Insects afford us but very imperfect images of this. The lion pismire is ignorant of every thing but the snare he has laid, and the prey he expects in consequence of it. His eyes, which are motionless and unmeaning, differ widely from ours; nor is lie affected by any sound.

3. Those are undoubtedly the most perfect animals, whose sphere of understanding extends to the greatest number of objects. These are various in their operations, can shift about and compass their ends by different ways.

The polypus only knows how to lengthen and contract his arms. The spider spreads a net with a geometrical regularity. The falcon and dog pursue their prey with sagacity. The ape presumes to imitate man.

Has God created as many species of souls as of animals Or is there only one species of soul in animals, differently modified according to the diversity of organization This question is absolutely impenetrable by us. All we can say concerning it is this: if God, who has always acted by the most simple means has thought proper, to vary the spiritual perfection of animals merely by organization, his wisdom has so ordained it.

4. At the submit of the scale of our globe is placed man, the masterpiece of earthly creation.

Not to dwell on the excellent construction of his body, let us consider man as an intelligent being. Man is endued with reason ; he has ideas; he compares these ideas together; judges of their relations or oppositions; and acts in consequence of this judgment. He alone, of all animals, enjoys the gift of speech; he clothes his ideas with such signs as he thinks proper: and by this admirable prerogative he forms a connexion between them, which renders his imagination and memory an inestimable fund of knowledge. By this means man communicates his thoughts, and brings all his faculties to a state of perfection: by this he attains to all arts and sciences: and by means of this, all nature is subject to him.

Sometimes, with a strong and harmonious voice, he celebrates, in a poem, the virtues of a hero. At others, by a stroke of the pencil, be changes a dull canvass into a charming perspective. Here we see him with the chissel and graver in his hand, animating the marble, and giving life to brass.. There, with the plummet and square, erecting a magnificent palace. Now we behold him, by a microscope of his own invention, discovering new worlds amidst invisible atoms, or penetrating the secret exercise and motion of particular organ. At other times, by changing this microscope into a telescope, he pierces into the heavens, and contemplates Saturn and his moons. Returning borne, he prescribes laws to the celestial bodies, describes their paths, measures the earth, and weighs the sun. Afterward he dives into the nature of beings, examines their relations, and the admirable harmony resulting from them, and by an attentive view of their various perfections, he sees an immense chain formed,. comprehending the whole.

In another station, man is occupied in such arts as contribute to the supply of his necessities, or conveniences. His reason condescends to every thing. The earth, cultivated by his care, teems every year with new productions. Hemp and flax divest themselves of their bark to furnish him with clothing. The sheep abandons for his use his rich fleece, and the silk-worm spins for him her precious wool. The yielding metal is moulded in his hands, The stone softens in his fingers. The largest and strongest trees fall at his feet, and receive from him a new being. All the animals are subject to his Jaws ; even the fiercest of them insult pot his crown with impunity. He makes some serve for food; others be harnesses to his chariot; and others he condemns to till his lands. Many of them he appoints to be his porters, hunters, guards and musicians. In short, man ploughs his adventurous way across the vast ocean, and by navigation unites the two extremities of the globe.

5. The excellence of human reason shines likewise with a new lustre, from the establishment of societies. In them virtue, honour, fear, and interest, variously employed or combined, prove the source of peace, happiness, and order. All the individuals, being mutually interwoven together, move in a regular and harmonious manner. Under the sanction of the laws, the king, prince, and magistrate, by exercising a lawful authority, promote virtue, suppress vice, and spread around them the happiest effects of their administration. In society, as in a pure and fertile climate, talents of different kinds spring up and infold themselves. From that, the mechanical and liberal arts flourish. Lastly, society perfects friendship, that faithful companion of life, which administers consolation in our sufferings, and gives a relish to our pleasures.

6. The last mark of the greatness of man, and of his high exaltation above other animals, is the commerce he has with his Creator by religion.

Wrapped in the thickest darkness, the rest of the animal creation are ignorant of the hand that created them. They enjoy an existence, but cannot trace the author of life.. Man alone soars to God the principle, and prostrate at the foot of the throne of the Almighty, adores with the profoundest veneration, and with the most lively gratitude, the ineffable goodness that created him.

In consequence of those eminent faculties wherewith man is enriched, God condescends to reveal himself to him, and to lead him as it were by the hand in the paths of happiness. The various laws he has received from the Supreme Wisdom, are so many lights placed at proper distances on his road, to guide him from time to eternity.

Enlightened by this Celestial Guide, man advances in the glorious race that is set before him, and seizes the crown of life, and adorns with it his immortal brow.

7. Such is the man in the highest degree of earthly perfection. But mankind have their gradations, as well as the other productions of our globe. There is a prodigious number of continued links between the most perfect man and the ape.

If you take a survey of all the nations of the earth; if you con, eider the inhabitants of the same kingdom, province, city, or town; nay, do but examine with attention the members of the same family, and you will imagine you see as many species of men as you discern individuals.          

To the Lapland dwarf, let the giant of Madagascar succeed. Let the flat faced African, with his black complexion and woolly hair, give place to the European, whose regular features are set off by the whiteness of his complexion and beauty of his hair. To the filthiness of a Hottentot oppose the neatness of a Dutchman. From the cruef Anthropophagite pass to the humane Frenchman. Place the stupid Uuron opposite the profound Englishman. Ascend from the Scotch peasant to the great Newton. Descend from the harmony of Handel to the rustic songs of the shepherd. Put in the same scale the locksmith constructing a jack, and Vaucannon forming his automatons. Reckon up the number of steps from the smith that causes the anvil to groan, to Reaumor's anatomizing fire.

Do these varieties arise from any real difference there is between human souls, independently of the organization of the body

We shall not think so, if we pay a due attention to health and sickness, to constitution and manner of living, to climate and education.

You may perceive what a multitude of consequences a mathematician derives from a very simple principle: place this same principle in the hands of a man of the lower class, it will remain barren, and. not be productive of the smallest truth.

May not the number of just consequences which different minds deduce from the same principle, serve as a foundation for constructing a psychometer upon ; and may we not presume that one time or other we shall be enabled to measure spirits as we now do bodies

But the scale of the creation does not terminate at ‘man. Another universe commences there, whose extent, perhaps, compared to that of this, is as the space of the solar vortex to the capacity of a nut.

There shine the Celestial Hierarchies, like glittering stars.

There from all parts the angels, archangels, seraphim, cherubim, thrones, virtues, principalities, dominions, powers, cast forth their radiant beams.

In the centre of these august spheres, shines glorious “the sun of righteousness,” the East above, whence all the other stars borrow their light and splendour.

Ye planetary worlds! celestial hierarchies! you sink into annihilation in the presence of the Lord: your existence is by him: “he is that he is :“ He alone possesses the plenitude of being, you enjoy but the reflection of it. Your perfections are streams, the infinitely perfect Being is an ocean, an abyss, which the cherubim presume not to look into.

If we enjoy a very sensible pleasure on seeing collected, in one place, the principal productions of nature, how great must the ecstacy of celestial spirits be, when they survey those worlds which God has thick sown in the vast expanse, and when they Contemplate the immensity of his works

O! the delightful employment those superior intelligencies are exercised in, when they compare the different economies of these worlds and weigh in the balance of reason each of these globes!

But all celestial intelligence, doubtless enjoy not these advantages in the same degree. There may be some perhaps to whom is granted the knowledge of one world only: others may know several: others a much greater number flow immense must that mind be, which beholds with a single glance the sum of all beings, and which by fathoming the spirits of all orbs, discerns in an instant, and without confusion, the result of all the ideas that have, do now, and will hereafter occupy them.

Ye inhabitants of the earth, who have received reason sufficient to convince you of these worlds, will you for ever be denied entrance into them will the infinitely good being, who shows them to you at a distance, always refuse you admittance into them No; since you are called to reside ere long among celestial hierarchies, you will like them fly from planet to planet; you will eternally advance from perfection to perfection, and every instant of your duration will be distinguished by the acquisition of farther degrees of knowledge. Whatever has been withheld from your terrestrial perfection, you will obtain under this economy of glory; “you will know even as you are known.”

“Man is sown corruptible, be will rise incorruptible and glorious :“ these are the words of the apostle and philosopher: the covering of the seed perishes; the germ subsists, and assures man of immortality.

Man therefore is not in himself what be appears to be. What we discover in him here below is only the gross foldage under which he crawls on the earth, and which he must shortly cast off.

The brain is a small organical machine, destined to receive the impressions made on the different parts of the body, and to transmit them to the soul. it is by means of this that the soul acts on various points of the body, and adheres to nature.

The extremities of all the nerves, radiate to the seat of the soul it is in some measure the centre of this admirable collection, the threads of which are so numerous, fine, delicate, and full of malion.

But the nerves are not stretched like the strings of an instrument of music. Animals that are entirely glutinous, are notwithstanding very sensible.

We then admit there is a fluid in the nerves, whose subtilty prevents our seeing it; and which serves both for the propagation of sensible impressions, and muscular motion.

The instantaneousness of this propagation, and some other phenomena, indicate that there is a certain analogy between the nervous fluid and fire or light.

We know that all bodies are impregnated by fire. It abounds is aliment. It is extracted front it by the brain, from whence it passes Into the nerves.

The seat of the soul, the immediate organ of feeling and thought, can be no other than a composition of this vital fire. The brain, which we see and feel, must therefore only be the case or covering of the ethereal machine, which constitutes the real seat of the soul.

It may indeed be the germ of that spiritual and glorious body, which revelation opposes to the animal and vile.

The resurrection, then, will only consist in a prodigiously rapid unfolding of this germ, which lies hid in the brain.

These senses are the foundation of those relations which the animal body bears to terrestrial bodies. The seat of the soul, or the little ethereal machine that constitutes it, has parts corresponding with the grosser, since it receives motions from thence, and transmits them to the soul. These parts, by the opening of the germ, will require a degree of perfection incompatible with the present state of mans But this germ may likewise contain within it new senses, which will disclose themselves at the same instant, and by multiplying in an almost infinite degree the relations of man to the universe, will aggrandize his sphere, and render it equal to that of superior intelligences.

An organized body, formed of elements analogous to those of light, will, we may reasonably suppose, stand in need of no repair. The spiritual body will preserve itself by the mere energy of its mechanism.

And if light or ether do not gravitate at all, man in a glorified state will be enabled to transport himself at pleasure into every point of space, and will fly from planet to planet, with the swiftness of lightning.

The senses, as they will then be brought into subjection to the soul, will no longer rule over her. Separated for ever from flesh and blood, there will remain in her none of those earthly affections which resulted from them. Transported into the regions of light, the human understanding will present no ideas to the will but those of the highest good. It will then have no other than lawful desires, and God will be their constant and ultimate end. It will love him from gratitude; fear him from a principle of love; and will adore him as the supremely amiable Being and as the eternal source of life, perfection and happiness. 

Chapter 5 - Of the Various Relations of Terrestrial Beings