Around, how wide! how deep extend below! Beast, bird, fish, insect! what no eye can see, Where, one step broken, the great scale's destroy'd: Tenth, or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike. When we observe such a wonderful gradation of beauty, form, perfection and proportion, in the several parts of matter, through the animal, vegitable, and mineral kingdoms; through all the species of fossils, plants and animals, up to the human body: it must, to a rational and attentive mind, be a wide and unnatural chasm in the nature of things, if there were nothing between dead matter and the human soul. And, on viewing this, we need be no ways astonished at the sudden but sublime exclamation of the royal bard,What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? This scheme is formed on the philosophical principle of the graduated scale of intelligences, and of entities in general; which maintains that there is no chasm or break from God, the Fountain of being, to the lowest inorganized particle of matter, or atom: ap and that all proceed from the indivisible particle of inert matter, through different forms of organized being, up to animal life; and through different degrees of animal life up to intellectual; and through various degrees of intellectual life up to Go. Matter being more perfect as it approaches to, or arises from inertness, to organization; organization being more or less perfect as it approaches to, or arises from vitality; vitality being more or less perfect as it approaches to, or recedes from intellectual existence; and intellectual existence being more or less perfect as it proaches to, or recedes from the ENS ENTIUM or GOD. This scheme also supposes that, all orders of created beings are connected by certain links, which partake of the nature of the beings in the ascending and descending scale: e. g. ANIMALS and VEGETABLES are linked together by the polype, or plant-animal; FowLs and REPTILES, by the bat; FISHES and BEASTS, by the hippopotamus; QUADRUPEDS and MAN, by the ouran-outang; and MAN and angels, by men of extraordinary powers, such as Plato among the ancients, and Sir Isaac Newton, &c. among the moderns. Again, if we still maintain that brutes shall have no place in the new heaven or new earth (previously described) we must then, very naturally suppose that, none lower than man will partake of, or enjoy this blessing. Were this the case, man would not by any means, (i. e. comparatively speaking,) be so happy as when surrounded by an host of inferiors. Two reasons may be assigned for this seemingly incongruity:-in the first place when, by comparison, we find such an innumerable company of inferior creatures, we doubly rejoice in our wisdom and superiority: for, were there no degrees of comparison of greatness, but all enjoying the same perfection and happiness, the sameness of the company and scene would so weary a mind given to change, in the course of time that, all pleasure and similitude would become burdensome and painful. We know that God, at first, could have created and made us all equal; but he knew that it was necessary for our happiness to create inferior and dependent beings, and to continue them through time and eternity. For instance, were all mankind born kings, how much more happy would they be than if born beggers-none? It is but by the dependence one person has upon another, and the success of his progress through life, (i e. morally speaking.) that he can be happy.The beggar depends upon the bounty of the higher subject; and this subject upon the 22 s favour of some greater one; and so on in a continued chain of graduated fortune from the lowest to the highest. Some place their happiness in their boasted favour with God, and their hope of obtaining a place in the kingdom of heaven. Others in their superior knowledge, &c. while many think themselves the favourites of their Creator by their being permitted to live an easy life, and to feast sumptuously every day, while many others, their superiors in wisdom and goodness, are struggling with penury and want. There can be no just inference drawn from this, nor is any criterion to walk by, that man, although wallowing in luxury and ease, is any more the favourite of heaven than those of the same species; or many of the brute kind that are racked with pain, and pining in misery; but rather the reverse, for we daily see the sinful man living in voluptuousness, while the servant of God hath neither food nor raiment, nor a place of safety to lay his head-the sun shineth on the evil and the good. it From these premises,we may see that, it is not always those who enjoy this world in its greatest perfection, that will enjoy the new heaven and the new earth; much less those who contemn the miserable sufferers for being what they of themselves cannot help. For the ox, or the sheep, that is considered the favourite of its master or owner,and is fed in green pastures every day, is the soonest to be sacrificed to his rapacious appetite. And man, while enjoying all the delicasies and comforts of life here; while the cup of prosperity bubbles over the brim, still he cannot boast of to-morrow, for even to-day his soul may be required of him, and that body he so much idolized and doated upon, given as a feast to the worms, or be indignantly trampled upon by some unthinking clown. In the second place,-Variety, to the mind of man, is absolutely necessary for completing its happiness, as we may see from the strange and disagreeable effect soon produced by a painter making choice even of his most precious and beautiful colour, when instead of painting his picture or canvas with a variety of objects and colours, he paints it all over with one colour and as one piece. It is the same with regard to music: for, let the most exquisite piece be selected, with all the pleasing symphony that the power of music can produce, still, if no other but itself be ever heard, how will it cloy the ear and the understanding! We also know that, had there been no lower order of creatures on earth than man, he |