are not too numerous; the ocean is full, but not too full. The climate they most delight in, is always accessible: their senses are far from being acute, nature is required to make no extra effort to fit them for the rank they hold; the young are endowed with the same portion of sensibility as the old: the order of their economy suffers no derangement, knows of no change, has no period of peculiar danger; instinct is unembarrassed by domestication, and leads, without risque, to the supply of their wants: in a word, they suffer no evils but those which are imposed in the directest manner by the hand of nature. And what are these? What are the checks by which the increase of fish, notwithstanding their prodigious fecundity, is prevented? It is in the nature of their subsistence, Fish is the food of fish. The herring, in which the remains of no other animal has ever been found, is perhaps an exception; and there may be others; but, as a general fact, it holds true, The only food presented, and the only appetite given, confines them to this mean of subsistence: their teeth are not adapted to the mastication of vegetables, and in the ocean none grow. The shark is proverbial for its ravenous appetite, but all fish possess the same character;.

do we not, in angling, bait with animals to catch the smallest fish? They each seek the life of others, and thus they mutually check their increase.

Should the goodness of God be called in question, and it be asked, how consistent with his benevolence he can create sentient beings to destroy each other? It may be answered, that life is given to animals only for a season, and the mode by which they are compelled to resign it, can be of little consequence.

The elements, as they have been called, of earth, air, fire, and water, were not designed as the means of subsistence. The food of plants is not water, but the remains of any substance that has had life. The food of animals is not earth, but the productions of the earth. Her rings, indeed, appear to live upon the elements, but this conception may arise from our ignorance; they may separate the slime cast off by other fish, and thus subsist.

Had it been the will of the Creator that no more animals should have had existence than could have lived without annoying each other, their number must have been extremely small, and the sum of happiness so inconsiderable, as to render it questionable. for what purpose the

world was created.

Conceive the ocean tenanted by no more fish than could have lived by the wreck carried into it by the rivers; Mr. Malthus might, in that case, have triumphed in his theory; an end would be at once put to the possibility of increase, and either sterility or destruction must follow. But, as it is, the ocean, through its vast expanse, is inhabited by myriads of beings in the full enjoyment of all the happiness their nature is susceptible of; the sum of their felicity is far greater than if there had only been here and there a solitary animal moving silently along from shore to shore, exciting doubts as to the wisdom of its creation, and grown old without having enjoyed existence. But as the world is now directed every part is full of life; not a stream is without its shoals of fish, which play round each other, in all the frolicsomeness of youth.

Opposed to the happiness thus enjoyed, is the agony of death. It may be said, if there be more pleasure there is also more pain; but what proportion do they bear to each other? The pain of dying is, to animals, a very small drawback on the pleasure of life: it is not dreaded, they know not that they are mortal, and before they discover it they are dead. Life

is a valuable gift, and the more there are that possess it, the greater is the sum of happiness. As death is the lot of all animals, to die suddenly is preferable than to die of disease. A diseased fish must starve, because its prey would escape.

Man has lessened the number and extent of his enjoyments, and reduced his life to a scene of mortification and distress; his death is painful, and his life is full of sorrow: but it is not so with animals, they suffer neither from remorse or imprudence, and consequently are exempt from the great sources of suffering."

In the ocean, the shark lives and reigns the same undisputed sovereign that the lion does in the forest; it knows of no rival, and is subject to no ordinary check. If the number of their young be not great, they are long lived, and must very soon be too numerous were they not prevented; but of the means by which this is accomplished we are ignorant, because the history of that fish is not well known: but thus far we may pronounce, that they are not compelled to be the means of their own destruction, as Mr. M. contends is the lot of man. The infliction of the check to their increase is independent of themselves; the means, whatever

they may be, cannot be avoided, and their end is certain.

On a review of this chapter it will be seen that I contend as strenuously for the necessity of checking the increase of animals as it is possible Mr. M. could do; but of the principles on which it is effected we do not agree. I contend, that they are such as contribute to the happiness of the world; and are so fixed in the nature of animals, and also of the human race, as to operate without exciting a wish that there were fewer sentient beings that the sum of misery might be less. But Mr. M. excites our indignation at the order of nature, and makes thing so much to be dreaded as its laws.

Before I close this chapter, it may not be improper to make a few remarks on the existence of beasts of prey.---The animals they devour are the proper food of man, do they then not lessen the means of his subsistence, and hasten the approach of misery? Certainly not. Beasts of prey, if the expression can be admitted, are the representatives of man; they hold a trust for him, from which they will be dismissed when their services are no longer wanted. The sheep, the deer, and other herbaceous animals, are created for the use of man, and are endowed H h