slime, and partly by the pressure of the atmosphere. Thus, says Paxton, the snail wastes herself by her own motion, every undulation leaving some of her moisture behind; and in the same manner the actions of wicked men prove their destruction. They may, like the snail, carry their defence along with them, and retire into it on every appearance of danger: they may confidently trust in their own resources, and banish far away the fear of evil; but the principles of ruin are at work within them, and although the progress may be slow, the result is certain. The holy Psalmist, guided by the Spirit of inspiration, prayed: 'As a snail which melteth, let every one of them pass away,' (Ps. lviii. 8); and Jehovah answered, "The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.' SECTION III. WORMS. ANIMALS of the worm kind are placed, by scientific writers, as the first in the class of Zoophytes; but as, like serpents, they have a creeping motion, so both, in general, go under the common appellation of reptiles. But though worms, as well as serpents, are mostly without feet, and have been doomed to creep along the earth on their bellies, yet their motions are very different. The serpent having a back-bone, which it is incapable of contracting, bends its body into the form of a bow, and then shoots forward from the tail; but the worm has a power of lengthening or contracting itself at will. There is a spiral muscle, that runs round its whole body, from the head to the tail, somewhat resembling a wire wound round a walking-cane, which, when slipped off, and one end extended and held fast, will bring the other nearer to it. In this manner, the earth-worm, having shot out, or extended its body, takes hold by the slime of its fore-part, and so contracts and brings forward the hinder part, and in this manner moves onward. It is from the manner of its motion, as here described, that a worm is called in Hebrew, the projector. Some There is no phenomenon in all natural history more astonishing than what is sometimes seen in creatures of the worm kind. of them will live without their limbs, and often are seen to reproduce them; some continue to exist though cut in two, their nobler parts preserving life, while the others perish that were cut away. But the carth-worm, and all the Zoophyte tribe, continue to live in separate parts; and one animal, by means of cutting, is divided into two distinct existences, sometimes into a thousand! Spalanzani tried several experiments upon the earth-worm, many of which succeeded according to his expectation, although all did not retain the vivacious principle with the same degree of obstinacy. Some, when cut in two, were entirely destroyed; others survived only in the nobler part; and while the head was living, the tail entirely perished, and a new one was seen to burgeon from the extremity. But what was most surprising of all-in some, both extremities survived the operation: the head produced a tail with the anus, the intestines, the annular muscle, and the prickly beards; the tail part, on the other hand, was seen to shoot forth the nobler organs, and, in less than the space of three months, a head, a heart, and all the apparatus and instruments of generation. This part, as may easily be supposed, was produced much more slowly than the former; a new head taking above three or four months for its completion, a new tail being shot forth in less than as many weeks. Thus, two animals, by dissection, were made out of one; each with their separate appetites: each endued with life and motion; and seemingly as perfect as that single animal from whence they derived their origin! This singular fact exhibits a striking proof of the comparative imperfection of their organs, and seems to justify the classifying them in the order of Zoophytes, a name which, as above remarked, implies vegetable nature endued with animal life. For the purpose of exhibiting, in a striking light, the weakness and abjection of man, the sacred writers sometimes compare him to this mean reptile, Job xxv. 1; Psalm xxii. 6. In Mark ix. 44, we read of the worm that dieth not, and the fire that is unquenchable; a passage which is evidently taken from Isaiah Ixvi. 24, where the subject is the punishment to be inflicted on the incorrigible in this life, in order to describe, as is usual with the Jewish writers, the judgment of another world. Losing sight of this circumstance, some writers who have argued against the eternity of future punishments, have improperly and unwarrantably restricted the sense of the passage. The place of the damned is compared to a field where carcasses are thrown out, and are gnawed by worms, or burnt with fire. Such was their Gehenna, or the Valley of Hinuom, near Jerusalem; odious by the former sacrifices to Moloch, and afterwards desecrated by Josiah, by being made a common burying place. Le Clerc and some others think there is an allusion to the two sorts of funeral rites, burning and burying. Hence, says bishop Lowth, the worms which preyed on the carcasses, and the fire which consumed the victims. T CHAPTER VI. INSECTS. Or all the productions of nature, insects are by far the most numerous; and as they are endowed with the various powers of creeping, flying, and swimming, there is scarcely any place, however remote and secure, in which they are not to be found. They are placed by naturalists in the lowest rank of animated nature; and their conformation, their instincts, and their amazing numbers, are said to show the propriety of such a classification. But in this numerous class of animated beings, where shall we find a single instance in which imperfection is made to appear? In all the prodigious variety that exists between the scorpion and the mite, we certainly behold in the structure of insects abundant evidence of the most exquisite skill; and if by means of the microscope we extend our researches downwards through that minute order of beings, till we arrive at those invisible animalcules which are computed to be twenty-seven millions of times smaller than a mite the same evidences of wisdom and design present themselves in every gradation, and all ideas of imperfection cease.* It is not at all surprising, then, that such an accurate searcher into nature's works as the excellent Mr. Boyle, should observe 'that his wonder dwelt not so much on nature's clocks as on her watches.' In several kinds of insects, invisible before to mortal eye, it is not only easy to discover, by means of a good magnifier, the external appearance of their mouths, their horns, their trunks, and other members, but the very motion of their heart and lungs! Now, as these little animals are discovered to be organized bodies, how fine and subtle must be the several parts that compose them! How difficult to conceive the extreme minuteness of the muscles necessary to the motion of the heart, the glands for the secretion of the fluids, the stomach and bowels for the digestion of the food, the fineness of the tubes, nerves, arteries, veins; and above all, of the blood, the lymph, and animal spirits, which inust be infinitely more so than any of these! Here the utmost stretch of imagination is brought to the test, without being able to form any adequate conception. But these inconceivable wonders, instead of conveying *The defects of art are easily discovered by the microscope; but the more narrowly we pry into or scrutinize the works of nature by this instrument, the more the perfection of the inimitable Artist is made to appear. Viewed by this glass, the finest needle ever polished, presents to the eye a blunt and rugged point; but the sting of a bee, however magnified, still retains all its acuteness of termination. any idea of imperfection as to the skill of the Artist, must, from what they make to appear, inspire the attentive observer with very different emotions, and force him to exclaim, "Thyself, how wond'rous then!' The beauty and symmetry of some of these minute objects, so viewed, are surprising indeed. What a metamorphosis do they seem to undergo under the magic-working glass! Creatures that before seemed small and despicable, now appear the pride of nature, wherein she has bestowed more nice and delicate art, and displayed more profusely the rich embroidery and elegant beauties and garniture of colors, than in any of the larger species of animals.' Even the dust that adheres to the butterfly's wing, and to which it owes the beautiful tints and variegated hues that adorn it, is said to be an innumerable collection of extremely small feathers, as perfect in the structure and symmetry of the arrangement, as they are beautiful in the coloring. But this is not all. The very circumstances adduced as marks of imperfection in the insect tribes; viz. their being enabled to live for some time after being deprived of those organs necessary to life in the higher ranks, and their amazing numbers, ought rather to be considered as arguments to the contrary. The former is no doubt essentially necessary to the preservation of a species exposed to so many casualties as those in particular who live on blood, and cannot, therefore, partake of a meal, without giving their enemies notice of their presence; and the latter, to prevent the extinction of a short-lived race, which come into existence at a time when there are so many open mouths ready to devour them. Without these two characteristic distinctions of the insect tribes, although they may be deemed imperfections by the more imperfect powers of short-sighted mortals, it is probable that, long ere now, some of those exquisite pieces of nature's workmanship must have disappeared from the creation, and, for want of those connecting links, the whole beautiful fabric of the universe must have fallen to decay. For, trifling as some of these minute or imperceptible objects may appear, the language of philosophy is Each crawling insect holds a rank That Naturo's self would rue.' Instead, therefore, of having the presumption to stigmatize, in the most remote degree, this particular order of the creatures of the Almighty, as affording evidences of imperfection, let us rather, from similar considerations, adopt the words of the more judicious Swammerdam: After an attentive examination,' says he, 'of the nature and anatomy of the smallest as well as the largest animals, I cannot help allowing the least, an equal or perhaps a superior degree of dignity. If, while we dissect with care the larger ani |