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INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

GENERAL VIEW OF THE CONSTITUTION OF HUMAN NATURE, AND ITS RELATIONS TO EXTERNAL OBJECTS.

In surveying the external world, we discover that every creature and every physical object has received a definite constitution, and been placed in certain relations to other objects. The natural evidence of a Deity and his attributes is drawn from contemplating these arrangements. Intelligence, wisdom, benevolence, and power, characterize the works of creation; and the human mind ascends by a chain of correct and rigid induction to a great First Cause, in whom these qualities must reside. But hitherto this great truth has excited a sublime yet barren admiration, rather than led to beneficial practical results.

Man obviously stands pre-eminent among sublunary objects, and is distinguished by remarkable endowments above all other terrestrial beings. Nevertheless no creature presents such anomalous appearances as man. Viewed in one aspect he almost resembles a demon; in another he still bears the impress of the image of God. Seen in his crimes, his wars, and his devastations, he might be mistaken for an incarnation of an evil spirit; contemplated in his schemes of charity, his discoveries in science, and his vast combinations for the benefit of his race, he seems a bright intelligence from Heaven. The lower animals exhibit a more simple and regulated constitution. The lion is bold and ferocious, but he is regularly so; and, besides, is placed in circumstances suited to his nature, in which at once scope is given and limits are set to the gratification of his instincts. The sheep, as a contrast, is mild, feeble, and inoffensive; but its external condition also is suited to its constitution, and it apparently lives and

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flourishes in as great enjoyment as the lion. The same remarks apply to all the inferior creatures; and the idea which I wish particularly to convey is, that their bodily organs, faculties, instincts, and external circumstances, form parts of a system in which adaptation and harmony are discoverable; and that the enjoyment of the animals. depends on the adaptation of their constitution to their external condition. If we saw the lion one day tearing in pieces every animal that crossed its path, and the next oppressed with remorse for the death of its victims, or compassionately healing those whom it had mangled, we should exclaim, what an inconsistent creature! and conclude that it could not by possibility be happy, owing to this opposition among the principles of its nature. short, we should be strikingly convinced that two conditions are essential to enjoyment; first, that the different instincts of an animal must be in harmony with each other; and, secondly, that its whole constitution must be in accordance with its external condition.

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When, keeping these principles in view, we direct our attention to Man, very formidable anomalies present themselves. The most opposite instincts or impulses exist in his mind; actuated by Combativeness, Destructiveness, Acquisitiveness, and Self-Esteem, the moral sentiments being in abeyance, he is almost a fiend; on the contrary, when inspired by Benevolence, Veneration, Hope, Conscientiousness, Ideality, and Intellect, the benignity, serenity, and splendor, of a highly-elevated nature beam from his eye, and radiate from his countenance. He is then lovely, noble, and gigantically great. But how shall these conflicting tendencies be reconciled? And how can exter nal circumstances be devised that shall accord with suca heterogeneous elements? Here again a conviction of the power and goodness of the Deity comes to our assistance. Man is obviously an essential and most important part of the present system of creation, and, without doubting of his future destinies, we ought not, so long as our know

ledge of his nature is incomplete, to consider his condition here as inexplicable. The nature of man has hitherto, to all philosophical purposes, been unknown, and both the designs of the Creator and the situation of man have been judged of ignorantly and rashly. The skeptic has advanced arguments against religion, and crafty deceivers have, in all ages, founded systems of superstition, on the disorder and inconsistency which are too readily admitted to be inseparable attributes of human existence on earth. But I venture to hope that man will yet be found in harmony with himself and with his condition

I am aware that some individuals, whose piety I respect, conceive, that as the great revolutions of human society, as well as all events in the lives of individuals, take place under the guidance of the Deity, it is presumptuous, if not impious, in man to endeavor to scan their causes and effects. But it is obvious that the Creator governs man with reference to the faculties bestowed on him. The young swallow, when it migrates on the approach of the first winter of its life, is impelled by an instinct implanted by the Deity, and it can neither know the causes that prompt it to fly, nor the end to be attained by its flight. But its mental constitution is wisely adapted to this condition; for it has no powers stimulating it to reflect on itself and external objects, and to inquire whence came its desires, or to what object they tend. Man, however, has been framed differently. The Creator has bestowed on him faculties to observe phenomena, and to trace cause and effect; and he has constituted the external world to afford scope to these powers. We are entitled, therefore, to say, that it is the Creator himself who has commanded us to observe and inquire into the causes that prompt us to act, and the results that will naturally follow; and to adapt our conduct according to what we shall discover.

To enable us to form a just estimate of our duty and interest as the rational occupants of this world, we may inquire briefly into the constitution of external nature, and of ourselves.

The constitution of this world does not look like a system of optimism. It appears to be arranged in all its departments on the principle of gradual and progressive improvement. Physical nature itself has undergone many revolutions, and apparently has constantly advanced. Geology seems to show a distinct preparation of it for successive orders of living beings, rising higher and higher in the scale of intelligence and organization, until man appeared.

The globe, in the first state in which the imagination can venture to consider it, says Sir H. Davy,* appears to have been a fluid mass, with an immense atmosphere revolving in space round the sun. By its cooling, a portion of its atmosphere was probably condensed into water, which occupied a part of its surface. In this state, no forms of life, such as now belong to our system, could have inhabited it. The crystalline rocks, or, as they are called by geologists, the primary rocks, which contain no vestiges of a former order of things, were the result of the first consolidation on its surface. Upon the farther cooling, the water, which, more or less, had covered it, contracted; depositions took place; shell-fish and coral insects were created, and began their labors. Islands appeared in the midst of the ocean, raised from the deep by the productive energies of millions of zoophytes. These islands became covered with vegetables fitted to bear a high temperature, such as palms, and various species of plants, similar to those which now exist in the hottest parts of the world. The submarine rocks of these

*The description in the text is extracted chiefly from "The Last Days of a Philosopher," by Sir Humphrey Davy, 1831, p. 134, on account of its popular style; but similar representations may be found in several recent works on Geology,—particularly "A Geological Manual, by H. T. De La Beche;" the Penny Magazine of 1833, in a very instructive popular form; and in Sedgwick's Discourse on the Studies of the University of Cambridge, third edition. Mr. Lyell, however, in his Principles of Geology, vol. i. ch ix. controverts the doctrine of a progressive development of plants and animals.

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new formations of land became covered with aquatic vegetables, on which various species of shell-fish, and common fishes, found their nourishment. As the temperature of the globe became lower, species of the oviparous reptiles appear to have been created to inhabit it; and the turtle, crocodile, and various gigantic animals of the Sauri (lizard) kind seem to have haunted the bays and waters of the primitive lands. But in this state of things, there appears to have been no order of events similar to the present. Immense volcanic explosions seem to have taken place, accompanied by elevations and depressions of the surface of the globe, producing mountains, and causing new and extensive depositions from the primitive The remains of living beings, plants, fishes, birds. and oviparous reptiles, are found in the strata of rocks which are the monuments and evidence of these changes When these revolutions became less frequent, and the globe became still more cooled, and inequalities of temperature were established by means of the mountain-chains, more perfect animals became its inhabitants, such as the mammoth, megalonix, megatherium, and gigantic hyena, many of which have become extinct. Five successive races of plants, and four successive races of animals, appear to have been created and swept away by the physical revolutions of the globe, before the system of things became so permanent as to fit the world for man. none of these formations, whether called secondary, tertiary, or diluvial, have the fossil remains of man, or any of his works, been discovered. At last, man was created and since that period there has been little alteration in the physical circumstances of the globe.

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"In all these various formations," says Dr. Buckland, "the coprolites," (or the dung of the saurian reptiles in a fossil state, exhibiting scales of fishes and other traces of the prey which they had devoured) "form records of warfare waged by successive generations of inhabitants of our planet on one another; and the general law of nature,

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