the place in which they have rested for unknown ages. Natural philosophy takes them in hand, and from the known order and analogy in all the animate creation,* goes onward step by step in its deductions, till it has fitted these fragments of bone to their fellows, reproduced the entire skeleton, and clothed it anew with flesh and skin, and set it before us in its original shape and size, -its habits and localities,-its very self in all except its life and motion. The megalonyx, iguanodon, and all the monsters of the Saurian race, are thus the wonderful new creations of natural science. Surprising as these discoveries are, and incontrovertible as is the process by which their former condition is developed, it is but deducing conclusions founded on adaptations from given premises, that we thus come to the knowledge of what has now no existence among the moving tribes of animated nature. And these same facts exhibit such clear marks of design and skill, that the deduction from them, of a wise presiding Deity, is at least as sound and philosophical. If now it ennobled the philosopher, above the peasant who dug up these fragments of another world, to be able to trace the series of deductions to their curious and splendid results; is it not still more exalting to that mind, which stops not at the bare existence, but follows up the same path till it finds the hand that made and fed them? Such, however is the

* Baron Cuvier, in his examination of fossil bones, bas the following declaration: "Every organized being forms a whole and entire system, of which all the parts mutually correspond and co-operate to produce the same definite action by a reciprocal reaction; none of these parts can change without a change of the others also. Thus, if the intestines of an animal are organized in a manner only to digest fresh flesh, it is necessary that his jaws should be constructed to devour the prey, his claws to seize and tear it, his teeth to divide the flesh, and the whole system of his organs of motion to follow and overtake it, and of his organs of sense to perceive it at a distance. It is necessary also, that he should have seated in his brain the instinct to hide himself and spread snares for his victim; such are the general conditions of a carnivorous regimen; every carnivorous animal must infallibly unite them; without them the species could not subsist. But under these general conditions, there are particular ones with respect to the size of the species, and the abode of the prey, for which each animal is disposed."

+ The following description of the feelings of Baron Cuvier, by himself, when he first arranged the bones of unknown animals, found in the gypsum quarries of Paris, is most interesting. "I was in the situation of a man who had given to him pele-mele the mutilated and incomplete fragments of a hundred skeletons, belonging to twenty sorts of animals, and it was required that each bone should be joined to that which it belonged to. It was a resurrection in miniature; but the immutable laws prescribed to living beings were my directors. At the voice of comparative anatomy, each bone, each fragment regained its place. I have no expressions to describe the pleasure experienced, in perceiving that as I discovered one character, all the consequences, more or less foreseen of this character, were fully developed. The feet were conformable to what the teeth had announced, and the teeth to the feet; the bones of the legs and thighs, and every thing that ought to reunite these two extreme parts were conformable to each other. In one word, each of the species sprung up from one of its own elements." Bakewell's Introd. to Geol. pp. 235, 236.

relation which natural philosophy sustains to natural theology. Both make their deductions on the same principles; the only difference is, that the latter lengthens out the process.

The intellectual world also presents many conspicuous examples of wise adaptation and design, affording an opportunity for testing the soundness of the deductions of natural theology, compared with those of mental philosophy. Why the study of mind, for this purpose, has been so almost entirely neglected, may be difficult to determine. That it has, is a plain matter of fact. Very few examples of design, have been selected for the use of natural theology, beyond the limits of the material universe. The whole intellectual world is nearly a terra incognita to this sciThis is not more a matter of wonder than of regret. Allow it is true, that the study of the buman mind is less general and its facts less clear to the apprehension of common people, and that its traces of design, and proofs of God's presence are, on these accounts, less distinct and impressive to a majority of mankind; yet there are not a few minds who would feel the argument more forcibly, and be more delighted with the process, when taken from facts in the intellectual, than in the material system.*

ence.

While much that relates to mind is still mysterious and inscrutable, yet the careful study of mental philosophy has taught many things plainly. We now know something of the faculties of mind, its method of operation, and the laws by which it is governed. Both the intellectual and moral faculties have been closely examined, their mutual influences and tendencies compared, the bias which surrounding circumstances may give them, and the proper method of cultivating and strengthening them. Under given cir

The ancient philosophers seem in some instances to have applied the proofs of the existence of the Deity from the nature of mind, in a powerful and happy manner. This shows, that for some reason or other, they had been led to give this part of the subject more attention than the moderns. We quote from the translation of Lord Brougham. The discussion as recorded in Xenophon, between Socrates and Aristodemus, after alluding to the adaptations of the bodily conformation, has this striking passage: "Nor has the Deity been satisfied with taking care of the body alone; he has implanted in man what is a far greater work to have made,-a most excellent soul. For what other animal possesses a mind that can perceive the existence of the gods, by whom all these vast and fair works have been formed? What other creature than man worships these gods? What other intelligence is superior to man's, in providing against hunger, and thirst, and cold, and heat? or in curing diseases, or in exercising strength, or in cultivating learning, or in storing up the recollection of things heard, and seen, and learned?" Xen. Memor. I. iv. 13. Again in the discussion with Euthydemus,-"They," that is the gods, "have implanted reason in our nature, whereby we inquire touching external things. And acquiring and remembering we learn the uses of each, and bit upon many contrivances for attaining good and avoiding evil. Have they not also given us the gift of speech, by which we can communicate mutually, all we have learned, and thus instruct each other, and make laws, and regulate civil polity?" Xen. Memor. IV. iii. 11. Many other similar examples occur in Plato, and especially Cicero.

cumstances, it may almost as surely be foretold how mind will act, as mechanical forces.

By the power of abstraction, we can separate one idea from all others, and make it an object of distinct and individual consideration. By the same process we can single out another individual idea, and bring the two together, and then calling up another faculty of the mind, we can compare the two distinct ideas thus brought together, and observe their relations and connections, their agreement or disagreement in certain particulars; and by still another mental exercise we can deduce a definite conclusion or result in respect to them. To this result we can bring another similarly found, and compare these results as we had before compared the simple ideas, and thus arrive at a more general conclusion. This process may be pursued to any extent, and is what we call reasoning. The mind has the power, within given limits, of fixing its attention upon the process, and thus calling up every appropriate faculty precisely at the right point, and securing the correctness of the operation. Without this power the process could not be correctly pursued, or the connection of each link in the series apprehended. The perfection of reason, therefore, must very much depend upon the power of fixed attention. And as this is so essential, many things conspire to assist it. Curiosity, the love of novelty, the desire of knowledge, the pleasure of the demonstration, all concur, not only to fix the attention, but to make it a source of delight and happiness. The repetition of the process also increases the power of attention, and habit in this, as in other things, comes in to confirm it. The law of association, or simple suggestion, also contributes its aid. This is but giving a name to the fact, that one idea introduces another, associated in some way with it, and therefore suggesting it to the mind. It not only furnishes materials, or direct illustrations for the process itself, but it also imparts a pleasure from the revival of former ideas, which had once been familiar, though then viewed in a somewhat different connection. Here are facts in mental philosophy, which, as every attentive mind must see, are wonderfully adapted to secure a certain end, and without which this end could not be attained. All these faculties not only act in harmony with each other, but they are also adapted to the very elements of thought which compose the process of reasoning, and thus all conspire to the great result,-the discovery of truth, and the enlargement of human knowledge. These are the deductions which philosophy makes without hesitation, but how plain is it, that all this field is completely open to natural theology. What sublime marks of design are here! How legibly the impress of supreme intelligence in all these adaptations and subserviencies! Had not such complicated and yet harmonious mental powers

their origin in some supreme intellect? "He that planted the ear shall not he hear? He that formed the eye shall not he see? He that teacheth man knowledge shall not he know?"

The faculty of memory has its adaptations and uses, which might be drawn out in the same striking manner. The power of

fixing the attention upon that which is to be retained, and thus giving it a deeper impression upon the mind, is a well known expedient for strengthening the memory. So too is the power of association, by connecting the idea to be remembered with some other; thus not only calling up past transactions and events with their attending circumstances, but past reflections and trains of thought which were the offspring of our own minds. This power, in connection with other faculties of the mind, and the harmony of its operations with them, is strikingly conspicuous in many of the employments of life, and especially in many of the occupations and details of professional business.

But in no place, perhaps, is this more conspicuous than in extemporaneous speaking. Many of the inental faculties, in connection with the memory, are then called into exercise, with a rapidity and harmony of action truly wonderful. The following language from Lord Brougham, on this point, must be a striking history of the operations of his own mind:

A practiced orator will declaim in measured and various periods,will weave his discourse into one texture,-form parenthesis within parenthesis, excite the passions or move to laughter,-take a turn in his discourse from an accidental interruption, making it the topic of his rhetoric for five minutes to come, and pursuing in like manner the new illustrations to which it gives rise,-mold his diction with a view to gain or shun an epigrammatic point, or alliteration, or a discord; and all this with so much assured reliance on his own powers, and with such perfect ease to himself, that he shall even plan the next sentence while he is pronouncing off-hand the one he is engaged with, adapting each to the other, and shall look forward to the topic which is to follow, and fit in the close of the one he is handling to be its introducer; nor shall any auditor be able to discover the least difference between all this and the portion of his speech which he has got by heart, or tell the transition from the one to the other.' pp. 43, 44.

Not only might we thus adduce every separate intellectual faculty as a complete adaptation to its manifest object; but every native susceptibility of the human heart,--the affections and sympathies, the passions and emotions,-might one by one be thus spread out as the separate manifestations of a subserviency to important ends, from the harmony of their mutual action, and their nice adaptation both to human wants and human circumstances. To these might be added, all that belongs to the moral structure of the human mind; its sense of obligation and responsibility, its

feelings of regret, repentance, or remorse, and all the moral feelings of approbation, or disapprobation, which arise from a view of his own, or others' conduct and character. All are evidently nicely adapted to his condition as a social being, acting amid his companions, not only for his own welfare, but where it is necessary that the welfare of others also should be consulted. Who can fail to see, in all this orderly arrangement of the noble faculties of mind, and the shining elements of a moral nature, the glowing marks of design which bespeak an almighty, wise, and benevolent moral Governor? Who does not see, that natural theology can here make her deductions, and arrive at her conclusions, with a process as clear, as logical, and as irrefragable, as the metaphysical or moral philosopher?

The animal instincts present examples more appropriately classed with mental operations, and which have not been so almost wholly overlooked, as those which spring directly from intelligence. They afford such striking exhibitions of the adaptation of means to ends, as could not easily be disregarded. Whether as acting in man, or in greater perfection, as they are found in some animals, they present a most interesting field of investigation. Those of the dog through all its varieties,-of birds in the formation of their notes, the ant also in many of its interesting peculiarities, all exhibit a wise and benevolent design in their respective endowments. The bee presents many points of animal instinct truly wonderful. Through all the regulations of its numerous community, instinct seems to take the place and perform the part of political skill and wisdom. What commonwealth, under the most enlightened and virtuous legislation, is more orderly, industrious, or prosperous? The form of its cells, fashioned by a skill and workmanship which are inimitable, is every where the same; the size and proportions precisely alike in every country and clime. And what is still more remarkable, this form is the very one which mathematical precision determines to be the most economical in space, strength, labor and materials. But while this exact angle of 120° is always chosen, a still more surprising fact was discovered by that celebrated mathematician, Colin Maclaurin, and published in the Philosophical Transactions, in an essay, "On the basis of the cells wherein the bees deposit their honey;" to wit., that the angles always chosen for the parallelograms of the roof, are 110° and 70°. The "fluxional calculus," by Newton, and its application to "that most curious problem of maxima and minima," by Maclaurin, thus enabled science, with much study and labor, "in these ends of the earth," to find out those proportions which the bee had been unerringly using for near 6000 years, as perfect in its first as in its last generation. What striking marks of adaptation and de