morality, and the fource of all the pleafing hopes and fecret joys that can arife in the heart of a reasonable creature. I confidered thofe feveral proofs drawn,

Firft, from the nature of the foul itself, and particularly its immateriality; which though not abfolutely neceffary to the eternity of its duration, has, I think, been evinced to almost a demonstration.

Secondly, from its paffions and fentiments, as particularly from its love of exiftence, its horror of annihilation, and its hopes of immortality, with that fecret fatisfaction which it finds in the practice of virtue, and that uneafinefs which follows in it upon the commiffion of vice.

Thirdly, from the nature of the Supreme Being, whofe justice, goodness, wisdom, and veracity, are all concerned in this point.

But among these and other excellent arguments for the immortality of the foul, there is one drawn from the perpetual progress of the foul to its perfection, without a poffibility of ever arriving at it; which is a hint that I do not remember to have feen opened and improved by others who have written on this fubject, tho' it feems to me to carry a very great weight with it. How can it enter into the thoughts of man, that the foul, which is capable of fuch immenfe perfections, and of receiving new improvements to all eternity, fhall fall away into nothing almoft as foon as it is created? Are fuch abilities made for no purpofe? A brute arrives at a point of perfection that he can never pass: in a few years he has all the endowments he is capable of; and were he to live ten thoufand more, would be the fame thing he is at prefent. Were a human foul thus at a stand in her accomplishments, were her faculties to be full blown, and incar pable of farther enlargements, I could imagine it might fall away infenfibly, and drop at once into a state of annihilation. But can we believe a thinking being that is in a perpetual progrefs of improvements, and travelling on from perfection to perfection, after having juft looked abroad into the works of its Creator, and

made

made a few difcoveries of his infinite goodness, wif dom, and power, must perish at her first fetting out, and in the very beginning of her enquiries?

A man, copfidered in his prefent itate, feems only fent into the world to propagate his kind. He provides himself with a fucceffor, and immediately quits his post to make room for him.

Hæres

Hæredem alterius, velut unda fupervenit undam.

HOR. Ep. 2. 1. 2. v. 175

-Heir crowds heir, as in a rolling flood

Wave urges wave.

CREECH.

He does not feem born to enjoy life, but to deliver it down to others. This is not furprising to confider in animals, which are formed for our ufe, and can finish their bufinefs in a fhort life. The filk-worm, after having spun her tafk, lays her eggs and dies. But a man can never have taken in his full measure of knowledge, has not time to fubdue his paffions, eftablish his foul in virtue, and come up to the perfection of his nature, before he is hurried off the ftage. Would an infinitely wife Being make fuch glorious creatures. for fo mean a purpose? Can he delight in the production of fuch abortive intelligences, fuch fhort-lived reasonable beings? Would he give us talents that are not to be exerted? capacities that are never to be gra. tified? How can we find that wifdom which fhines through all his works, in the formation of man, with out looking on this world as only a nursery for the next, and believing that the feveral generations of rational creatures, which rife up and difappear in fuch quick fucceffions, are only to receive their firft rudiments of existence here, and afterwards to be tranfplanted into a more friendly climate, where they may Ipread and flourish to all eternity.

There is not, in my opinion, a more pleafing and triumphant confideration in religion than this of the perpetual progrefs which the foul makes towards the perfection of its nature, without ever arriving at a

period in it. To look upon the foul as going on from trength to ftrength, to confider that the is to fhine for ever with new acceffions of glory, and brighten to all eternity; that she will be ftill adding virtue to virtue, and knowledge to knowledge; carries in it fomething wonderfully agreeable to that ambition which is natural to the mind of man. Nay, it must be a profpect pleafing to God himself, to fee his creation for ever beautifying in his eyes, and drawing nearer to him, by greater degrees of relemblance.

Methinks this fingle confideration, of the progrefs of a finite fpirit to perfection, will be fufficient to extinguish all envy in inferior natures, and all contempt in fuperior. That cherubim, which now appears as a God to a human foul, knows very well that the period will come about in eternity, when the human foul fhall be as perfect as he himself now is: nay, when she shall look down upon that degree of perfection as much as he now falls fhort of it. It is true, the higher nature ftill advances, and by that means preferves his diftance and fuperiority in the fcale of being; but he knows that, how high foever the ftation is of which he ftands poffeffed at prefent, the inferior nature will at length mount up to it, and fhine forth in the fame degree of glory.

With what aftonishment and veneration may we look into our own fouls, where there are fuch hidden ftores of virtue and knowledge, fuch inexhaufted fources of perfection? We know not yet what we fhall be, nor will it ever enter into the heart of man to conceive the glory that will be always in referve for him. The foul, confidered with its Creator, is like one of thofe mathematical lines that may draw nearer to another for all eternity without a poffibility of touching it and can there be a thought fo tranf porting, as to confider ourselves in thefe perpetual approaches to him, who is not only the standard of perfection, but of happiness!

1

On the Animal World, and the Scale of Beings.

[Spect. No. 519.]

Though there is a great deal of pleasure in con

templating the material world, by which I mean that fyftem of bodies into which nature has fo curiously wrought the mafs of dead matter, with the feve rai relations which thofe bodies bear to one another; there is ftill, methinks, fomething more wonderful and furprising in contemplations on the world of life, by which I mean all thofe animals with which every part of the univerfe is furnished. The material world is only the fhell of the univerfe: the world of life are its inhabitants.

If we confider thofe parts of the material world which lye the nearest to us, and are therefore fubject to our observations and enquiries, it is amazing to confider the infinity of animals with which it is ftocked. Every part of matter is peopled: every green leaf fwarms with inhabitants. There is fcarce a single humour in the body of a man, or of any other animal, in which our glaffes do not discover myriads of living Creatures. The surface of animals is also covered with other animals, which are in the fame manner the bafis of other animals that live upon it; nay, we find in the moft folid bodies, as in marble itself, innumerable cells and cavities, that are crowded with fuch impercepuble inhabitants, as are too little for the naked eye to discover. On the other hand, if we look into the more bulky parts of nature, we fee the feas, lakes, and rivers, teeming with numberlefs kinds of living creatures: we find every mountain and marsh, wildernefs and wood, plentifully stocked with birds and beafts, and every part of matter affording proper neceflaries and conveniences for the livelihood of multitudes which inhabit it.

The author of the Plurality of Worlds draws a very good argument from this confideration, for the peopling of every planet; as indeed it feems very pro

bable

bable from the analogy of reafon, that if no part of matter, which we are acquainted with, lies wafte and ufeless, thofe great bodies, which are at fuch a diftance from us, fhould not be defart and unpeopled, but rather that they should be furnished with beings adapted to their respective fituation.

Existence is a bleffing to thofe beings only which are endowed with perception, and is in a manner thrown away upon dead matter, any farther than as it is fubfervient to beings which are confcious of their existence. Accordingly we find, from the bodies which lye under our obfervation, that matter is only made as the bafis and fupport of animals, and that there is no more of the one, than what is necessary for the existence of the other.

Infinite goodness is of fo communicative a nature, that it seems to delight in the conferring of existence upon every degree of perceptive being. As this is a fpeculation, which I have often pursued with great pleasure to myself, I fhall enlarge farther upon it, by confidering that part of the scale of beings which comes within our knowledge.

There are fome living creatures which are raised but just above dead matter. To mention only that fpecies of fhell-fish, which are formed in the fashion of a cone, that grow to the furface of several rocks, and immediately die upon their being fevered from the place where they grow. There are many other creatures but one remove from thefe, which have no other fense befides that of feeling and taste. Others have still an additional one of hearing; others of fmell; and others of fight. It is wonderful to obferve, by what a gradual progrefs the world of life advances through a prodigious variety of fpecies, before a creature is formed that is complete in all its fenfes; and even among these there is fuch a different degree of perfection in the fenfe which one animal enjoys beyond what appears in another, though the fenfe in different animals be diftinguished by the fame common denomination, it seems almoft of a different nature. If

3

after