nsider this insect through the wonderful progress of its
life, how different is the first period of its being from the second,
and both from the parent insect. Its changes are an inexplicable enigma
to us: we see a green caterpillar, furnished with sixteen feet,
creeping, hairy, and feeding upon the leaves of a plant; this is changed
into chrysalis, smooth, of a golden lustre, hanging suspended to a fixed
point, without feet, and subsisting without food; this insect again
undergoes another transformation, acquires wings and six feet, and
becomes a variegated white butterfly, living by suction upon the honey
of plants. What has nature produced more worthy of our admiration? Such
an animal coming upon the stage of the world, and playing its part there
under so many different masks! In the egg of the Papilio, the epidermis
or external integument falling off, a caterpillar is disclosed; the
second epidermis drying, and being detached, it is a chrysalis; and the
third, a butterfly. It should seem that the ancients were so struck with
the transformations of the butterfly, and its revival from a seeming
temporary death, as to have considered it an emblem of the soul, the
Greek word _psyche_ signifying both the soul and a butterfly. This is
also confirmed by their allegorical sculptures, in which the butterfly
occurs as an emblem of immortality." Swammerdam, speaking of the
metamorphosis of insects, uses these strong words: "This process is
formed in so remarkable a manner in butterflies, that we see therein the
resurrection painted before our eyes, and exemplified so as to be
examined by our hands." "There is no one," says Paley, "who does not
possess some particular train of thought, to which the mind naturally
directs itself, when left entirely to its own operations. It is certain
too, that the choice of this train of thinking may be directed to
different ends, and may appear to be more or less judiciously fixed, but
in a _moral view_, if one train of thinking be more desirable than
another, it is that which regards phenomena of nature with a constant
reference to a supreme intelligent Author. The works of nature want only
to be contemplated. In every portion of them which we can decry, we find
attention bestowed upon the minuter objects. Every organized natural
body, in the provisions which it contains for its sustentation and
propagation, testifies a care, on the part of the Creator, expressly
directed to these purposes. We