are raised but just above dead
matter. To mention only that species of shell-fish, which are formed in
the fashion of a cone, that grow to the surface of several rocks and
immediately die upon their being severed from the place where they grow:
there are many other creatures but one remove from these, which have no
other sense besides that of feeling and taste. Others have still an
additional one of hearing; others of smell; and others of sight.

3. It is wonderful, to observe, by what a gradual progress the world of
life advances through a prodigious variety of species, before a creature
is formed that is complete in all its senses: and even among these there
is such a different degree of perfection in the sense which one animal
enjoys beyond what appears in another, though the sense in different
animals is distinguished by the same common denomination; it seems
almost of a different nature.

10. The exuberant and overflowing; goodness of the Supreme Being, whose
mercy extends to all his works, is plainly seen, as I have before
hinted; from his having made so very little matter, at least what fall
within our knowledge, that does not swarm with life: nor is his goodness
less seen in the diversity, than in the multitude of living creatures.
Had he only made one species animals, none of the rest could have
enjoyed the happiness of existence; he has therefore _specified_ in his
creation every degree of life, every capacity of being.

11. The whole chasm of nature, from a plant to a man, is filled up with
divers kinds of creatures, rising one over another, by such a gentle and
easy ascent, that the little transitions and deviations from one species
to another, are almost insensible. This intermediate space is so well
husbanded and managed, that there is scarce a degree of perception which
does not appear in some one part of the world of life. Is the goodness,
or wisdom, of the Divine Being, more manifested in this his proceeding?

12. There is a consequence, besides those I have already mentioned,
which seems very naturally deducible from the foregoing considerations.
If the scale of being rises by such a regular progress, so high as man,
we may by a parity of reason suppose that it still proceeds gradually
through those beings which are of a superior nature to him; since there
is an infinitely greater space and room for different degrees of
perfection between the Supreme Being and man, than between man and the
most desp