_of
creatures above us than there are beneath; we being in degrees of
perfection much more remote from the infinite Being of God, than we are
from the lowest state of being, and that which approaches nearest to
nothing. And yet of all those distinct species, we have no clear
distinct ideas._

17. In this system of being, there is no creature so wonderful in its
nature, and which so much deserves our particular attention, as man, who
fills up the middle space between the animal and intellectual nature,
the visible and invisible world, and is that link in the chain of being,
which has been often termed the _Nexus utriusque mundi_. So that he who
in one respect is associated with angels and archangels, may look upon a
Being of infinite perfection as his father, and the highest order of
spirits as his brethren; may in another respect say to _corruption, Thou
art my father, and to the worm, thou art my mother and my sister_.

_Providence proved from Animal Instinct._

SPECTATOR, No. 120.

1. I must confess I am infinitely delighted with those speculations of
nature which are to be made in a country-life; and as my reading has
very much lain among books of natural history, I cannot forbear
recollecting, upon this occasion, the several remarks which I have met
with in authors, and comparing them with what falls under my own
observation; the arguments for Providence drawn from the natural history
of animals, being, in my opinion, demonstrative.

2. The make of every kind of animal is different from that of every
other kind; and there is not the least turn in the muscles or twist in
the fibres of any one, which does not render them more proper for that
particular animal's way of life, than any other cast or texture of them
would have been.

The most violent appetites in all creatures are _lust_ and _hunger_; the
first is a perpetual call upon them to propagate their kind; the latter
to preserve themselves.

3. It is astonishing to consider the different degrees of care that
descend from the parent to the young, so far as is absolutely necessary
for the leaving a posterity. Some creatures cast their eggs as chance
directs them, and think of them no further, as insects, and several
kinds of fish; others, of a nicer frame, find out proper beds to
deposit them in, and there leave them, as the serpent, the crocodile,
and ostrich; others hatch their eggs and tend the birth till it is able
to shift for itself.

4. W