exception of that more than valuable, that estimable
philanthropist, the dog, and, perhaps, of the horse and elephant, the
analogies to ourselves, which we can discover in the quadrupeds or
quadrumani, are of our vices, our follies, and our imperfections. The
facts in confirmation of both the propositions are so numerous and so
obvious, the advance of Nature, under the predominance of the third
synthetic power, both in the intensity of life and in the intenseness and
extension of individuality, is so undeniable, that we may leap forward at
once to the highest realization and reconciliation of both her tendencies,
that of the most perfect detachment with the greatest possible union, to
that last work, in which Nature did not assist as handmaid under the eye
of her sovereign Master, who made Man in his own image, by superadding
self-consciousness with self-government, and breathed into him a living
soul.

The class of _Vermes_ deposit a calcareous stuff, as if it had torn loose
from the earth a piece of the gross mass which it must still drag about
with it. In the insect class this residuum has refined itself. In the
fishes and amphibia it is driven back or inward, the organic power begins
to be intuitive, and sensibility appears. In the birds the bones have
become hollow; while, with apparent proportional recess, but, in truth, by
the excitement of the opposite pole, their exterior presents an actual
vegetation. The bones of the mammalia are filled up, and their coverings
have become more simple. Man possesses the most perfect osseous structure,
the least and most insignificant covering. The whole force of organic
power has attained an inward and centripetal direction. He has the whole
world in counterpoint to him, but he contains an entire world within
himself. Now, for the first time at the apex of the living pyramid, it is
Man and Nature, but Man himself is a syllepsis, a compendium of Nature--the
Microcosm! Naked and helpless cometh man into the world. Such has been the
complaint from eldest time; but we complain of our chief privilege, our
ornament, and the connate mark of our sovereignty. _Porphyrigeniti sumus_!
In Man the centripetal and individualizing tendency of all Nature is
itself concentred and individualized--he is a revelation of Nature!
Henceforward, he is referred to himself, delivered up to his own charge;
and he who stands the most on himself, and stands the firmest, is the
truest, because the most indi