fested with lions, tigers, panthers, ounceës, leopards, jaguards, couguars, lynxes, wild cats, chacalls, wolves, hyaenas, foxes, polecats, martins, ferrets, ermines, gluttons, bats, &c. Though all thefe, and many other tribes of quadrupeds, live folely upon blood and carnage, yet fome of them, as the tiger, the wolf, the hyaena, and many other inferior fpecies are much more rapacious and deftructive. The lion, though furrounded with prey, kils no more than he is able to confume but the tiger is grofsly ferocious, and cruel without necesfity. Though fatiateëd with carnage, he perpetually thirsts for blood. He facrificees whole flocks of domestick animals, and all the wild beafts which come within the reach of his terrible claws. His predominant instinct is a perpetual rage, a blind and undistinguishing ferocity, which often impel him to devour his own young, and to tear their mother in pieceës, when she attempts to defend them. He tears the body for no other purpose than to plunge his head into it, and to drink large draughts of blood."* * Smellies Pbilofopby of natural bistory, i, 375, &c. Though this fanguinary and ferocious monfter must be admited within the pale of nature, is it possible to conceive the necessity of its exiftence? All these carnivorous and rapacious monsters are apt and eager to devour a man whenever he comes within the reach. "The wolf, whose ufual and natural food is every liveing creature, when his hunger is extreme, lofees all idea of fear, attacks women and children, and fometimes men. Wolves are even fond of human flesh. They have been known to follow armys, to come in troops to the field of battle, where bodys are carelessly inter'd, to tear them up, and devour them with an infatiable avidity; and, when once accustom❜d to human flesh, they ever after attack men, prefer the fhepherd to the flock, devour women and carry off children." "All birds of prey exhibit an obduracy and a ferociousness of dispofition, while the other kinds [upon which they prey] are mild, cheerful, and gentle, in their aspect and manners."+ "Every inhabitant of the waters depends for its existence upon rapine and deftruction. The life of every fish, from the smallest to the greatest, is one continue'd scene of hostility, violence and *Ibi. i. 380. + The flying fish which is provideëd with wings, to enable it to evade its marine perfecutors, the fhark and albicore, upon its takeing to flight, is immediately asfail'd and devour'd by its aërial enemys, the pelican and albatrofs. evafion.... Even the oyster, the fcallop, and the muscle, lye in ambush, with their shels open, and, when a fmall fish comes in contact with them, inftantly close their shels upon it, and deyour at leisure their imprison'd prey....Shoals of one species of fish follow, with unweary'd ardour, those of another, through vaft tracts of the ocean. The cod purfues the whiteing from the banks of Newfoundland to the fouthern coasts of Spain.* Man is not the onely animal that makes war with his own fpecies. Quadrupeds, birds, fishes, infects, independently of their appetite for food, occafionally fight and kil each other." t "The noxious multiplication of fhel-fishes, which are extremely prolifick, is check'd by numberless enemys. The animals call'd trochi fix themselves upon an oyster or a muscle, bore through the fhel with their trunk, and devour their prey at leifure. In this cruel occupation the trochus often continues for days, and even weeks, before the life of the animal attack'd is fully extinguish'd." A sufficient proof there is neither benevolence nor intention in nature. Every animal, man, beaft, fish, fowl, appears to be infefted by one or more fpecies of lice: not * Ibi. 382. † Ibi. 383. + Ibi. 396. Fels than three being natural and peculiar to man. He is indeed, occafionally, fubject to a disease call'd the morbus pediculofus, in which he is devour'd by lice: of which there have been many inftanceës. In most if not all hot countrys, man is perpetually tormented by and the prey of divers infects, which render his existence miserable and precarious; the mosquitos, for instance, gnats, chigers, ants, and numberless others, equally fanguinary, poisonous, and malignant; without their helplefs prey being able to protect himself either by night or day, bed or board: their flings and bites, in numerous cafeës, being deadly, excruciateing and incurable; and defign'd, by nature, for the perpetual plague, torment, mifery and deftruction of the image of god. From worms, likewife, no human being is, probablely, exempt, either alive or dead; which infeft and prove fatal to half the children born, fweeping them off the ftage of life at an early and immature period, in a proportion beyond that of any other fpecies. The dog is the natural enemy to the cat, the cat to the rat and mouse, the hound to the hare, the pointer to the partridge, the fox to the goose, the ferret to the rabbit, the spider to the fly: the whole animal creation being a fystem for the express purpose of preying upon each other, and for their mutual mifery and deftruction. The number of animals, createed, originateëd, and intended, for the fole proper use and benefit of man, as he foolishly conceives, confifts, in all probability, from the largeëft to the least, from the huge elephant to the minuteëst object of a microscope, of many millions, billions, trillions, of which, peradventure, not one fingle thoufand becomes the prey of man, while many more exercife, by nature, upon this favour'd being, the lord of the creation, that right which he boats to have receive'd fron his god, and torment and devour him, without ceremony. For man to have a just and perspicuous idea of the bountys of nature, he should vifit hospitals, and not churches. Of these bountys we are fupply'd by the divine Milton with an ample and fhocking catalogue, as exhibited to Adam. by the favourite archangel of the allmighty power, foon after the creation; to convince him of the hapyness provideëd for himself and his pofterity, which was to replenish the world. "Immediately a place Before his eyes appear'd, fad, noisom, dark, |