and thus advancing upwards till it arrives at humanity. Animals approach the state of humanity in proportion as they are gentle and harmless in their dispositions," (what a glorious man a donkey would make according to this theory!) "and to hasten their progress towards happiness, divine benevolence so ordains it, that these become more than any others liable to be destroyed untimely e." Rather against the donkey view of the question, that animal being of all others one of the most gifted with longevity. I confess that I am quite satisfied with my descent from Adam, and through him from my native clay, unimproved by any transition whatever, either through crustaceans, saurians, molluscs, reptiles, or brute beasts whatsoever.

It has even been suggested by those who delight in an imaginary development and progressive perfection of the human species, and who in furtherance of their theory delight in bringing forward startling contrasts, that Adam must have been a low type of the genus homo.

I really cannot do the injustice to the Almighty Creator to believe that when God had created man "in His own image and in His own likeness," and "made him little lower" only "than the angels, and crowned him with glory and honour, and made him to have dominion over the works of God's hands, and put all things under his feet; all sheep and oxen, yea and the beasts of the field, the fowl of the air and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas," that man the last crowning work of creation,

• Owen's Bardism, p. 66.

made to be a "first fruits" of the creation, that Adam to whom God committed the naming of "every beast of the field and every fowl of the air," the first natural historian in the world, so to say, the first embodiment of science, could be a low type of creation.

How entirely do the names of the beasts, the birds, the fishes, the trees, and the plants in the Hebrew language, so full of meaning, every one of them given for some important reason of shape, habits, or peculiarity, the name of every one of them arguing in the giver of it a thorough knowledge of its natural history, belie so unworthy a suggestion. How feeble and uninstructive our translations of these names, shewing a force in the original contemplated only by the giver himself'.

Imagine only for a moment, if it were not blasphemy to suppose it, (but we are compelled to such a line of argument by the reasonings of these philosophers,) imagine only the whole creation summoned before

f The very remarkable way in which the names of birds, beasts, fishes, and plants of Scripture in the Hebrew language and its cognates suggest some ideal connection between the sign and the thing signified, conveys to my mind a strong impression of that being the primeval language of man.

גפל

For instance, how entirely is the character of the lion,, ariuth, pourtrayed in its name from 7, areh, 'to snatch;' that of the kid, 72, from its butting with its horns. The coriander plant, too, T2, from its smelling like a kid. How characteristic is the word 'a camel,' from revenge, marking the known revengeful disposition of the animal; and, a partridge,' from the sound of its cry, 7 in Chaldee, 'to call; and myrrh, from and 7, 'to be bitter;', 'an onion,' from, to peel off in folds' as an onion does.

How little do these words when translated into any other language convey any idea of the character or qualities of the things. A vast list might be added, but the above will suffice for explanation.