ESSAY IX. 44' clusters upon the arms of the elm that support it. Nay, every cluster has a tendril belongs to it, and if any stronger twig of its own be within its reach, it hangs itself there by this tendril for support. The ,hop and the lupin, or French-bean, as though they knew they could not stand by themselves, find another way to raise their heads on high ; they twine the whole length of their bodies round the poles or the rods which are planted near them ; and thus their growth and their fruit are upheldfrom rot- ting upon the ground. The ivy, for the same reason, but by anothercontrivance, climbs up the oak, and sticks close to its sides : and the feeble plant which we vulgarly call the creeper, that can hardly raise itself three feet high alone, thrusts out its claws at proper distances, fixes them fast in the neighbouring wall or building, andmounts by this means to the tops of highest houses. What variety of artifice is found here among these fee- ble vegetables to support themselves ! Yet we believe these plants have no understanding, and mankind are all agreed they have ncr such thing as sense belong- ing to them ; and we immediately recur to the wisdom of God the Creator, and ascribe the contrivance and the honour of it to him alone. Itwas he (we say) who gave the vine its curling ten- drils, and the creeper its hooky claws : it was he instructed the one to bind itself with natural winding cords to the boughs of a stronger tree, and he taught the other, as it were, to nail itself againstthe wall. It was he shewed the ivy to ascend straight up the oak ; and the hop and the lupin, in long spiral lines, to twine round their proper supporters. Let us enquire now, what do we mean by such expressions as these ? Trulynothing but this ; that God formed the natures of these vegetables in such a manner, as that by certain and ap- pointed rules of mechanical motion, they should grow up and move their bodies and their branches so as to raise and to uphold themselves and their fruit. Thus the wisdom of God, the great artificer, is glorified in the vegetable world. And why should we not give God the Creator the same honour of his wisdom in the animal world also ? Why may we not suppose that he hasformed the bodies of brute creatures, and all their inward springs of motion, with such exquisite art, as even in their youngest hours, without reasoning and without imi- tation, to pursue those methods as regularly, which are necessary for their life and their defence, by the same laws ofmotion and the same unthinkingpowers ? This is nature when God has`appoint- ed it. This seems to be the true idea, and the clearest explication of that obscure word, instinct. If we allow these young animals to perform all their affairs by their own contrivance and sagacity, why don't we ascribe the same sagacity and artifice to vines and ivy, that we do to
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