15. There are animals so near of kin both to birds and beasts, that they are in the middle between both; amphibious animals, link the terrestrial and aquatic together:  seals live on land and at sea, and porpoises have the warm blood and entrails of a hog.  Not to mention what is confidently reported of mermaids or sea-men, them are same brutes, that seem to have as much knowledge and reason, as some that are called men; and the animal and vegetable kingdoms are so nearly joined, that if you will take the lowest of one, and the highest of the other, there will scarce be perceived any great difference between them; and so on till we come to the lowest and the most most inorganical parts of matter, we shall find every where that the several species are linked together, and differ but, in almost insensible degrees.

16. And when we consider the infinite power and wisdom of the Maker, we have reason to think that it is suitable to the magnificent harmony of the universe, that the great design and infinite goodness of the architect, that the species of creatures should also, by gentle degrees, ascend upwards from us toward his infinite perfection as we see they gradually descend from us downward:  which if it be probable, we have reason then to be persuaded; that there are far more species 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.