I cannot conclude these jottings from the
tombs, more fitly than with this voice, or
rather with these two voices, from the North,
communicated to me by a stonecutting friend.
A reward, it seems, was once offered for the
best epitaph upon a celebrated provost of
Dundee. The town council were unable to
decide between the relative merits of the
two which follow, and both were therefore
placed on the monument:

"Here lies John, Provost of Dundee,
Here lies Him, here lies He.

The second ran even still more remarkably:

"Here lies John, Provost of Dundee,
Hallelujah, Hallelujee."

INFUSORIA.

NATURE, as exhibited on this our planet, is,
in one sense, infinite; that is, there appear to
be no limits to the power, the wisdom, and
the goodness, which the Great Creator of
nature displays in regard to his creatures.
The philosophers of the seventeenth century
ventured a few conjectures on the infinity of
nature and the complications of the laws of
life. Our savans, now, are able to demonstrate
that those conjectures are nothing in comparison
to the reality, and that where they believed
they had found the limits of life, life was only
at its commencement. It was supposed that
beyond the plants and animals visible to our
eyes, nature contained nothing more which
was animated. Modern science, with the aid
of the microscope, teaches that invisible genera
and species of animals and plants fill the
atmosphere, the earth, and the waters. It
was imagined that the minutest organisms
were also the most unfinished and of the most
degraded type; that they were devoid of
sensation, instinct, and almost of voluntary
motion. The microscope declares that creative
perfection is measured neither by stature nor
volume, and that the tiniest creatures often
reveal in their structures a more marvellous
reach of adaptive art than animals which at
first sight appear more perfect. It was thought
that the functions of life were simple.
Experiments on living animals have proved the
most unexpected complexity in every vital act
and in every organ. Thus, observation daily
reveals fresh instances of the infinity of creation.
Nature is a standing proof not only of
the beneficence of the One Great Power, but
also of His omniscience and His omnipotence.

In another sense, however, nature is finite.
She seems to have imposed on herself limits
which she does not choose to infringe; that is,
there are conditions of existence to which all
living creatures must submit, and beyond or
in opposition to which conditions nature
does not allow existence to be possible to
them.

Those conditions are dependent on the
inherent qualities (which are invariable) of the
materials which compose the substance of our
globe,—on the properties of what the ancients
called elements; of air, earth, fire and water.
So long as these continue the same, there are
bounds which organic nature can scarcely
pass. Thus, if we were surrounded by an
elastic transparent atmosphere, in every
respect similar to that which actually bathes
us, except that its density at a moderate
temperature were equal to that of water, or
greater,—a hypothesis which is far from difficult
to conceive,—it is clear that birds and
insects, to fly in safety through such an atmosphere,
must be differently constituted to
what we see them. Again; imagine an ocean
like that which wraps the world in its
embrace, but of a specific gravity equal to
quicksilver, and our present fish, instead of feeding
in security in its mid-regions or at its bottom,
would be buoyed up forcibly to its surface, to
starve and perish. Or, fancy any of the
proportions altered which subsist between earth,
air, water, and the force of gravity or weight,
and the disturbance would prove a fatal
change to the greater part of animated nature.
Therefore, animated nature, here, has its laws
and its limits; there are conditions dependent
on physical facts which it can never infringe.
In truth, the whole of the arguments on which
natural theology is based—and they are as
deeply interesting as they are inexhaustible—
are derived from the study of the wise and
marvellous contrivances, which are all detailed
adaptations of the creature to the
circumstances under which it is destined to live.
But the very word "adaptation" implies that
there are conditions necessary to observe, and
that impediments exist which it is impossible
to overthrow. No doubt, as far as the
Universe—the whole countless, infinite assemblage
of suns, planets, and satellites—is concerned,
nature is also infinite; but in respect to the
individual world Terra, whereon we dwell, we
may believe without error that the constitution
of our elements places certain restrictions
on the forms that are endowed either with
vegetable or animal life.

In all likelihood, and contrary to what has
been supposed by the philosophers of the last
and the previous century, magnitude may
have its limits in the case of organised beings
on the face of this earth. It is probable that
there exists nothing smaller, with us, than
the minutest of the creatures called Infusoria,
which our magnifiers enable us to see. The
names given to some of the monads, as M.
termo and M. crepusculum, or boundary-stone
and twilight, imply that those creatures were
believed to be the ne plus ultra of littleness,—
to hang on the very verge of existence. But
the most extravagant notions as to the
magnitude of organised beings have been
entertained in their day. Bernoulli and Leibnitz'
in their correspondence, came to the unanimous
conclusion that there are, in the
universe, animals which, in point of size, are as