as it is called in the Word, "angels' food"; and as the chil dren of Israel called it "Manna," or "What is it?" -because it was wholly new to them, for they had never seen its like before, - so to us it is a new thing, for we knew not its taste while we tarried in Egypt. But after a while this is not enough. It palls upon our taste; we remember the flesh-pots of Egypt, and remember them with longing; and we loathe the light bread which is as yet our only nourishment.

Then, we speak against God and against Moses. We were led from Egypt by the Divine Truth. It found us there, and touched our chains, and they fell. Amid the darkness it shone upon our path to freedom. It pointed out the way by which we might escape for ever; it pointed to the Holy Land, to the city of God upon the mountains of Zion. It went with us, directing our every step, always our leader and our guide. It was for us, the servant of God. It was and is to us what Moses was to the children of Israel; and it is precisely that which Moses represented and denotes. And now we speak against God and against Moses. We complain against the very Truth which we have followed; we complain that it has led us away from all that made our life pleasant and delightful, and has brought us forth to die in a wilderness. There is a promise, that whatsoever we give. up for His name's sake, be it never so dear, we shall receive a thousand-fold more, even in this life, with persecution. But we feel the persecution, and we forget the promise, or believe its fulfilment to be impossible.

This is the moment of our extremest danger. It is then that fiery serpents bite us, and much people die.

To understand what this means, we must ask of the science of correspondence, what is the relation which exists between man and the lower animals, and learn something

of the characteristic correspondence and representation of the different species.

All things which exist include a mystery, and this is made apparent by the first earnest effort to investigate them. Hence every science gratifies its votaries by the discovery of new truths, and leads them forward by the promise of further revelations, and this it will continue to do for ever. No one of them can ever be completed. And when any seems to be so, it is only to him whose weakened eye refuses to look forward to the light; for as he turns away from it, and measures the narrow domain which past inquiry has won, the infinite then lies behind him, and he believes it is nothing. To him it is nothing; and it has happened more than once in the history of man, that an age has also been thus contented with its inheritance, and believed itself to be complete in wisdom, only because it was satisfied with ignorance. Not so is it with our own age. And it is because this present period is marked by an unprecedented energy of investigation, that difficulties and uncertainties cluster in massy clouds about the termini which all the sciences have reached. Of all of them is this true; and of no one more so than of that which is called Natural History. There has been and there continues to be much endeavor to discover the true relations of animals to each other and to man. Theory after theory is propounded and assailed and defended. The progressive development of Lamarck, the analogies of Cuvier, the circular systems of McLeay and Swainson, all of them have their defenders; and they should have, for all of them, not entirely excepting even that of Lamarck, have some truth. But none of them are established, because they are all fragmentary, isolated, and exclusive. The central truth, which will hereafter attract to itself and rearrange all the scattered and wandering rays of light, is that which places

man in the centre of existence, and makes the life of all lower beings dependent upon and determined by a constant reference to him.

Man is not one among the animals; for he includes in his own nature the essential elements and characteristics of all of them. While they, on the other hand, taken altogether, compose and represent a whole which is the image of humanity. As they are naturally divided into great classes, which are again divisible into orders, and genera, and species, and indefinitely into individuals no two of whom are or ever were or ever can be precisely alike, so it is with the characteristic qualities of the spirit of man, which these animals represent and live by representing. Let it not be supposed, however, that if we could form, or if there could exist, an animal in the human form, clothed with all the powers analogous to those of humanity scattered among the various tribes which fill the broad realms of nature with life and joy, such an animal would be a Not so. It would be as far from this goal as ever; as far as the worm we tread upon; as far as the microscopic creature which the unassisted eye vainly strives to detect. The animal world, regarded as a whole, represents humanity, but not the whole of humanity. It represents only the externals of humanity. Within all that is so represented, far within, and far elevated above our consciousness, -light and life, from the central source of life, from God, impart to human nature what exists nowhere else. Descending from its original elevation, coming forth from this inmost sanctuary, it descends and reaches and fills the consciousness of man. It forms his Reason. It becomes that faculty in him, which employs all his faculties as animals cannot employ theirs, and uses all that these faculties disclose or give as they cannot, and utters a promise which they cannot hear, and gives a happiness they

man.

cannot receive. It makes him immortal; and it becomes and gives that faculty which may make of all his lower nature, a means of an immortality of happiness.

From the first moment when men began to inquire into the difference between them and the animal world, it has been a constant difficulty to define this difference in respect to the intellectual powers. That there is a difference is a palpable fact; not to be denied or doubted; but when men endeavor to define this difference, they find the work not very easy. All are familiar with the epithet of "halfreasoning," applied to some creatures who seem almost to imitate man, as if in mockery of their sovereign; and may have thought the phrase fully justified by known instances of design and sagacity. Nor is it merely that they imitate us closely; for how much is there which they do with easy and spontaneous perfection, while we could accomplish it, if at all, only after careful training and many efforts! Long would it be, before we could make a bird's-nest. The butterfly, who never knew its parent, lays its eggs with unerring accuracy only upon the very tree whose foliage will give food to the offspring that the parent can never know. The honey-bee constructs his cell and joins the opposite cells together in a manner so admirably fitted to save space and give strength, that it has required the application of the highest mathematics to investigate and determine this perfection. The bee has built his cell always just so; but only within a few years has the human mind advanced sufficiently in the appropriate science, to be able to perceive and measure and demonstrate this wonderful result. At the beginning of insect life, this busy little creature thus offered to the mind of man a profound problem; and ages must pass away before that mind could lay hold upon the problem, and great and long-continued efforts must be made before it could be resolved, and doubtless it includes a

mass of wisdom which will lie latent for ages to come. We say it was Instinct which taught the bee to work this wonder; but what do we mean by Instinct? The word has been long known; and the question of its meaning has often been asked; and many and earnest have been the endeavors of thoughtful men to answer it, — many and earnest, but never successful. The world knows no more now what Instinct means than when the question was first asked, and the wisest can answer the question no better than the most ignorant. And yet, if I mistake not, the doctrines of the New Church have at length met this question with an answer that is clear and certain. At this time I can only suggest this answer.

Paradoxical as it may seem to those unacquainted with these doctrines, it is nevertheless true, that the cause why men could never resolve this question, and explain the nature of Animal Instinct, was a moral cause.

Their difficulty arose from the constant habit of appropriating to themselves what belongs to God, and thus permitting self-conceit to close their eyes.

The New Church, among its first, most essential, and fundamental truths, asserts that God alone has in himself Life and Love and Wisdom; and that wherever these exist, whatever be their measure, form, or manifestation, they are all from him and are his. It also asserts, that they are all infinites, composed of infinites, in him; and as they flow forth into beings which are fitting vessels to receive them, they are exquisitely adapted to each one of them, so that every being receives and has the life that is exactly appropriate to his own form, and the love and the wisdom which are required for his needs and uses, while these in all their variety have but one source, or rather are but one Life, one Love, one Wisdom. If we accept these truths honestly, and take them with us to the investigation of instinct, we shall find little difficulty there.