4. Again:--It will hardly be questioned that the author of the material elements is also the author of the structure of animals, which is adapted to and provided for by the constitution of the elements in such innumerable ways. But the author of the bodily structure of animals must also be the author of their instincts, for without these the structure would not answer its purpose. And these instincts frequently assume the character of affections in a most remarkable manner. The love of offspring, of home, of companions, are often displayed by animals, in a way that strikes the most indifferent observer; and yet these affections will hardly be denied to be a part of the same scheme as the instincts by which the same animals seek food and the gratifications of sense. Who can doubt that the anxious and devoted affection of the mother-bird for her young after they are hatched, is a part of the same system of Providence as the instinct by which she is impelled to sit upon her eggs? and this, of the same by which her eggs are so organized that incubation leads to the birth of the young animal? Nor, again, can we imagine that while the structure and affections of animals belong to one system of things, the affections of man, in many respects so similar to those of animals, and connected with the bodily frame in a manner so closely analogous, can belong to a different scheme. Who, that reads the touching instances of maternal affection, related so often of the women of all nations, and of the females of all animals, can doubt that the principle of action is the same in the two cases, though enlightened in one of them by the rational faculty: And who can place in separate provinces the supporting and protecting love of the father and the mother? or consider as entirely distinct from these, and belonging to another part of our nature, the other kinds of family affection? or disjoin man’s love of his home, his clan, his tribe, his country, from the affection which he bears to his family? The love of offspring, home, friends, in man, is then part of the same system of contrivances of which bodily organization is another part. And thus the author of our corporeal frame is also the author of our capacity of kindness and resentment, of our love and of our wish to be loved, of all the emotions which bind us to individuals, to our families, and to our kind.