The number and variety of the laws which we find established in the universe is so great, that it would be idle to endeavour to enumerate them. In their operation they are combined and intermixed in incalculable and endless perplexity, influencing and modifying each other’s effects in every direction. If we attempt to comprehend at once the whole of this complex system, we find ourselves utterly baffled and overwhelmed by its extent and multiplicity. Yet, in so far as we consider the bearing of one part upon another, we receive an impression of adaptation, of mutual fitness, of conspiring means, of preparation and completion, of purpose and provision. This impression is suggested by the contemplation of every part of nature; but the grounds of it, from the very circumstances of the case, cannot be conveyed in a few words. It can only be fully educed by leading the reader through several views and details, and must grow out of the combined influence of these on a sober and reflecting frame of mind. However strong and solemn be the conviction which may be derived from a contemplation of nature, concerning the existence, the power, the wisdom, the goodness of our Divine Governor, we cannot expect that this conviction, as resulting from the extremely complex spectacle of the material world, should be capable of being irresistibly conveyed by a few steps of reasoning, like the conclusion of a geometrical proposition, or the result of an arithmetical calculation. We shall, therefore, endeavour to point out cases and circumstances in which the different parts of the universe exhibit this mutual adaptation, and thus to bring before the mind of the reader the evidence of wisdom and providence, which the external world affords. When we have illustrated the correspondencies which exist in every province of nature, between the qualities of brute matter and the constitution of living things, between the tendency to derangement and the conservative influences by which such a tendency is counteracted, between the office of the minutest speck and of the most general laws; it will, we trust, be difficult or impossible to exclude from our conception of this wonderful system, the idea of a harmonizing, a preserving, a contriving, an intending Mind; of a Wisdom, Power, and Goodness far exceeding the limits of our thoughts. CHAPTER IV. _Division of the Subject._