Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: ON THE CHAIN OF UNIVERSAL BEING. The farther we inquire into the works of our great Creator, the more evident marks we shall discover of his infinite wisdom and power, and perhaps in none more remarkable, than in the wonderful chain of beings, with which, this terrestrial globe is furnished; rising above each other, from the senseless clod, to the brightest genius of human kind; in which, thoi the chain itself is sufficiently visible,, the links, which compose it, are so minute, and so finely wrought, that they are quite imperceptible to our eves. The various qualities, with which these various beings are endued, we perceive without difficulty, but the boundaries of those qualities, which form this chain of subordination, are so mixed, that where one ends, and the next begins, we are unable to discover The manner by which this is performed, is a subject well worthy of our consideration, tho1 I do not remember to have seen it much considered; but on an accurate examination appears to be this. In order to diffuse all possible happiness, God has been pleased to fill this earth with innumerable orders of beings, superior to eachother In proportion to the qualities and faculties which he has thought proper to bestow upon them: to mere matter he has given extension, solidity, and gravity; to plants, vegetation; to animals, life and instinct; and to man, reason; each of which superior qualities augments the excellence and dignity of the possessor, and places him higher in the scale of existence- In all these, it is remarkable, that he has not formed this necessary and beautiful subordination, by placing beings of quite different natures above each other, but by granting some additional quality to each superior order, in conjunction with all those possessed by their inferiors; so th... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.