For the springs and movements of a watch
are not put together with so much art and niceness as those of the
universe. What then must be a design so extensive, so coherent, so
excellent, so beneficial? The necessity of those laws, instead of
deterring me from inquiring into their author, does but heighten my
curiosity and admiration. Certainly, it required a hand equally
artful and powerful to put in His work an order equally simple and
teeming, constant and useful. Wherefore I will not scruple to say
with the Scripture, "Let every star haste to go whither the Lord
sends it; and when He speaks let them answer with trembling, Here we
are," Ecce adsumus.
SECT. XIX. Of Animals, Beasts, Fowl, Birds, Fishes, Reptiles, and
Insects.
But let us turn our eyes towards animals, which still are more
worthy of admiration than either the skies or stars. Their species
are numberless. Some have but two feet, others four, others again a
great many. Some walk; others crawl, or creep; others fly; others
swim; others fly, walk, or swim, by turns. The wings of birds, and
the fins of fishes, are like oars, that cut the waves either of air
or water, and steer the floating body either of the bird, or fish,
whose structure is like that of a ship. But the pinions of birds
have feathers with a down, that swells in the air, and which would
grow unwieldy in the water. And, on the contrary, the fins of
fishes have sharp and dry points, which cut the water, without
imbibing it, and which do not grow heavier by being wet.
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