Animate Bodies are divided into four great Genera or Orders, Beasts, Birds, Fishes and Insects.

The Species of Beasts, including also Serpents, are not very numerous: Of such as are certainly known and described I dare say not above 150. And yet I believe not many, that are of any considerable bigness, in the known Regions of the World, have escaped the Cognizance of the curious. [I reckon all Dogs to be of one Species they mingling together in generation, and the breed of such Mixtures being prolifick.]

The number of Birds known and described may be near 500; And the number of Fishes, secluding Shelfish as many; but if the Shelfish be taken in, more than double the number. How many of each Genus remain yet undiscovered one cannot certainly nor very nearly conjecture, but we may suppose the whole sum of Beasts and Birds to exceed by a third part, and Fishes by one half, those known.

The Insects, if we take in the Exanguious both Terrestrial and Aquatick, may in derogation to the precedent Rule for number vie even with Plants themselves. For the Exanguious alone, by what that Learned and Critical Naturalist my Honoured Friend Dr. Martin Lister hath already observed and delineated, I conjecture, cannot be fewer than 1800 or 2000 Species, perhaps many more.

The Butterflies and Beetles are such numerous Tribes, that I believe in our own native Country alone the Species of each kind may amount to 150 or more. And if we should make the Caterpillers and Hexapods from whence these come to be distinct Species, as most Naturalists have done, the number will be doubled, and these two Genera will afford us 600 Species. But if those be admitted for distinct Species, I see no reason but their Aureliae also may pretend to a Specifick difference from the Caterpillers and Butterflies; and so we shall have 300 Species more, therefore we exclude both these from the degree of Species, making them to be the same Insect under a different larva or Habit.

The Fly-kind, if under that name we comprehend all other flying Insects, as well such as have four as such as have but two Wings, of Both which kinds there are many subordinate Genera, will be found in multitude of Species to equal if not exceed both the forementioned kinds.

The creeping Insects that never come to be winged, though for number they may fall short of the flying or winged, yet are they also very numerous; as by running over the several kinds I could easily demonstrate: Supposing then, there be a thousand several sorts of Insects in this Island and the Sea near it: if the same Proportion holds between the Insects native of England, and those of the rest of the World, as doth between Plants Domestick and Exotick, (that is, as I guess, near a Decuple) the Species of Insects in the whole Earth (Land and Water) will amount to 10000, and I do believe they rather exceed than fall short of that sum. The number of Plants contained in C. Bauhin’s Pinax is about 6000, which are all that had been described by the Authors that wrote before him, or observed by himself; in which Work, besides mistakes and repetitions incident to the most wary and knowing men in such a Work as that; there are a great many, I might say some Hundreds put down for different Species, which in my Opinion are but accidental Varieties: Which I do not say to detract from the excellent pains and performance of that Learned, Judicious and Laborious Herbarist, or to defraud him of his deserved Honour, but only to shew, that he was too much sway’d by the Opinions then generally current among Herbarists, that different Colour or multiplicity of Leaves in the Flower and the like accidents were sufficient to constitute a Specifick difference. But supposing there had been 6000 then known and described; I cannot think but that there are in the World more then double that number; there being in the vast continent of America as great a variety of Species as with us, and yet but few common to Europe, or perhaps Asrick and Asia, and if, on the other side the Equator, there be much Land still remaining undiscovered as probably there may, we must suppose the number of Plants to be far greater.

What can we infer from all this? If the number of Creatures be so exceeding great, how great nay immense must needs be the Power and Wisdom of him who form’d them all! For (that I may borrow the Words of a Noble and Excellent Author) as it argues and manifests more skill by far in an Artificer to be able to frame both Clocks and Watches, and Pumps, and Mills, and Granadoes and Rockets, then he could display in making but one of those sorts of Engines; so the Almighty discovers more of his Wisdom in forming such a vast multitude of different sorts of Creatures, and all with admirable and irreproveable Art, than if he had created but a few: For this declares the greatness and unbounded Capacity of his Understanding. Again, the same superiority of Knowledg would be displaid by contriving Engines of the same kind or for the same purposes after different fashions, as the moving of Clocks or other Engines by Springs instead of Weights: So the Infinitely Wise Creator hath shewn in many Instances, that he is not confin’d to one only Instrument for the working one Effect, but can perform the same thing by divers means. So though Feathers seem necessary for flying, yet hath he enabled several Creatures to fly without them, as two sorts of Fishes, and the Bat, not to mention the numerous tribes of flying Insects. In like manner though the Air-bladder in Fishes seems necessary for swimming, yet some are so form’d as to swim without it; viz. First, The Cartilagineous kind, which by what artifice they poise themselves, ascend and descend at pleasure, and continue in what depth of Water they list, is as yet unknown to us. Secondly, The Cetaceous kind, or Sea-Beasts differing in nothing almost from Quadrupeds but the want of Feet. The Air which in respiration these receive into their Lungs may serve to render their Bodies equiponderant to the Water; and the constriction or dilatation of it, by the help of the Diaphragm and Muscles of respiration, may probably assist them to ascend or descend in the Water, by a light impulse thereof with their Fins.

Again, though the Water being a cold Element, the most wise God hath so attempered the blood and bodies of Fishes in general, that a small degree of heat is sufficient to preserve their due consistency and motion and to maintain Life; yet to shew that he can preserve a Creature in the Sea, and in the coldest part of the Sea too, that may have as great a degree of heat as Quadrupeds themselves; he hath created great variety of these Cetaceous Fishes, which converse chiefly in the Northern Seas, whose whole Body being encompassed round with a copious Fat or Blubber (which, by reflecting and redoubling the internal heat, and keeping off the external cold, doth the same thing to them that Cloths do to us) is enabled to abide the greatest cold of the Sea-water. The reason why these Fishes delight to frequent chiefly the Northern-Seas is I conceive not only for the quiet which they enjoy there, but because the Northern Air, which they breath being more fully charged with nitrous particles, is fittest to maintain the vital Heat in that Activity as is sufficient to move such an unwieldy bulk, as their Bodies are with due celerity and to bear up against and repell the ambient cold; and may likewise enable them to continue longer under water than a warmer and thinner Air could.

I come now to the second part of the words; In Wisdom hast thou made them all. In discoursing wherof I shall endeavour to make out in particulars what the Psalmist here asserts in general concerning the works of God, that they are all very wisely contrived and adapted to ends both Particular and General.

But before I enter upon this task, I shall, by way of Preface or Introduction, say something concerning those Systems which undertake to give an Account of the formation of the Universe by Mechanical Hypotheses of Matter moved either uncertainly, or according to some Catholick Laws, without the intervention and assistance of any superior immaterial Agent.

There is no greater, at least no more palpable and convincing Argument of the Existence of a Deity than the admirable Art and Wisdom that discovers itself in the make and constitution, the order and disposition, the ends and uses of all the parts and members of this stately fabrick of Heaven and Earth. For if in the works of Art, as for example; a curious Edifice or Machine, counsel, design, and direction to an end appearing in the whole frame and in all the several pieces of it, do necessarily infer the being and operation of some intelligent Architect or Engineer, why shall not also in the Works of Nature, that Grandeur and Magnificence, that excellent contrivance for Beauty, Order, Use, &c. which is observable in them, wherein they do as much transcend the Effects of human Art as infinite Power and Wisdom exceeds finite, infer the existence and efficiency of an Omnipotent and All-wise Creator?

To evade the force of this Argument, and to give some Account of the Original of the World, Atheistical Persons have set up two Hypotheses.

The first is that of Aristotle, that the World was from Eternity, in the same condition that now it is, having run through the Successions of infinite generations; to which they add, Self-existent and unproduced. For Aristotle doth not deny God to be the efficient Cause of the World. But only asserts, that he created it from Eternity making him a necessary Cause thereof; it proceeding from him by way of Emanation, as light from the Sun.

This Hypothesis which hath some shew of reason, for something must necessarily exist of it self; and if something, why may not all things? This Hypothesis, I say, is so clearly and fully confuted by the Reverend and Learned Dr. Tillotson now Dean of S. Pauls London, in his first printed Sermon, and the R. Reverend Father in God John late Lord Bishop of Chester in Book I. Chap. V. of his Treatise of the Principles of Natural Religion, that nothing material can by me be added; to whom therefore I refer the Reader.

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