It is generally granted that life is the highest perfection of corporeal beings, the most inestimable jewel of the creation. Life, though but in an insect, is more glorious than the sun. Solomon, making a comparison between living and lifeless things, prefers the meanest of living creatures before the best and noblest of dead things, “A living dog is better than a dead lion.” How much soever we may be astonished at the stupendous mass of inactive matter, yet the least animated particle is still an object of greater admiration. God, in creating the first individual of each species of living creatures, not only gave a form to matter, but also a principle of life; inclosing in each a greater or less quantity of organical particles, indestructible and common to all organized beings. These pass from body to body, perpetuating this life, and ministering to the nutrition and growth of each. Thus every production, or increase by generation, is a continuance of this life, of which every succession of creatures is always full. The total quantity of life remains the same; for whatever death seems to destroy, it does not affect that primitive life, which is diffused through all organized beings.
However much the nature of life may perplex the most able, acute, and diligent inquirers into the subject, or exceed the utmost reach of human comprehension; yet we see that it enables creatures to act, as it were, of themselves, and to seek and obtain such enjoyments as give them a sensible pleasure. The creatures on which this amazing property has been conferred, have also an inclination and ability to communicate it to their own species, which will succeed one another till time shall be no more! If we exercise our understanding on this remarkable instance of creating energy, it will tend to excite in us the most august thoughts of that almighty Being, who is the boundless source of existence, vitality, and motion to all his creatures!
In the work of creation, observes a learned author, after the formation of light, air, water, and earth, the originals of all material objects, God proceeded from creatures less excellent to those of a superior order. Such was his progress in the work of creation. Fish and fowl were both formed out of the water. Hence there is a nearer alliance and greater resemblance between the form and motions of creatures that swim and those that fly, than between such as creep and those that walk on the earth; and their bodies being intended to be lighter, and their motion swifter, the wise Creator saw fit to form them from a light and fluid element.
The number of the different species of fish to which names are given, and with whose figure at least we are a little acquainted, is, according to Linnæus, above four hundred. The majority of these are confined to the sea, and would expire in the fresh water, though there are a few which annually swim up the rivers, to deposit their spawn. Among the various sizes, some have monstrous shapes, and amazing qualities. Fishes are usually classed into three general divisions: the cetaceous, or those of the whale kind; the cartilaginous, or those which have gristles instead of bones; and the spinous, or bony kind, called so from their bones resembling the sharpness of thorns.
In the cetaceous species are included all the various kinds of Whales, the Norwhal, or Sea-Unicorn, the Dolphin, the Grampus, and the Porpoise. Though “God created great whales,”[141] the words of Moses, according to the original, התנינם הגדלים ha-tan-neenin ha-gedoleen, says Dr. A. Clarke, must be understood rather as a general than a particular term, comprising all the great aquatic animals, such as these now mentioned. All these resemble quadrupeds in their internal structure, and in some of their appetites and affections. Like quadrupeds, they have lungs, a midriff, a stomach, intestines, liver, spleen, bladder, and parts of generation; their heart also resembles that of quadrupeds, with its partitions closed up as in them, and driving red and warm blood in circulation through the body; and to keep these parts warm, the whole kind are also covered between the skin and the muscles with a thicker coat of fat or blubber. The aorta, or principal artery, in that stupendous animal the whale, measures about a foot in diameter; and it is computed that the quantity of blood thrown into it, at every pulsation of the heart, is not less than from ten to fifteen gallons.
“Nature’s strange work, vast Whales of differing form,
Toss up the troubled floods and are themselves a storm;
Uncouth the sight, when they, in dreadful play
Discharge their nostrils, and refund a sea;
Or angry lash the foam with hideous sound,