I have only instanced such animals as seem the most imperfect works of
nature; and if providence shews itself even in the blemishes of these
creatures, how much more does it discover itself in the several
endowments which it has variously bestowed upon such creatures as are
more or less finished and compleated in their several faculties,
according to the condition of life in which they are posted.

I could wish our Royal Society would compile a body of Natural History,
the best that could be gathered together from books and observations. If
the several writers among them took each his particular species, and
gave us a distinct account of its original, birth and education, its
policies; hostilities and alliances, with the frame, and texture of its
inward and outward parts, and particularly those that distinguish it
from all other animals, with their peculiar aptitudes for the state of
being in which providence has placed them, it would be one of the best
services their studies could do mankind, and not a little redound to the
glory of the All-wise Contriver.

It is true, such a Natural History, after all the disquisitions of the
learned, would be infinitely short and defective. Seas and deserts hide
millions of animals from our observation. Innumerable artifices and
stratagems are acted in the _Howling Wilderness_ and in the
_Great Deep_, that can never come to our knowledge. Besides that
there are infinitely more species of creatures which are not to be seen
without, nor indeed with the help of the finest glasses, than of such as
are bulky enough for the naked eye to take hold of. However, from the
consideration of such animals as lie within the compass of our
knowledge, we might easily form a conclusion of the rest, that the same
variety of wisdom and goodness runs through the whole creation, and puts
every creature in a condition to provide for its safety and subsistence