CANON OF CHRIST'S CHURCH, AND PROFESSOR OF GEOLOGY IN THE

UNIVERSITY OF Oxford.

ON GEOLOGY AND MINERALOGY.

THE REV. WILLIAM KIRBY, M.A. F.R.S. ON THE HISTORY, HABITS, AND INSTINCTS OF ANIMALS.

WILLIAM PROUT, M.D. F.R.S.

ON CHEMISTRY, METEOROLOGY, AND THE FUNCTION

OF DIGESTION.

HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS THE DUKE OF SUSSEX, President of the Royal Society, having desired that no unnecessary delay should take place in the publication of the above mentioned Treatises, they will appear at short intervals, as they are ready for publication.

ON THE ADAPTATION OF EXTERNAL NATURE TO THE

MORAL CONSTITUTION OF MAN.

CHAP. I. FIRST GENERAL ARGUMENT.-On the Supre-

II. SECOND GENERAL ARGUMENT.-On the Inher-

ent Pleasure of the Virtuous, and Misery of the

Vicious Affections,

III. THIRD GENERAL ARGUMENT.-The Power and

111

. . 145

IV. On the General Adaptation of External Nature

to the Moral Constitution of Man,

169

V. On the Special and Subordinate Adaptations of

External Nature to the Moral Constitution of

Man,

197

VI. On those Special Affections which conduce to the

Civil and Political Wellbeing of Society,

227

PREFACE.

IT is an incongruous thing, when there is any want of conformity between the subject matter of an essay, and its title.

The object of this explanatory preface is to show that it is an incongruity into which we have not fallen.

In the first place, we were not in fair circumstances for expounding the adaptation of external nature to the mental constitution of man, till we had made manifest in some degree what that constitution is. There is no distinct labourer in that conjunct demonstration of the Divine attributes which is now being offered to the world, to whom this essentially preliminary topic had been assigned as the subject of a separate work. It was therefore unavoidable, that, to a certain extent, we should undertake it ourselves, else, in proceeding to the construction of our