BR 515 .L6 1836 Paley, William, Paley's Natural V.2 1743-1805 theology PALEY^S NATURAL THEOLOGY, ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES, HENRY LORD BROUGHAM, F.R.S. AND MEMBER OF THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF FRANCE, SIR CHARLES BELL, K.G.H., F.R.S., L. & E. PROFESSOR OF SURGERY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH, FOR- MERLY OF THE COUNCIL, AND PROF. ANAT. ROY. COLL. SURG. LONDON, ETC. TO WHICH ARE ADDED SUPPLEMENTARY DISSERTATIONS, By SIR CHARLES BELL. WITH NUMEROUS WOOD-CUTS. TWO VOLS. VOL. 11. LOND ON: CHARLES KNIGHT. NEW-YORK: WILLIAM JACKSON. MDCCCXXXVI. G. F. Hopkins 6i. Son, Print. CONTENTS TO VOL. 11. CHAPTER XXI. THE ELEMENTS. Consolidation of uses, page 2; i. air, 2 ; reflecting light, 3; evapo- rating fluids, 3 ; restoratives of purity, 4 ; ii. vv^ater, 7 ; pu- rity, 7 ; insipidity, 7 ; circulation, 8 ; iii. fire, 8 ; dissolvent power, 9; iv. light, 9; velocity, 9; tenuity, 10. J^Tote 1, on the purification of the air by the respiration of plants, page 5 ; 2, on the purification of the air by the agitation of w^ater, 6; 3, on the adaptation of the conducting powers of different substances to the wants of the animal and vegeta- ble kingdom, 9; 4, on the composition of light, 11. CHAPTER XXII. ASTRONOMY. Fixing the source of light and heat in the centre, 17 ; permanent axis of rotation, 21 ; spheroidicity of the earth, 24; of cen- tiipetal forces, 26 ; attraction indifferent to laws, 27; admis- sible laws within narrow limits, 30 ; of admissible laws, the present the best, 32 ; united attraction of a sphere, the same as of the constituent particles, 33; the apsides fixed, 34; figures of the planetary orbits, 40 ; Buffon's hypothesis, 42. J^oU 5, on the telescopic appearance of the sun, 17; 6, on the te- lescopic appearance of Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, and Venus, 20; 7, (by Bishop Brinkley,) on the changes of the earth's surface, as proved by geological discoveries, 23 ; 8, ongravi- IV CONTENTS. tation, 28; 9, referring to Notes 12 and 14, 30; 10, on the attraction of the planets, 32; 11, description of cut repre- senting the earth's orbit, and observations on the orbits of planets, 36; 12, (by Bishop Brinkley,) on attraction, 39; 13, description 'of cut representing the comet of 1811, and observations on comets, 44; 14, (by Bishop Brinkley,) on the solar system, 46. CHAPTER XXIII. OF THE PERSONALITY OF THE DEITY. Not the object of our senses, 51; contrivance proves personahty, 54; misapplication of laws, 56; mechanism, 57; second causes, 59 ; of generation as a principle, 60 ; atheistic sup- positions, 62 ; Buffon's organic nodules, 66 ; appetencies, 69 ; analogies by which they are supported, 72 ; camel's bunch, 72; crane's thighs, 73; pelican's pouch, 73; analogy strained, 75; solutions contradicted, 77; by ligaments — valves, 77 ; by senses of animals, 77 ; by the parts M'ithout motion, 78; by plants, 79. J^ole 1 5, on the skeptical argument of the formation of organs from conatus or appetency, 71; 16, on hermaphrodites, 72; 17, argument against the doctrine of appetencies, 75. CHAPTER XXIV. OF THE NATURAL ATTRIBUTES OF THE DEITY. Omnipotence, 81 ; omniscience, 81 ; omniprescence, 83; eternity, 85 ; self-existence, 86 ; necessary existence, 86 ; spiritual- ity, 86. J^ole 18, on the terms infjiile and omnipolcncc, 83 ; 19, on ubiquity, S5; 20, explanation of the terms self-existent and self-crea- ted, 86; 21, explanation of tlie term necessm-y, 86. CONTENTS. V CHAPTER XXV. THE UNITY OF THE DEITY. From the laws of attraction, and the presence of light among the heavenly bodies, 88; from the laws of nature upon our globe, 91 ; resemblance of animals, 92; fish, 92; insects, 93. J^ote 22, argument for the unity of the Deity drawn from astrono- mical science, 88; 23, on the law which regulates the dis- tances of the planets, 90; 24, referring to Paley's argument for the unity of the Deity, 94 ; 25, referring to Addison's belief in ghosts and witchcraft, 94. CHAPTER XXVI. GOODNESS OF THE DEITY. From the parts and faculties of animals, 96; the actual happiness of young animals, 97; of winged insects, 97; of aphides, offish, 98; i. Prop, of old age, 99; of different animal ha- bits, 101 ; praspollency of happiness, 102 ; causes of not ob- serving it, 103; quotation, 105; apparent exceptions, 107; venomous animals, 108; animals of prey. 111 ; — ii. Prop, taste, 119; adaptation of senses, 122; property, origin of, 128; physical evils of imperfection, 131 ; of finiteness, 132; of bodily pain, 133; of mortal diseases, 137; of death, 138; civil evils of population, 140; of distinctions, 143; of wealth, 143; of idleness, 147; objections from chance answered, 148; must be chance in the midst of design, 148 ; ignorance of observance, 149; advantages of chance, 150; disease, 152; seasons, 152; station, 153; acquirability, 154; sensi- ble interposition, 156; probation, 159. J^Tote 26, on length of life as marked by succession of ideas, 98; 27, on Paley's opinions with respect to physical and moral evil, 104; 28, on the balance of good and evil. 111 ; 29, on the addition of pleasure to animal sensations, 119, 30, on the numerous sources of gratification, 122; 31, remarks on Paley's observations on general laws, 129 ; 32, on the cir- VI CONTENTS. cumstances under which Chapter xxvi. was written, 134; 33, referring to Notes 2 and 31, 13S; 34, on contentment under necessary sufFjrings, 140; 35, referring to Note, p. 68, of vol. i., respecting chance, 150; 36, one branch of the skeptical argument that the destruction of one being is be- neficial to another, answered by the doctrine of a future state, 152; 37, referring to former Note, on the benefits of apparent evils, 153; 38, on the obscurity which hangs over the subject of a future state, 158; 39, on circumstances which seem to show the interposition of Providence, 171 : 40, on the universal power and pervading skill of the Deity, 175. CHAPTER XXVII. CONCLUSION. Natural religion prepares the way for revelation, 169. APPENDIX. I. — On Chapters I. and II., and introductory to the Me- chanism of the Frame, 185. II. — On Design, as exhibited in the Mechanical Structure of Animal Bodies, 191. III. — Design or Mechanical Contrivance, as exhibited in the bones of the Head and their joinings, 211. IV. — Of the Joints, 218. v. — Of the Spine, 222. VI. — Of the Thorax and Mechanism of Respiration, 232. VII. — The Subject continued with reference to the capacity of the Chest, and its condition during; bodily exer- tion, 243. VIII. — The relation of the Bodies of Birds to the Atmos- phere, 248. IX. — Mechanism of the Egg, or revolving of the Yolk, 254. APPENDIX. VU X. — Of the Teeth of Animals — their Mechanical provi- sions, 257. XI. — The Subject pursued, with reference to the Growth and Formation of Teeth, 270. XII. — Of the Mouth, 276. XIII. — Of Hunger and Thirst, 284. XIV. — Stomach of the Horse, 287. XV.— Of the Gizzard, 289. XVI. — On the Rays of Light, their Refraction and Reflec- tion, 294. XVII. — The Eye compared with Optical Instruments, 300. XVIII. — Of the Means by which the Eye is protected, 308. XIX. — Motions of the Eyeball and Eyelids, 315. XX. — Muscles of the Eyelids, 322^ iXXI. — Review of the Uses of the Parts in the Ear, 325 XXII. — Of the Circulation, 330. XXIII. — Of the Veins, 343. XXIV. — On the Arteries, 349. XXV. — Microscopic Phenomena in the Animal Body — Mole- cular Motions — Ciliary Motions, 356. XXVI. — On Life, 363. XXVII. — Illustration of the Works of a Watch, 373. ILLUSTRATIVE WOOD-CUTS. — VOL. II. 1. Telescopic view of the sun, 17. 2. Telescopic view of Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, and Venus, 20. 3. Representation of the earth's orbit, 36. 4. View of the comet of 18 1 1 , 44. 5. Section of the root of a deer's horn, 199. 6. Section of the thigh bone, 202. 7. Support of a weight, 203. 8. Section of a cylindrical bone, 205. 9. Support of a weight, 206. 10. Sutures of the skull, 212. 11. The skull, 215. 12. Parietal bones of the skull, 216. VllI ILLUSTRATIVE WOOD-CUTS. 13. Position of the ribs, 233. 14. Illustration of the hydrostatic paradox, 243. 15. The principle illustrated by the blow-pipe, 245. 16. Windpipe of the crane, 249. 17. Air/-cells in the bird^ 251. 18. Mechanism of th6 egg, 255. 19. Tooth of the tiger, 258. 20. Skull of the boaver, 260. 21. Molar tooth of the horse, 263. 22. Lower jaw of the tiger, 267. 23. Refraction of light, 295. 24. Reflection and refraction, 296. 25. Refraction of light, 298. 26. Refraction of light in the eye, 303. 27. Refraction of hght through the eye, 304. 28. Muscles of the eyehd, 323. 29. Auditory apparatus of the cuttle-fish, 331. 30. Direction of fluids through tubes, 345. 31. Junctions of the veins and arteries, 347. 32. Effects of fluids passing through tubes, 248. 33. Forcing pump, 354. 34. Works of a watch — the wheel and axle, 374. 35. Works of a watch — the wheel and pinion, 37 5. 36. 7, 8. Works of a watch — the spring, barrel, and fusee, 376. 39. Works of a watch — the scapement, 379. 40. Works of a watch — the crutch and scapement- wheel, 380. 41. 42. Works of a watch — the second, minute, and hour hands 381, .382. 43. Works of a watch — the horizontal view of the, 384. ^/^SIHGETOU 1^^ f^ NATURAL THEOLOGY CHAPTER XXL THE ELEMENTS. When we come to the elements, we take leave of our mechanics ; because we come to those things, of the organization of which, if they be or- ganized, we are confessedly ignorant. This igno- rance is implied by their name. To say the truth, our investigations are stopped long before we ar- rive at this point. But then it is for our comfort to find, that a knowledge of the constitution of the elements is not necessary for us. For instance, as Addison has well observed, " we know water suf- ficiently, when we know how to boil, how to freeze, how to evaporate, how to make it fresh, how to make it run or spout out, in what quantity and direction we please, without knowing what water is." The observation of this excellent wri- ter has more propriety in it now, than it had at the time it was made ; for the constitution and the constituent parts of water appear in some mea- sure to have been lately discovered ; yet it does 2 ' 3 NATURAL THEOLOGY. not, I think, appear, that we can make any better or greater use of water since the discovery than we did before it. We can never think of the elements, without reflecting upon the number of distinct uses which are consolidated in the same substance. The air supplies the lungs, supports fire, conveys sound, reflects light, diffuses smells, gives rain, wafts ships, bears up birds. 'E| utJaroj ra -ravra : water, besides maintaining its own inhabitants, is the universal nourisher of plants, and through them of terrestrial animals ; is the basis of tlieir juices and fluids ; dilutes their food ; quenches their thirst; floats their burdens. Fire warms, dis- solves, enlightens : is the great promoter of vege- tation and life, if not necessary to the support of both. We might enlarge, to almost any length we please, upon each of these uses ; but it appears to me almost sufficient to state them. The few re- marks, which I judge it necessary to add, are as follow : — I. Air is essentially diflferent from earth. There appears to be no necessity for an atmosphere's in- vesting our globe ; yet it does invest it : and we see how many, how various, and how important are the purposes which it answers to every order of animated, not to say of organized, beings, which are placed upon the terrestrial surface. I think that every one of these uses will be understood upon the first mention of them, except it be that NATURAL THEOLOGY. 3 of reflecting light, which may be explained thus : — If I had the power of seeing only by means of rays coming directly from the sun, whenever I turned my back upon the luminary, I should find myself in darkness. If I had the power of seeing by reflected light, yet by means only of light re- flected from solid masses, these masses would shine indeed, and glisten, but it would be in the dark. The hemisphere, the sky, the world, could only be illuminated, as it is illuminated, by the light of the sun being from all sides, and in every direction, reflected to the eye, by particles, as nu- merous, as thickly scattered, and as widely dif- fused, as are those of the air. Another general quality of the atmosphere is the power of evaporating fluids. The adjustment of this quality to our use is seen in its action upon the sea. In the sea, water and salt are mixed to- gether most intimately; yet the atmosphere raises the water, and leaves the salt. Pure and fresh as drops of rain descend, they are collected from brine. If evaporation be solution, (which seems to be probable,) then the air dissolves the water, and not the salt. Upon whatever it be founded, the distinction is critical : so much so, that when we attempt to imitate the process by art, we must regulate our distillation with great care and nicety, or, together with the water, we get the bitterness, or at least the distastefulness, of the marine substance ; — and, after all, it is owing to this original elective power in the air, that we can * NATURAL THEOLOGY. effect the separation which we wish, by any art or means whatever. By evaporation, water is carried up into the air ; by the converse of evaporation, it falls down upon the earth. And how does it fall ? Not by the clouds being all at once re-converted into wa- ter, and descending like a sheet ; not in rushing down in columns from a spout ; but in moderate drops, as from a colander. Our watering-pots are made to imitate showers of rain. Yet, a priori, I should have thought either of the two former methods more likely to have taken place than the last. By respiration, flame, putrefaction, air is ren- dered unfit for the support of animal life. By the constant operation of these corrupting principles, the whole atmosphere, if there were no restoring causes, would come at length to be deprived of its necessary degree of purity. Some of these causes seem to have been discovered, and their efficacy ascertained by experiment ; and so far as the dis- covery has proceeded, it opens to us a beautiful and a wonderful economy. Vegetation proves to be one of them. A sprig of mint, corked up with a small portion of foul air, placed in the light, ren- ders it again capable of supporting light or flame. Here, therefore, is a constant circulation of bene- fits maintained between the two great provinces of organized nature. The plant purifies what the animal has poisoned ; in return, the contaminated NATURAL THEOLOGY. air is more than ordinarily nutritious to the plant/ Agitation with water turns out to be another of these restoratives. The foulest air, shaken in a bottle with water for a sufficient length of time, ^ The experiments of Priestley, confirmed by those of Ingen- houz and Saussure, led to the conclusion that the air is kept pnre by the action of plants, these emitting more oxygen gas by day than carbonic acid gas by night. Some doubt was thrown upon this point by the experiments of Mr. Ellis ; but these appear to have been removed by Sir H. Davy's remarks and experiments. It seems probable that the plant, growing in the light, decomposes both the carbonic acid which exists, though in a very small pro- portion, in the atmosphere, and also any that may exist in the wa- ter applied to its leaves ; for Sennebier found that when these are immersed in water impregnated with carbonic acid, oxygen gas was evolved, but not if water was used which had been boiled. The process of vegetation appears to be the great means of sup- plying the loss of oxygen in the atmosphere ; indeed, none other have been as yet discovered. The composition of the atmosphere, in respect of purity, though at one time supposed to vary in dif- ferent places, is now ascertained to be every where invariably the same. It contains about 20 parts of oxygen gas, by measure, in 100, and the remaining 80 are almost entirely nitrogen gas. The only variation is in the slight portion of carbonic acid gas, which never exceeds 1 in 100, and is seldom more .than I in 1000, sup- posing the circulation of the air to be unconfined. But the pro- portion of oxygen to the whole bulk has been found to be the same at nearly 22,000 feet high, and in the deepest valleys ; the same in countries widely remote from each other, and differing in cli- mate as well as soil ; the same in the most pestilential marshes, or in hospitals, and in the most open and healthy situations. The agitation of the air by winds speedily mixes all its strata, and pre- vents the effects of breathing and burning from being perceived. Yet a constant consumption of oxygen is going on, wherever there are either living creatures of the hot-blooded class, or fires of any kind, natural or artificial ; and this is so balanced by the pro- 2* 6 NATURAL THEOLOGY. recovers a great degree of its purity.^ Here then again, allowing for the scale upon which nature works, we see the salutary effects of storms and tempests. The yesty waves which confound the heaven and the sea, are doing the very thing which was done in the bottle. Nothing can be of greater importance to the living creation, than the salubrity of their atmosphere. It ought to recon- cile us, therefore, to these agitations of the ele- ments, of which we sometimes deplore the conse- ces3 of vegetation, that the uniformity of the air's composition is maintained universally. The union in which the oxygenous and nitrogenous portions of the atmosphere exist, also merits attention. It is ascertained to be of a peculiar kind ; for it is not merely that of mechanical ad- mixture,—the union of aggregation, — inasmuch as the nitrogen gas, being about a seventh part Ughter than the oxygen, would rise to the top, and so make the air of higher elevations more pure, contrary to the fact. , Nor is it hke most other chemical unions, inasmuch as it is both extremely feeble, and is formed without any diminution in the bulk of the two substances combined together. But the kind of union in which tlie two gases are held is produc- tive of the most beneficial effects. Their disengagement from each other is so easily accomplished, that there is the greatest fa- cility in supporting flame and respiration ; while their mixture is so perfect, that the mischiefs are prevented which would arise from their being exhibited either to the lungs or to heated bodies in their pure state. * That agitation with water will remove certain impurities in the air is undeniable, but not all impurities. Animals by breathing consume the oxygen, leaving carbonic acid gas and nitrogen gas. Water absorbs the former easily, and bulk for bulk ; but of the lat- ter it will only absorb 1^ per cent. So of the products of putre- faction, (beside carbonic acid,) carburettcd hydrogen, and sulphu- retted hydrogen gases, water will absorb of the latter bulk for bulk ; but not above If per cent of the former. NATURAL THEOLOGY. 7 quences, to know that they tend powerfully to restore to the air that purity which so many causes are constantly impairing. II. In Water, what ought not a little to be ad- mired, are those negative quahties which consti- tute its purity. Had it been vinous, or oleaginous, or acid ; had the sea been filled, or the rivers flowed, with wine or milk, fish, constituted as they are, must have died ; plants, constituted as they are, would have withered ; the lives of animals which feed upon plants must have perished. Its very insipidity^ which is one of those negative qualities, renders it the best of all menstrua. Having no taste of its own, it becomes the sincere vehicle of every other. Had there been a taste in water, be it what it might, it would have infect- ed every thing we ate or drank, with an importu- nate repetition of the same flavour. Another thing in this element, not less to be ad- mired, is the constant round which it travels ; and by which, without suffering either adulteration or waste, it is continually oflering itself to the wants of the habitable globe. From the sea are exhaled those vapours v/hich form the clouds : these clouds descend in showers, which penetrating into the crevices of the hills, supply springs ; which springs flow in little streams into the valleys; and there uniting, become rivers 4 which rivers, in return, feed the ocean. So there is an incessant circula- tion of the same fluid ; and not one drop probably mor€ or less now than there was at the creation. 8 NATURAL THEOLOGY. A particle of water takes its departure from the surface of the sea, in order to fulfil certain impor- tant offices to the earth : and having executed the service which was assigned to it, returns to the bosom which it left. Some have thought that we have too much water upon the globe, the sea occupying above three-quarters of its whole surface. But the ex- panse of ocean, immense as it is, may be no more than sufficient to fertilize the earth. Or, inde- pendently of this reason, I know not why the sea may not have as good a right to its place as the land. It may proportionably support as many inhabitants; minister to as large an aggregate of enjoyment. The land only affi)rds a habitable surface ; the sea is habitable to a great depth. III. Of Fire, we have said that it dissolves. The only idea probably which this term raised in the reader's mind, was that of fire melting me- tals, resins, and some other substances, fluxing ores, running glass, and assisting us in many of our operations, chemical or culinary. Now these are only uses of an occasional kind, and give us a very imperfect notion of what fire does for us. The grand importance of this dissolving power, the great office indeed of fire in the economy of nature, is keeping things in a state of solution — that is to say, in a state of fluidity. Were it not for the presence of heat, or of a certain degree of it, all fluids would be frozen. The ocean itself would be a quarry of ice ; universal nature stiff' and dead. NATURAL THEOLOGY. \) We see, therefore, that the elements bear not only a strict relation to the constitution of organ- ized bodies, but a relation to each other. Water could not perform its office to the earth without air ; nor exist, as water, without fire.^ IV. Of Light (whether we regard it as of the same substance with fire, or as a different sub- stance,) it is altogether superfluous to expatiate upon the use. No man disputes it. The observa- tions, therefore, which I shall offer, respect that little which we seem to know^ of its constitution. Light travels from the sun at the rate of twelve millions of miles in a minute. Urged by such a velocity, with what fo7^ce must its particles drive against (I will not say the eye, the tenderest of animal substances, but) every substance, animate or inanimate, which stands in its way ! It might: ' The conducting powers of different substances are beautifully adapted to the wants of the animal and vegetable kingdom. Snow is so bad a conductor, that it protects the ground effectu- ally in rigorous climates. It is said that in Siberia there have been known to be as many as 38 degrees (Fahrenheit) of differ- ence between the temperature of the air and that of the ground under the snow ; the latter not being cooled much below the free- zing point. So, too, the animal which, transported to warmer climates, becomes covered with hair, has in its own cold country a woolly covering, and this conducts heat so slowly as to accu- mulate that M'hich respiration is continually producing. The peculiarity which distinguishes water from other fluids in freezing, likewise merits attention. It expands, instead of contin- uing to contract, when cooled to the freezing point ; and this has the useful effect of crumbling earth and even rocks, so as to render them fit for assisting the process of vegetation. 10 NATURAL THEOLOGY. seem to be a force sufficient to shatter to atoms the hardest bodies. How then is this effect, the consequence of such prodigious velocity, guarded against? By a proportionable minuteness of the particles of which light is composed. It is impossible for the human mind to imagine to itself any thing so small as a particle of light. But tliis extreme exility, though difficult to conceive, it is easy to prove. A drop of tallow, expended in the wick of a farthing can- dle, shall send forth rays sufficient to fill a hemis- phere of a mile diameter ; and to fill it so full of these rays, that an aperture not larger than the pupil of an eye, w^herever it be placed within the hemisphere, shall be sure to receive some of them. What floods of light are continually poured from the sun, we cannot estimate ; but the immensity of the sphere which is filled with particles, even if it reached no further than the orbit of the earth, we can in some sort compute ; and we have reason to believe, that, throughout this whole region, the particles of light lie, in latitude at least, near to one another. The spissitude of the sun's rays at the earth is such, that the number which falls upon a burning-glass of an inch diameter, is sufficient, when concentrated, to set wood on fire. The tenuity and the velocity of particles of light, as ascertained by separate observations may be said to be proportioned to each other, both surpass- ing our utmost stretch of comprehension ; but pro- portioned. And it is this proportion alone which NATURAL THEOLOGY. 11 converts a tremendous element into a welcome visiter. It has been observed to me by a learned friend, as haviniv often struck his mind, that, if light had been made by a common artist, it would have been of one uniform colour : whereas by its pre- sent composition, we have that variety of colours which is of such infinite use to us for the distin- guishing of objects ; which adds so much to the beauty of the earth, and augments the stock of our innocent pleasures. With which may be joined another reflection, viz. — that, considering light as compounded of rays of seven different colours (of which there can be no doubt, because it can be resolved into these rays by simply passing it through a prism,) the constituent part must be well mixed and blended together, to produce a fluid so clear and colour- less, as a beam of light is, when received from the sun.'' '* The substitution of the undulatory for the atomic theory of Hght would produce no alteration whatever in the author's con- clusions ; and, so far from diminishing, would rather increase the astonishment which the phenomena of Optics are calculated to excite. The same may be said of the discoveries made partly since Dr. Paley's time, partly immediately before the composition of his work, of the two other kinds of rays which accompany those of light ; the calorific, or heat-making, which partly mix with the colorific, or colour-making, of the spectrum, and partly fall beyond the least refrangible rays ; and the chemical, which affect certain metalic salts, without either producing illumination or exciting heat, and which are to be found among and beyond 12 NATURAL THEOLOGY. the most rcfraniriblc rays: So that a beam of white li;^ht consists of three kinds of ray, and one of these kinds consists of seven subdivisions, at least according to the Newtonian theory, which divides the colours into seven instead of innumerable gradations of sliades. NATURAL THEOLOGY. 13 CHAPTER XXII. ASTRONOMY.* My opinion of Astronomy has always been that it is not the best medium through which to prove the agency of an intelHgent Creator ; but that, this being proved, it shows, beyond all other sci- ences, the magnificence of his operations. The mind which is once convinced, it raises to sub- limer views of the Deity than any other subject affords ; but it is not so well adapted as some oth- er subjects are to the purpose of argument. We are destitute of the means of examining the con- stitution of the heavenly bodies. The very simpli- city of their appearance is against them. We see nothing but bright points, luminous circles, or the phases of spheres reflecting the light which falls upon them. Now we deduce design from rela- tion, aptitude, and correspondence o^ parts. Some * For the articles of this chapter marked with an asterisk, I am indebted to some obhging communications received (through the hands of the Lord Bishop of Elphin,) from the Rev. J. Brinkley, M. A., Andrew's Professor of Astronomy in the University of DubUn. — {J^ote of the Jluthor.) — [Professor Brinkley was after- wards, as is well known. Bishop of Cloyne. His lordship, upon being made acquainted with the plan of the present publication, kindly communicated the notes now added, and which are marked with his name.] 3 14 NATURAL THEOLOGY. degree, therefore, of complexity is necessary to render a subject fit for this species of argument. But the heavenly bodies do not, except perhaps in tlie instance of Saturn's ring, present them- selves to our observation as compounded of parts at all. This, which may be a perfection in them, is a disadvantage to us, as inquirers after their na- ture. They do not come within our mechanics. And what we say of their forms is true of their inotions. Their motions are carried on without any sensible intermediate apparatus ; whereby we are cut off from one principal ground of argu- mentation — analogy. We have nothing where- with to compare them ; no invention, no discovery, no operation or resource of art, which, in this re- spect, resembles them. Even those things which are made to imitate and represent them — such as orreries, planetaria, celestial globes, &c., bear no affinity to them, in the cause and principle by which their motions are actuated. I can assign for this difference a reason of utility — viz., area- son why, though the action of terrestrial bodies upon each other be, in almost all cases, through the intervention of solid or fluid substances, yet central attraction does not operate in this manner. It was necessary that the intervals between the planetary orbs should be devoid of any inert mat- ter, either fluid or solid, because such an interve- ning substance would, by its resistance, destroy those very motions, w^hich attraction is employed to preserve. This may be a final cause of the NATURAL THEOLOGY. 15 difference; but still the difference destroys the analogy. Our ignorance, moreover, of the sensitive na- tures, by which other planets are inhabited, neces- sarily keeps from us the knowledge of number- less utilities, relations, and subserviences, which we perceive Upon our own globe. After all; the real subject of admiration is, that we understand so much of astronomy as we do. That an animal confined to the surface of one of the planets ; bearing a less proportion to it than the smallest microscopic insect does to the plant it lives upon: that this little, busy, inquisitive crea- ture, by the use of senses which were given to it for its domestic necessities, and by means of the assistance of those senses which it has had the art to procure, should have been enabled to observe the whole system of worlds to which its own be- longs; the changes of place of the immense globes which compose it ; and with such accuracy as to mark out beforehand the situation in the heavens in which they will be found at any future point of time ; and that these bodies, after sailing through regions of void and trackless space, should arrive at the place where they were expected, not within a minute, but within a few seconds of a minute, of the time prefixed and predicted : all this is won- derful, whether we refer our admiration to the constancy of the heavenly motions themselves, or to the perspicacity and precision with which they have been noticed by jmankind. Nor is this the 16 NATURAL THEOLOGY. whole, nor indeed the chief part, of what astronomy teaches. By bringing reason to bear upon obser- vation, (the acutest reasoning upon the exactest ob- servation,) the astronomer has been able, out of the "mystic dance," and the confusion (for such it is,) under which the motions of the heavenly bodies present themselves to the eye of a mere gazer upon the skies, to elicit their order and their real paths. Our knowledge, therefore, of astronomy is ad- mirable, though imperfect; and, amidst the con- fessed desiderata and desideranda, which impede our investigation of the wisdom of the Deity in these the grandest of his works, there are to be found, in the phenomena, ascertained circum- stances and laws, sufficient to indicate an intellec- tual agency in three of its principal operations, viz. in choosing, in determining, in regulating; in choosing, out of a boundless variety of suppo- sitions which were equally possible, that which is beneficial ; in determining, what, left to itself, had a thousand chances against conveniency, for one in its favour ; in regulating subjects, as to quanti- ty and degree, which, by their nature, were un- limited with respect to either. It will be our business to offer, under each of these heads, a NATURAL THEOLOGY 17 few instances, such as best admit of a popular explication.' "v/i'^'^^i^S?'''- '^^'^' IS, liKiiig the I. Amongst proofs of choice, one source of light and heat in the centre of the sys- tem. The sun is ignited and luminous; the pla- nets, which move round him, are cold and dark. There seems to be no antecedent necessity for ^ This cut represents a telescopic view of the Svui, showing some of the remarkable spots which have occasionally appeared on its surface, the largest sometimes exceeding the size of the whole Earth. Astronomers by closely observing the motion which these spots have across the Sun's disc, and the perspective changes which they undergo in assuming a foreshortened, or oval form, as they approach his edge, previous to their disappearance, have greatly assisted the reasoning, which proves his form to be sphe- rical, and that he has a rotation on his axis. 3* 18 NATURAL THEOLOGY. tjws order. The sun might have been an opaque mass ; some one, or two, or more, or any, or all , the planets, globes of fire. There is nothing in the nature of the heavenly bodies which require s that those which are stationary should be on. fire , that those which move should be cold ; for, in fact, comets are bodies on fire, or at least capable of the most intense heat, yet revolve round a centre : nor docs this order obtain between the primary planets and their secondaries, which are all opaque. When we consider, therefore, that the sun is one : that the planets going round it are, at least, seven ; that it is in difterent to their nature which are lu- minous and which are opaque : and also in what order, with respect to each other, these two kinds of bpdies are disposed ; we may judge of the im- probability of the present arrangement taking place by chance. If, by way of accounting for the state in which we find the solar system, it be alleged (and this is one amongst the guesses of those who reject an intelligent Creator,) that the planets themselves are only cooled or cooling masses, and were once, like the sun, many thousand times hotter than red hot iron ; then it follows, that the sun also himself must be in his progress towards growing cold ; which puts an end to the possibility of his iiaving existed, as he is, from eternity. This consequence arises out of the hypothesis with still more cer- tainty, if we make a part of it, what the philoso- phers who maintain it iiave usually taught, that the NATURAL THEOLOGY. 19 planets were originally masses of matter, struck off in a state of fusion, from the body of the sun, by the percussion of a comet, or by a shock from some other cause, with which we are not acquaint- ed : for, if these masses, partaking of the nature and substance of the sun's body, have in process of time lost their heat, that body itself, in time likewise, no matter in how^ much longer time, must lose its heat also, and therefore be incapable of an eternal duration in the state in which we see it, either for the time to come, or the time past. The preference of the present to any other mode of distributing luminous and opaque bodies, I take to be evident. It requires more astronomy than I am able to lay before the reader to show, in its particulars, w^hat would be the effect to the system, of a dark body at the centre and one of the planets being luminous : but I think it manifest, without either plates or calculation, first, that sup- posing the necessary proportion of magnitude be- tween the central and the revolving bodies to be preserved, the ignited planet would not be suffi- cient to illuminate and warm the rest of the sys- tem ; secondly, that its light and heat would be im- parted to the other planets much more irregularly 20 NATURAL THEOLOGY. than liglit and lieat are now received from the sun/ 6 This cut reprcf^ents the four great planets, as seen through telescopes of considerable powers. Each planet is niaikcd by the .symbol which astronomers have for ages been accustcmed to use. ^ is Saturn with his two rings; which are huge bodies, the larger having a diameter more than 25 times that of our earth, or above 200,000 miles, and li^oving with prodigious swiftness round the planet. The seven satellites, or moons, are not represented. If is Jupiter with his spots or belts ; his four moons are not repre- sented. Both Saturn and Jupiter are, like our earth, flattened at the poles, instead of being perfect spheres, owing to their rotatory motion on their axes. ^ is Mars, with his singularly-formed spots, and reddish light at his poles. ? is two figures of Venus, NATURAL THEOLOGY. 21 (*) II. Another thing, in which a choice appears to be exercised, and in which, amongst the possi- bilities out of which the choice was to be made, the number of those which were wrong bore an infinite proportion to the number of those which were right, is in what geometricians call the axis of rotation. This matter I will endeavour to ex- plain. The earth, it is well known, is not an exact globe, but an oblate spheroid, something like an orange. Now the axes of rotation, or the diame- ters upon which such a body may be made to turn round, are as many as can be drawn through its centre to opposite points upon its whole surface ; but of these axes none are ijermanent, except either its shortest diameter, i. e. that which passes through the heart of the orange from the place where the stalk is inserted into it, and which is but one ; or its longest diameters, at right angles with the for- mer, which must all terminate in the single circum- ference which goes round the thickest part of the orange. The shortest diameter is that upon which in fact the earth turns, and it is, as the reader sees, what it ought to be, a permanent axis ; whereas, had blind chance, had a casual impulse, had a stroke or push at random, set the earth a-spinning, as she is seen in different positions ; one a half-moon, and in the other hke a crescent. Tliese appearances are called phases, from the Greek, and she is the brightest of all the planets. The bulk. of Jupiter is 1281 times greater than that of the Earth, of Saturn 995 times ; while that of Venus is nine-tenths, and that of Mars one half the Earth's bulk. The bulk of the Sun itself is 1,367,000 limes that of the earth. 22 NATURAL THEOLOGY. the odds were infinite but that they had sent it round upon a wrong axis. And what would have been the consequence? The dift'erence between a permanent axis and another axis is this : When a spheroid in a state of rotatory motion gets upon a permanent axis, it keeps there ; it remains steady and faithful to its position: its poles preserve their direction with respect to the plane and to the centre of its orbit: but, whilst it lurns upon an axis which is not permanent, (and the number of those we have seen infinitely exceeds the number of the other,) it is always liable to shift and vacillate from one axis to another, with a corresponding change in the inclination of its poles. Therefore, if a planet once set off revolving upon any other than its shortest, or one of its longest axes, the poles on its surface would keep perpetually changing, and it never would attain a permanent axis of rotation. The effect of this unfixedness and instability would be, that the equatorial parts of the earth might become the polar, or the polar the equatorial ; to the utter destruction of plants and animals, which are not capable of interchanging their situations, but are respectively adapted to their own. As to ourselves, instead of rejoicing in our temperate zone, and annually preparing for the moderate vicissitude, or rather the agreeable succession, of seasons, which we experience and expect, we might come to be locked up in the ice and dark- ness of the arctic circle, with bodies neither inured to its rigours, nor provided with shelter or defence NATURAL THEOLOGY. 23 against them. Nor would it be much better, if the trepidation of our pole, taking an opposite course, should place us under the heats of a vertical sun. But if it would fare so ill with the human inhabi- tant, who can live under greater varieties of lati- tude than any other animal ; still more noxious would this translation of climate have proved to life in the rest of the creation ; and, most perhaps of all, in plants. The habitable earth, and its beau- tiful variety, might have been destroyed by a sim- ple mischance in the axis of rotation.' '' (Note of Bishop Brinkley.) Either the earth was ereated a soUd, an oblate spheroid, as it now exists, or it must have taken its present form while a soft or fluid mass. In the former case, the argument for design arising from the body revolving on a perma- nent axis of rotation is of the strongest possible nature. But the present extended knoAvledge of geology has rendered it highly probable that the earth was originally an ignited mass in a state of fluidity, ignited to the very surface, and by its rotation in that state took its present form as the result of the mutual attraction of its parts and of its rotatory motion. This must be conceded if we do not admit the choice of a permanent axis of rotation. It is, Iherefore, in the progress through countless ages of the changes on the surface, from the chaotic or primary formation of the geo- logists to the most interesting state of the surface as it now exists, that we trace the endless arguments for design. However diffi- cult at first sight to be explained, these changes will, when under- stood, show one uniform system, in which all things work toge- ther for good. If we consider the state of the surface before its cooling in a great degree, it must have been wholly unfitted for animal and vegetable life. The admission of this state necessarily lets in the posterior and successive creation of vegetables and animals. From the vestiges which remain we may conclude, with the highest de- gree of probability, that for a very long period the surface was 24 NATURAL THEOLOGY. (*) III. All this, however, proceeds upon a sup- position of the earth having been formed at first an oblate spheroid. There is another supposition ; only adapted for vegetables and the lowest description of animal life; afterwards for animals of an amphibious nature, and such as could exist only on the marshy shores of lakes, or in places occa- sionally covered with water. By degrees this state of the surface gave way to others more fitted for a further supply of animals to he created. The principal origin of these changes appears to have been provided in the powers attached to the substances, of what- ever nature they may be, existing in the interior of the earth ; but these powers have been merely mechanical, and could not origi- nate organized vegetables and animals. The class of changes at the surface, constituting the tertiary formations of the geologist, appear to have been that which was followed by the introduction of a great variety of large animals, many of which are now ex- tinct. The surface was still to be further improved by making it fitted for a wide extension of animals and of their food. Tliis has been done by the means afforded for the extension and spreading of allu\ial matter, so admirably adapted for the growth of plants, and therefore for the existence of animal life. The changes of surface which have been alluded to are all parts of the same design. Between the succeseive changes great intervals appear to have elapsed. The imagination is able to form no conception of the leugth of time since the chaotic state began to change. Notwithstanding the time that must have existed between each change, one uniform plan can be discerned. The animals which wc must admit to have been successively created, show, by their organization, the same Creator. Thus, if we admit the fluid and chaotic state of the earth, (the alternative if we do' not admit an original spheroidal formation,) there cannot be a question as to the powerful arguments to be derived from the change on the surface and its series of organized beings. Indeed, if the matter be well considered, it will appear to many that the most conclusive argu- ments for design and contimied superintendence may be deduced from the researches of the modern geologists. — See Second Note to Chap XXV. infra. NATURAL THEOLOGY. 25 and perhaps our limitted information will not enable us to decide between them. The second suppo- sition is, that the earth, being a mixed mass some- what fluid, took, as it might do, its present form, by the joint action of the mutual gravitation of its parts and its rotatory motion. This, as we have said, is a point in the history of the earth, which our observations are not sufficient to determine. For a very small depth below the surface, (but ex- tremely small — less, perhaps, than an eight thou- sandth part, compared with the depth of the centre,) we find vestiges of ancient fluidity. But this fluidity must have gone down many hundred times further than we can penetrate, to enable the earth to take its present oblate form ; and whether any traces of this kind exist to that depth we are ignorant. Calculations were made a few years ago of the mean density of the earth, by compar- ing the force of its attraction with the force of at- traction of a rock of granite, the bulk of which could be ascertained : and the upshot of the calcu- lation was, that the earth upon an average, through its whole sphere, has twice the density of granite, or above five times that of water. Therefore it cannot be a hollow shell, as some have formerly supposed ; nor can its internal parts be occupied by central fire or by water. The solid parts must greatly exceed the fluid parts : and the probability is, that it is a solid mass throughout, composed of substances more ponderous the deeper we go. Nevertheless, we may conceive the present face 4 26 NATURAL THEOLOGY. of the earth to have originated from the revolu- tion of a sphere covered by a surface of a com- pound mixture ; the fluid and solid parts separat- ing, as the surface becomes quiescent. Here then comes in the moderating hand of the Creator. If the water had exceeded its present proportion, even but by a trifling quantity, compared with the whole globe, all the land would have been cover- ed : had there been much less than there is there would not have been enough to fertilize the con- tinent. Had the exsiccation been progressive, such as we may suppose to have been produced by an evaporating heat, how came it to stop at the point at which we see it ? Why did it not stop sooner? why at all ? The mandate of the Deity will account for this ; nothing else will. IV. Of centripetal forces. By virtue of the simplest law that can be imagined, viz. that a body continues in the state in which it is, whether of motion or rest ; and, if in motion, goes on in the line in which it was proceeding, and w ith the same velocity, unless there be some cause for change : by virtue, I say, of this law, it comes to pass (what may appear to be a strange consequence,) that cases arise, in which attraction, incessantly draw- ing a body towards a centre, never brings, nor ever will bring, the body to that centre, but keep it in eternal circulation round it. If it were pos- sible to fire oft' a cannon-ball with a velocity of five miles in a second, and the resistance of tlie air c 34 NATURAL THEOLOGY. missible and convenient was requisite. In what way is the law of the attracting globes obtained ? xistronomical observations and terrestrial experi- ments show that the attraction of the globes of the system is made up of the attraction of their parts ; the attraction of each globe being com- pounded of the attractions of its parts. Now the admissible and convenient law which exists, could not be obtained in a system of bodies gravitating by the united gravitation of their parts, unless each particle of matter were attracted by a force varying by one particular law, viz. varying in- versely as the square of the distance : for, if the action of the particles be according to any other law whatever, the admissible and convenient law, which is adopted, could not be obtained. Here then are clearly shown regulation and design. A law both admissible and convenient was to be ob- tained ; the mode chosen for obtaining that law^ was by making each particle of matter act. After this choice was made, then further attention was to be given to each particle of matter, and one and one only particular law of action to be as- signed to it. No other law would have answered the purpose intended. (*) 2. All systems must be liable to perturba- tions. And therefore, to guard against these per- turbations, or rather to guard against their run- ning to destructive lengths, is perhaps the strong- est evidence of care and foresight that can be NATURAL THEOLOGY. 35 given. Now, we are able to demonstrate of our law of attraction, what can be demonstrated of no other, and what qualifies the dangers which arise from cross but unavoidable influences ; that the action of the parts of our system upon one another, will not cause permanently increasing irregularities, but merely periodical or vibratory ones ; that is, they will come to a limit, and then go back again. This we can demonstrate only of a system, in which the following properties con- cur, viz. that the force shall be inversely as the square of the distance ; the masses of the revolv- ing bodies small, compared with that of the body at the centre ; the orbits not much inclined to one another ; and their eccentricity little. In such a system, the grand points are secure. The mean distances and periodic times, upon which depend our temperature, and the regularity of our year, are constant. The eccentricities, it is true, will still vary ; but so slowly, and to so small an ex- tent, as to produce no inconveniency from fluctua- tion of temperature and season. The same as to the obliquity of the planes of the orbits. For in- stance, the inclination of the ecliptic to the equa- tor will never change above two degrees, (out of 36 NATURAL THEOLOGY. ninety,) and that will require many thousand years in performing." " This cut represents the oval A B, nearly circular, in which the Earth 0 moves round the Sun O in one of the foci — while the Moon, E, moves round the Earth in a similar curve, E F. These curves vary, (a? do the paths of all the planets and their satellites, becoming more and more bulged, till they bulge out by a certain quantity, GD, so as to be AGB, and then the curve they describe flattens constantly, till it becomes ADB, but never more, in consequence of the four circumstances mentioned in the text. The celebrated proposition of Laplace, respecting the eccentri- cities of the planetary orbits, and their deviation from a nearly cir- cular form, — that upon which the stabihty of the system mainly rests, — may be comprehended by this illustration. Suppose three vessels of different burthen sail from one port to another, and take such courses, that, multiplying the tonnage of each by the square of the deviation in miles which it makes from the straight line, or shortest distance, between the two ports, and adding the three products together, the sum is at every instant of the voyage the same, — say 90 — the vessels being of 10, 22 J and 90 ton* burthens, respectively. It is clear that none of them can ever dc- NATURAL THEOLOGY. 37 It has been rightly also remarked, that, if the great planets, Jupiter and Saturn, had moved in lower spheres, their influences would have had viate beyond a certain distance from the straight course, for the greatest possible deviation would be 3 miles — (the square root of the quotient of 90 divided by the tonnage of the smallest vessel,) — and this supposes neither of the other two to deviate at all ; if they also had their deviations, that would make the smallest ves- sel's deviation so much the less. In hke manner, the second ves- sel never could deviate more than 2, nor the largest more than 1. But these deviations would always be lessened in proportion as the other vessels deviated. If we suppose the three to start from three ports in a straight line from each other, and one port to be 64, another 81, and the third 100 miles from the port of destina- tion, and make the condition to be, that the sums of each vessel's tonnage multiplied by the square of its deviation and the products by the sums 8, 9, and 10, respectively, (the square roots of the distances of the three ports of departure,) shall be always equal to the same number, e. g. 90, — the case will resemble more closely the one we are illustrating ; for the proposition of Laplace is, that the sum of the products of the square roots of the transverse axes of the orbits, multiplied by the squares of the eccentricities and by the masses, is always the same, (M6c. C6L liv. ii. c. 7 and 8, es- pecially s. 57. 6 J.) The case which we have taken, however, is only by way of il- lustration, and does not resemble the one in question as to parti- culars. Moreover, in order that all the three vessels may be able to obey the rule during each part of their course, we must suppose one of them to start from a point on one side of the port, and the same vessel, or another of them, to make a port different from the port of destination. This difficulty would be removed by suppo- sing the condition to be, that the sums of the products should never exceed a certain amount. In the case put it is clear that, practically speaking, no combi- nation among the navigators could make the vessels perform their voyage according to the condition, unless by two of the vessels going in the straight line, and the third in a line parallel to it. 5 38 NATURAL THEOLOGY. much more effect as to disturbing the planetary motions, than they now have. While they revolve at so great distances from the rest, they act almost equally on the sun and on the inferior planets ; Nothing but a principle acting equally on the crews of all the ves- sels, like gravitation, or hke instinct, could keep them to the terms of the rule if they were all to deviate and to vary in their devia- tions. But that insects should, by some such instinct, be able to perform an operation of this kind seems quite possible. Each bee acts in the construction of its cells in this way ; for it keeps to the rule accurately, and it acts in perfect concert with others ; at least it acts so as to produce the effect of concert. The theorem to which we have here alluded, as well as those two similar theorems which make the mean motions and mean longitudes of the three first satelhtes of Jupiter, follow a certain fixed rule, the difference between thrice the motions and longitudes of the second, and the motions and longitudes of the first added to twice those of the third, being an invariable quantity ; (that is, 0 in the case of the motions, and 180 degrees in the case of the lon- gitudes,) are all deducible by strict mathematical reasoning, but from data w^hich are not necessarily true ; for these theorems de- pend,-among other things, upon the motions of revolution through- out the system being in the same direction. Laplace has ex- pressed an opinion, that the relation just mentioned as to Jupiter's satellites was not the same when the motion began, but was es- tablished by the mutual actions of these bodies, which he has shown were sufficient to establish the relation at first, as well as to maintain it afterwards. This may or it may not be; (hat is, it may or it may not be true that those relations were established in the course of the system's action; but no kind of argument arises from hence against the designing power, even if we admit the sup- position of that great mathematician ; for then it would only fol- low that the same principle which was appointed to preserve had also been appointed to create the relation of stability. (See Mic. C6l. liv. ii. c. 8, s. 66; liv. viii. c. 6, s. 15, and c. 10, s. 29. See also Mrs. Somerville's truly profound and admirable work, Me- chanism of the Heavens, b. iv. c. 1, s. 849, et, seq.) NA.TURAL THEOLOGY. 39, which has nearly the same consequence as not acting at all upon either. If it be said, that the planets might have been sent round the sun in exact circles, in which case, no change of distance from the centre taking place, the law of variation of the attracting pow- er would have never come in question, one law would have served as well as another ; an answer to the scheme may be drawn from the considera- tion of these same perturbing forces. The sys- tem retaining in other respects its present consti- tution, though the planets have been at first sent round in exact circular orbits, they could not have kept them ; and if the law of attraction had not been what it is, or at least, if the prevailing law had transgressed the limits above assigned, every evagation would have been fatal ; the planet once drawn, as drawn it necessarily must have been, out of its course, would have wandered in endless '2 (Note of Bishop Brinkley.) Many suppose attraction an emanation, and the law of attraction (the inverse square of the distance,) which exists, to be actually necessary and deducible from equal quantities of the attractive force being spread over each spherical surface surrounding the attractive centre. If this were so, all attracting matter must act according to the same law. This is not the case in many instances that might be adduced. The attraction by which particles of matter adhere together is ob- viously not of this nature. Chemical action furnishes many ex- ceptions to this law. It may, indeed, be said that a polarizing power may be joined to an attractive force acting as above men- tioned. We know very imperfectly, or rather nothing, of the na- ture of this polarization ; but we know it is not extended to theac- 40 NATURAL THEOLOGY. (*) V. What we have seen in the law of the centripetal force, viz. a choice guided by views of utility, and a choice of one law out of thousands which might equally have taken place, we see no less in the figures of the planetary orbits. It was not enough to fix the law of the centripetal force, though by the wisest choice ; for even under that law, it was still competent to the planets to have moved in paths possessing so great a degree of eccentricity, as, in the course of every revolution, to be brought very near to the sun, and carried away to immense distances from him. The comets actually move in orbits of this sort ; and, had the planets done so, instead of going round in orbits nearly circular, the change from one extremity of temperature to another must, in ours at least, have destroyed every animal and plant upon its surface. Now the distance from the centre at which a planet sets off, and the absolute force of attraction at ^ that distance, being fixed, the figure of its orbit, its being a circle, or nearer to, or further off from tions of the sun and planetary masses on each other. Why was it not extended to these ? The simple answer is, that it would not only have been useless, but it would have interfered with the purposes for which these bodies were designed. Thus these great bodies are moved by laws of the utmost simplicity, while their component parts act on each other by a combination of forces of various kinds; which forces appear to act at small dis- tances only, while the forces on which depend the welfare and preservation of our earth and the planets, act through a vast ex- tent of space, and by one simple and uniform law, in which there is no conflicting interference of other actions. NATURAL THEOLOGY, 41 a circle, viz. a rounder or a longer oval, depends upon two things, the velocity with which, and the direction in which, the planet is projected. And these, in order to produce a right result, must be both brought within certain narrow Umits. One, and only one, velocity, united with one, and only one, direction, will produce a perfect circle. And the velocity must be near to this velocity, and the direction also near to this direction, to produce orbits, such as the planetary orbits are, nearly cir- cular ; that is, ellipses with small eccentricities. The velocity and the direction must both be right. If the velocity be wrong, no direction will cure the error; if the direction be in any considerable degree oblique, no velocity will produce the orbit required. Take for example, the attraction of gravity at the surface of the earth. The force of that attraction being what it is, out of all the de- grees of velocity, swift and slow, with which a ball might be shot off, none would answer the purpose of which we are speaking, but what was nearly that of five miles in a second. If it were less than that, the body would not get round at all, but would come to the ground ; if it were in any con- siderable degree more than that, the body would take one of those eccentric courses, those long elhpses, of which we have noticed the inconveni- ency. If the velocity reached the rate of seven miles in a second, or went beyond that, the ball would fly off from the earth, and never be heard of more. In like manner with respect to the di- 5* 42 NATURAL THEOLOGY. rection ; out of the innumerable angles in which the ball might be sent off, (I mean angles formed with a line drawn in the centre,) none would serve but what was nearly a right one ; out of the vari- ous directions in which the cannon might be point- ed, upwards and downwards, every one would fail, but what was exactly or nearly horizontal. The same thing holds true of the planets : of our own amongst the rest. We are entitled therefore to ask, and to urge the question. Why did the pro- jectile velocity and projectile direction of the earth happen to be nearly those which would retain it in a circular form ? Why not one of the infinite number of velocities, one of the infinite number of directions, which would have made it approach much nearer to, or recede much further from, the sun ? The planets going round, all in the same direc- tion, and all nearly in the same plane, aftbrded to Buffon a ground for asserting, that they had all been shivered from the sun by the same stroke of a comet, and by that stroke projected into their present orbits. Now, beside that this is to attri- bute to chance the fortunate concurrence of velo- city and direction which we have been here noti- cing, the h}T^othesis, as I apprehend, is inconsist- ent with the physical laws by which the heavenly motions are governed. If the planets were struck off from the surface of the sun, they would re- turn to the surface of the sun again. Nor will this difficulty be got rid of, by supposing that the NATURAL THEOLOGY. 43 same violent blow which shattered the sun's surface, and separated large fragments from it, pushed the sun himself out of his place ; for, the consequence of this would be that the sun and system of shattered fragments would have a pro- gressive motion, which, indeed, may possibly be the case with our system ; but then each fragment would, in every revolution, return to the surface of the sun again. The hypothesis is also contra- dicted by the vast difference which subsists be- tween the diameters of the planetary orbits. The distance of Saturn from the sun (to say nothing of the Georgium Sidus,) is nearly five-and-twenty times that of Mercury ; a disparity, which it seems impossible to reconcile with BufFon's scheme. Bodies starting from the same place, with what- ever difference of direction or velocity they set off, could not have been found at these different distances from the centre, still retaining their nearly circular orbits. They must have been carried to their proper distances, before they were project- ed.* * "If we suppose the matter of the system to be accumulated in the centre by its gravity, no mechanical principles, with the assistance of this power of gravity, could separate the vast mass into such parts as the sun and planets ; and, after carrying them to their different distances, projected them in their several direc- tions, preserving still the quality of action and re-action, or the state of the centre of gravity of the system. Such an exquisite structure of things could only arise from the contrivance and pow- erful influences of an intelligent, free, and most potent agent. The same powers, therefore, which, at present, govern the mate- 44 NATURAL THEOLOGY. To conclude : In astronomy, the great thing is to raise the imagination to the subject, and that oftentimes in opposition to the impression made upon the senses. An illusion, for example, must be gotten over arising from the distance at which we view the heavenly bodies, viz. the apparent slowness of their motions.'^ The moon shall take *2 This cut represents the coaut of Ibll, the fixed stars being seen through its tail, which extended J 23,000,000 of miles. The period of its revohition is calcuhited at above 3,300 years. The great comet of 1680 was calculated by Sir Isaac Newton to have a tail of 80,000,000 of miles, immediately af er its perihelion, a periodic time of 575 years, and a velocity, when nearest the sun, of 880,000 miles in an hour. Its orbit is so much elongated that its greatest distance from the sun is estimated at near 3,000 mil- lions of miles, and its least at only J 50,000 miles. Halley's comet, which appeared in 1682, 1759, and 1835, — probably also in 1531 rial universe, and conduct its various motions, are very different from those which were necessary to have produced it from nothing, or to have disposed it in the admirable form in which it now pro- ceeds."— JMadaiirbi's Account of J^ewtoiCs Philosophy, p. 407. ed. 3. NATURAL THEOLOGY. 45 some hours in getting half a yard from a star which it touched. A motion so deUberate we may think easily guided. But what is the fact ? The moon, in fact, is, all this while, driving through the hea- vens at the rate of considerably more than two thousand miles in an hour ; which is more than double that with which a ball is shot off from the mouth of a cannon. Yet is this prodigious rapidity as much under government, as if the planet pro- ceeded ever so slowly, or were conducted in its course inch by inch. It is also difficult to bring the imagination to conceive (what yet, to judge tolera- bly of the matter, is necessary to conceive,) how Zoose, if we may so express it ; the heavenly bodies are. Enormous globes, held by nothing, confined by nothing, are turned into free and boundless space, each to seek its course by the virtue of an invisible principle ; but a principle, one, common, and the same in all, and ascertainable. To pre- and 1607, — has a mean distance from the sun of 1,705 miUions of miles, the earth's mean distance being 96,000,000 ; but while the earth's orbit is so nearly circular that the planet's greatest distance is only a thirtieth part more than its smallest, this comet's aphelion (or greatest) distance is above 3,355 millions, and its perihehon (or least) distance only 55 millions, or sixty-one times less. So the transverse (or longer) axis of its orbit is four times the .length of the conjugate (or shorter) axis; whereas the two axes of the earth's orbit differ by only a 7,000th part from one an- other. Most of the planetary orbits are nearly circular also, — . tlmt of Pallas being the most elongated, and in the proportion of only 5 to 3. But the orbits of the comets have every variety of shape as well as size, and their motion the greatest difference in velocity ; yet they appear all to follow the same general laws, — - and these the same by which the planetary motions are governed, 46 NATURAL THEOLOGY. serve such bodies from being lost, from running together in heaps, from hindering and distracting one another's motions, in a degree inconsistent with any continuing order ; h. e. to cause them to form planetary systems, systems that, when form- ed, can be upheld, and, most especially, systems accommodated to the organized and sensitive na- tures, which the planets sustain, as we know to be the case, where alone we can know what the case is, upon our earth : all this requires an intel- ligent interposition, because it can be demonstrat- ed concerning it, that it requires an adjustment of force, distance, direction, and velocity, out of the reach of chance to have produced ; an adjustment, in its view to utiHty, similar to that which we see in ten thousand subjects of nature which are nearer to us, but in power, and in the extent of space through which that power is exerted, stupendous." 1^ (Note of Bishop Brinkley. See Note 9.) Since the publi- cation of Dr. Paley's ' Natural Theology' it has been ascertained that a resisting medium is actually diffused through our system. But it is of so rare a nature, that the planets will not be effected by it for an immense period. The existence of this resisting me- dium has been ascertained by the successive revolutions of the small comet, the orbit of which was first accurately computed by M. Encke, and its indentity verified on several successive returns. We had before a knowledge of the weak action of comets on the planets, and of the consequent smallness of their masses. It was also inferred that they were bodies of small densit}-, and con- sequently would be more sensibly affected in their motions through a resisting medium. This comet was found in 1795 by Miss Her- schel, and observed also by her brother. His account of it, when considered with reference to what has since been ascertained as to the resistance it meets wijh in its course, is remarkable, (vide NATURAL THEOLOGY. 47 But many of the heavenly bodies, as the sun and fixed stars, are stationary. Their rest must be the effect of an absence or of an equihbrium Phil. Trans. 1796, p. 133 :) — " The comet is now centrically on a small star. It is a small telescope star of about the eleventh or twelfth magnitude, and is double, very unequal ; with a power of 287 I can see the smallest of the two stars perfectly well. This shows how little density there is in the comet, which is evidently nothing but what may be called a collection of vapours." This comet is also remarkable for the shortness of its period, about three and a half years, not receding so far from the sun as the planet Jupiter. In the solar system the difference between the two classes of bodies which revolve round the sun, and are retained in their orbits by the solar action, is most marked and distinct. Comets so numerous serve for purposes entirely unknown to us. Indeed, hitherto no probable conjecture has been formed as to those purposes. That they are not the habitations of beings simi- lar to those which exist on the earth is nearly certain. 'J he earth and planets appear wisely adapted, in a variety of ways, for the convenience and preservation of animals and vegetables. The comets are not so adapted. In one case orbits nearly circular were required, in the other they were not required. There is another circumstance in which design appears strongly marked, although we cannot explain the purport of it. The pla- nets appear to be placed at distances from the sun, according to a certain law. This was remarked by professor Bode, and that the law was not complete unless a planet existed between Mars and Jupiter. The new planets were afterwards discovered, each of them circulating between Jupiter and PVlars, at a distance from the sun, conformable to the conjectured law.* The cause of more than one planet being found at this distance has, with some degree of probability, been derived from the hypothesis, that a large pla- net has been shattered into fragments, which fragments are the planets Ceres, Vesta, Pallas, and Juno. That wonderful changes occasionally offer themselves to our notice, as wonderful as the de- struction of a planet, is exemplified in the appearance and disap- pearance of a fixed star. A star suddenly appeared in 1571 of a * See first note to Chap. xxv. infra. 48 NATURAL THEOLOGY. of attractions. It proves also, that a projectile im- pulse was originally given to some of the heaven- ly bodies, and not to others. But further: if attrac- tion act at all distances, there can only be one quiescent centre of gravity in the universe ; and all bodies whatever must be approaching this centre or revolving round it. According to the first of these suppositions, if the duration of the world had been long enough to allow of it, all its parts, all the great bodies of which it is composed, must have been gathered together in a heap round this point. No changes however which have been ob- served, aflbrd us the smallest reason for believing, that either the one supposition or the other is true : and then it will follow, that attraction itself is con- trolled or suspended by a superior agent ; that there is a power above the highest of the powers of material nature ; a will which restrains and cir- cumscribes the operations of the most extensive.* degree of splendour exceeding all the other fixed stars. It was seen during sixteen months, and continually diminished in bright- ness till it disappeared. All the circumstances of it are well at- tested by many astronomers, and others. It remained fixed in one spot of the heavens without changing its place among the stars by any perceptible quantity. Although astronomical instru- ments at that time did not admit of a degree of precision to be compared with those of the present time, yet the observations made on it by several astronomers fully suffice to show that its distance from us must have been at least between 3000 and 4000 times that of the sun from the earth, or 300,000 millions of miles. * It must here, however, be stated, that many astronomers deny that any of the heavenly bodies are absolutely stationary. Some of the brightest of the fixed stars have certainly small motions ; NATURAL THEOLOGY. 49 and of the rest the distance is too great, and the intervals of our observation too short, to enable us to pronounce with certainty that they may not have the same. The motions in the fixed stars which have been observed, are considered either as proper to each of them, or as compounded of the motion of our system, and of motions proper to each star. By a comparison of these motions, a motion in our system is supposed to be discovered. By continu- ing this analogy to other, and to all systems, it is possible to sup- pose that attraction is unlimitted, and that the whole material uni- verse is revolving round some fixed point within its containing sphere or space. — Jfote of the Author. 50 NATURAL THEOLOGY. CHATTER XXIII. OF THE PERSONALITY OF THE DEITY. Contrivance, if established, appears to me to prove every thing which we wish to prove. Amongst other things, it proves the 2)ersonality of the Deity, as distinguished from what is sometimes called nature, sometimes called a principle : which terms, in the mouths of those who use them phi- losophically, seem to be intended, to admit and to express an efficacy, but to exclude and to deny a personal agent. Now that which can contrive, which can design, m.ust be a person. These capa- cities constitute personality, for they imply con- sciousness and thought. They require that which can perceive an end or purpose ; as well as the power of providing means, and directing them to their end.* They require a centre in which per- ceptions unite, and from which volitions flow ; which is mind. The acts of a mind prove the ex- istence of a mind ; ard in whatever a mind resides, is a person. The seat of intellect is a person. We have no authority to limit the properties of mind to any particular corporeal form, or to any particular circumscription of space. These proper- ties subsist, in created nature, under a great variety ♦Priestley's LetUis to a riiilosophicul Unbeliever, p. 153, ed. 2. NATURAL THEOLOGY. 51 (jf sensible forms. Also every animated being has its sensorium ; that is, a certain portion of space, within which perception and vohtion are exerted. This sphere may be enlarged to an indefinite ex- tent ; may comprehend the universe ; and, being so imagined, may serve to furnish us with as good a notion, as we are capable of forming, of the im- mensity of the Divine Nature, i. e. of a divine Be- ing, infinite, as well in essence as in power; yet nevertheless a person. " No man hath seen God at any time." And this, I believe, makes the great difficulty. Now it is a difficulty which chiefly arises from our not duly estimating the state of our faculties. The Deity, it is true, is the object of none of our senses : but reflect what limitted capacities animal senses are. Many animals seem to have but one sense, or perhaps two at the most ; touch and taste. Ought such an animal to conclude against the ex- istence of odours, sounds, and colours ? To ano- ther species is given the sense of smelling. This is an advance in the knowledge of the powers and properties of nature : but, if this favoured animal should infer from its superiority over the class last described, that it perceived every thing which was perceptible in nature, it is known to us, though perhaps not suspected by the animal itself, that it proceeded upon a false and presumtuous estimate of its faculties. To another is added the sense of hearing; which lets in a class of sensations entirely unconceived by the animal before spoken 52 NATURAL THEOLOGY. of; not only distinct, but remote from any which ?t had ever experienced, and greatly superior to them. Yet this last animal has no more ground for believing that its senses comprehend all things, and all properties of things, which exist, than might have been claimed by the tribes of animals beneath it ; for we know that it is still possible to possess another sense, that of sight, which shall disclose to the percipient a new world. This fifth sense makes the animal what the human animal is : but to infer that possibility stops here ; that either this fifth sense is the last sense, or that the five comprehend all existence, — is just as unwar- rantable a conclusion as that which might have been made by any of the different species which possessed fewer, or even by that, if such there be, which possessed only one. The conclusion of the one-sense animal, and the conclusion of the five- sense animal, stand upon the same authority. There may be more and other senses than those which we have. There may be senses suited to the perception of the powers, properties, and sub- stance, of spirits. These may belong to higher orders of rational agents; for there is not the smallest reason for supposing that we are the highest, or that the scale of creation stops with us. The great energies of nature are known to us only by their eflects. The substances which pro- duce them are as much concealed from our senses as the Divine essence itself. Gravitation, though constantly present, though constantly exerting its NATURAL THEOLOGY. 53 influence, though every where around us, near us, and within us ; though diffused throughout all space, and penetrating the texture of all bodies with which we are acquainted, depends, if upon a fluid, upon a fluid which, though both powerful and universal in its operation, is no object of sense to us ; if upon any other kind of substance or ac- tion, upon a substance and action from which we receive no distinguishable impressions. Is it then to be wondered at that it should, in some measure, be the same with the Divine nature ? Of this, however, we are certain, that whatever the Deity be, neither the universe, nor any part of it which we see, can be He. The universe itself is merely a collective name : its parts are all which are real ; or which are things. Now inert matter is out of the question ; and organized substances in- clude marks of contrivance. But whatever in- cludes marks of contrivance, whatever, in its con- stitution, testifies design, necessarily carries us to something beyond itself, to some other being, to a designer prior to, and out of itself No animal, for instance, can have contrived its own limbs and senses: can have been the author to itself of the design with which they were constructed. That supposition involves all the absurdity of self-crea- tion, i. e. of acting without existing. Nothing can be God, which is ordered by a wisdom and a will, which itself is void of ; which is indebted for any of its properties to contrivance ah extra. The not having that in his nature which requires the exer- 6* 54 NATURAL THEOLOGY. tion of another priorbeing (which property is some- times called self-sufficiency, and sometimes self- comprehension,) appertains to the Deity, as his essential distinction, and removes his nature from that of all things which w^e see : w^hich conside- ration contains the answer to a question that has sometimes been asked, namely. Why, since some- thing or other must have existed from eternity, may not the present universe be that something? The contrivance perceived in it proves that to be impossible. Nothing contrived can, in a strict and • proper sense, be eternal, forasmuch as the con- triver must have existed before the contrivance. Wherever we see marks of contrivance, we are led for its cause to an intelligent author. And this transition of the understanding is founded upon uniform experience. We see intelligence constantly contriving ; that is, we see intelligence constantly producing effects, marked and distin- guished by certain properties ; not certain parti- cular properties, but by a kind and class of proper- ties, such as relation to an end, relation of parts to one another, and to a common purpose. We see, wherever we are witnesses to the actual formation of things, nothing except intelligence producing effects so marked and distinguished. Furnished with this experience, we view the productions of nature. We observe them also marked and dis- tinguished in the same manner. We wish to ac- count for their origin. Our experience suggests a cause perfectly adequate to this account. No NATURAL THEOLOGY. 55 experience, no single instance or example, can be offered in favour of any other. In this cause, therefore, we ought to rest : in this cause, the common sense of mankind has, in fact, rested, be- cause it agrees with that, which, in all cases, is the foundation of knowledge, — the undeviating course of their experience. The reasoning is the same as that, by which we conclude any ancient ap- pearances to have been the effects of volcanoes or inundations ; namely, because they resemble the effects which fire and water produce before our eyes ; and because we have never known these efiects to result from any other operation. And this resemblance may subsist in so many circumstances, as not to leave us under the small- est doubt in forming our opinion. Men are not deceived by this reasoning : for whenever it hap- pens, as it sometimes does happen, that the truth comes to be known by direct information, it turns out to be what was expected. In like manner, and upon the same foundation, (which in truth is that of experience,) we conclude that the works of nature proceed from intelHgence and design; be- cause, in the properties of relation to a purpose, subserviency to a use, they resemble what intelH- gence and design are constantly producing, and what nothing except intelligence and design ever produce at all. Of every argument, which would raise a question as to the safety of this reasoning, it may be observed, that if such argument be listened to, it leads to the inference, not only that 56 NATURAL THEOLOGY. the present order of nature is insufficient to prove the existence of an intelligent Creator, but that no imaginable order would be sufficient to prove it ; that 710 contrivance, were it ever so mechanical, ever so precise, ever so clear, ever so perfectly like those which we ourselves employ, would sup- port this conclusion — a doctrine, to which I con- ceive no sound mind can assent. The force, however, of the reasoning is some- times sunk by our taking up with mere names. We have already noticed,* and we must here no- tice again, the misapphcation of the term "law," and the mistake concerning the idea which that term expresses in physics, whenever such idea is made to take the place of power, and still more of an intelligent power, and, as such, to be assigned for the cause of any thing, or of any property of any thing, that exists. This is what we are se- cretly apt to do, when we speak of organized bodies (plants, for instance, or animals,) owing their production, their form, their growth, their quali- ties, their beauty, their use, to any law or laws of nature ; and when we are contented to sit down with that answer to our inquiries concerning them. I say once more, that it is a perversion of language to assign any law, as the efficient, operative cause of any thing. A law pre-supposes an agent, for it only is the mode according to which an agent pro- ceeds ; it implies a power, for it is the order ac- ♦ Ch. I. sect. vii. NATURAL THEOLOGY. 57 cording to which that power acts. Without this agent, without this power, which are both distinct from itself, the " law" does nothing ; is nothing. What has been said concerning "law," holds true oi mechanism. Mechanism is not itself power. Mechanism without power, can do nothing. Let a watch be contrived and constructed ever so in- geniously ; be its parts ever so many, ever so com- plicated, ever so finely wrought or artificially put together, it cannot go without a weight or spring, i. €, without a force independent of^ and ulterior to, its mechanism. The spring acting at the cen- tre, will produce different motions and different results, according to the variety of the intermedi- ate mechanism. One and the self-same spring, acting in one and the same manner, viz, by simply expanding itself, may be the cause of a hundred different and all useful movements, if a hundred different and well-devised sets of wheels be placed between it and the final effect: e. g, may point out the hour of the day, the day of the month, the age of the moon, the position of the planets, the cycle of the years, and many other serviceable notices ; and these movements may fulfil their purposes with more or less perfection, according as the mechanism is better or worse contrived, or better or worse executed, or in a better or worse state of repair : hut in all cases it is necessary that the spring act at the centre. The course of our reasoning upon such a subject would be this: By inspecting the watch, even when standing still, we 58 NATURAL THEOLOGY. get a proof of contrivance, and of a contriving mind, having been employed about it. In the form and obvious relations of its parts, we see enough to convince us of this. If we pull the works in pieces, for the purpose of a closer exam- ination, we are still more fully convinced. But, when we see the watch going, we see proof of another point, viz. that there is a power some- where, and somehow or other applied to it : a power in action; — that there is more in the sub- ject than the mere wheels of the machine ; — that there is a secret spring, or a gravitating plummet ; — in a word, that there is force, and energy, as well as mechanism. So, then, the watch in motion establishes to the observer two conclusions: One, — that thought, contrivance, and design, have been employed in the forming, proportioning, and arranging of its parts ; and that whoever or whatever he be, or were, such a contriver there is, or was : The other, — that force or power, distinct from mechanism, is, at this present time, acting upon it. If I saw a hand-mill even at rest, I should see contrivance : byt if I saw it grinding, I should be assured that a-hand was at the windlass, though in another room. It is the same in nature. In the works of nature we trace mechanism : and this alone proves contrivance : but living, active, moving, produc- tive nature, proves also the exertion of a power at the centre ; for, wherever the power resides may be denominated the centre. NATURAL THEOLOGY. 59 The intervention and disposition of what are called ^'secojtd causes^' fall under the same obser- vation. This disposition is or is not mechanism, according as we can or cannot trace it by our senses and means of examination. That is all the difference there is ; and it is a difference which respects our faculties, not the things themselves. Now where the order of second causes is mecha- nical, what is here said of mechanism strictly applies to it. But it would be always mechanism (natural chemistry, for instance, would be mecha- nism,) if our senses were acute enough to descry it. Neither mechanism, therefore, in the works of nature, nor the intervention of what are called second causes (for I think that they are the same thing,) excuses the necessity of an agent distinc from both. If, in tracing these causes, it be said that we find certain general properties of matter which have nothing in them that bespeaks intelligence, I an- swer that still the managing of these properties, ih& pointing and directing them to the uses which we see made of them, demands intelligence in the highest degree. For example : suppose animal secretions to be elective attractions, and that such and such attractions universally belong to such and such substances — in all which there is no intellect concerned ; still the choice and collocation of these substances, the fixing upon right substances, and disposing them in right places, must be an act of intelligence. What mischief would follow 60 NATURAL THEOLOGY. were there a single transposition of the secretory organs ; a single mistake in arranging the glands which compose them ! There may be many second causes, and many courses of second causes, one behind another, be- tween what we observe of nature, and the Deity : but there must be intelligence somewhere : there must be more in nature that what we see ; and, amongst the things unseen, there must be an in- telligent, designing author. The philosopher be- holds with astonishment the production of things around him. Unconscious particles of matter take their stations, and severally range themselves in an order, so as to become collectively plants or animals, i. e. organized bodies, with parts bearing strict and evident relation to one another, and to the utility of the whole : and it should seem that these particles could not move in any other way than as they do ; for they testify not the smallest sign of choice, or liberty, or discretion. There may be particular intelligent beings, guiding these motions in each case : or they may be the result of trains of mechanical dispositions, fixed before- hand by an intelligent appointment, and kept in action by a power at the centre. But, in either case, there must be intelligence. The minds of most men are fond of what they call a principle, and of the appearance of simpli- city, in accounting for phaenomena. Yet this prin- ciple, this simplicity, resides merely in the natne ; which name, after all, comprises, perhaps, under NATURAL THEOLOGY. 61 it a diversified, multifarious, or progressive opera- tion, distinguishable into parts. The power in or- ganized bodies, of producing bodies like them- selves, is one of these principles. Give a philoso- pher this, and he can get on. But he does not re- flect what this mode of production, this principle (if such he choose to call it) requires; how much it presupposes ; what an apparatus of instruments, some of which are strictly mechanical, is neces- sary to its success ; what a train it includes of operations and changes, one succeeding another, one related to another, one ministering to another ; all advancing, by intermediate, and, frequently, by sensible steps, to their ultimate result ! Yet, be- cause the whole of this complicated action is wrapped up in a single term, generation, we are to set it down as an elementary principle ; and to suppose, that when we have resolved the things which we see into this principle, we have suffi- ciently accounted for their origin, without the ne- cessity of a designing, intelligent Creator. The truth is, generation is not a principle, but a pro- cess. We might as well call the casting of metals a principle ; we might, so far as appears to me, as well call spinning and weaving principles : and then, referring the texture of cloths, the fabric of muslins and calicoes, the patterns of diapers and damasks, to these, as principles, pretend to dis- pense with intention, thought, and contrivance, on the part of the artist ; or to dispense, indeed, with the necessity of any artist at all, either in the ma- 7 63 NATURAL THEOLOGY. nufacturing of the article, or in the fabrication of the machinery by which the manufacture was car- ried on. And, after all, how, or in what sense is it true, that animals produce their like ? A butterfly, with a proboscis instead of a mouth, with four wings and six legs, produces a hairy caterpillar, with jaws and teeth, and fourteen feet. A frog produces a tadpole. A black beetle, with gauze wings, and a crusty covering, produces a white, smooth, soft worm ; an ephemeron fly, a cod-bait maggot. These, by a progress through different stages of life, and action, and enjoyment, (and, in each state, provided with implements and organs appropriated to the temporary nature which they bear,) arrive at last at the form and fashion of the parent animal. But all this is process, not princi- ple ; and proves, moreover, that the property of animated bodies, of producing their like, belongs to them, not as a primordial property, not by any blind necessity in the nature of things, but as the effect of economy, wisdom, and design ; because the property itself assumes diversities, and sub- mits to deviations dictated by intelligible utilities, and serving distinct purposes of animal happiness. The opinion, which would consider "genera- tion" as a. ])rinciple in nature; and which would assign this principle as the cause, or endeavour to satisfy our minds with such a cause, of the exist- ence of organized bodies; is confuted, in my judge- ment, not only by every mark of contrivance dis- NATURAL THEOLOGY. 6S coverable in those bodies, for which it gives us no contriver, offers no account whatever ; but also by the further consideration, that things generated possess a clear relation to things not generated. If it were merely one part of a generated body bearing a relation to another part of the same body; as the mouth of an animal to the throat, the throat td the stomach, the stomach to the in- testines, those to the recruiting of the blood, and, by means of the blood, to the nourishment of the whole frame : or if it were only one generated body bearing a relation to another generated body ; as the sexes of the same species to each other, animals of prey to their prey, herbivorous and granivorous animals to the plants or seeds upon which they feed ; it might be contended, that the whole of this correspondency was at- tributable to generation, the common origin from which these substances proceeded. But what shall we say to agreements which exist between things generated and things not generated? Can it be doubted, was it ever doubted, but that the lungs of animals bear a relation to the air, as a permanently elastic fluid ? They act in it and by it ; they cannot act without it. Now, if genera- tion produced the animal, it did not produce the air : yet their properties correspond. The eye is made for light, and light for the eye. The eye would be of no use without light, and light per- haps of little without eyes ; yet one is produced by generation, the other not. The ear depends 64 NATURAL THEOLOGY. upon undulations of air. Here are two sets of motions ; first, of the pulses of the air ; secondly, of the drum, bones, and nerves of the ear; sets of motions bearing an evident reference to each other : yet the one, and the apparatus for the one, produced by the intervention of generation ; the other altogether independent of it. If it be said, that the air, the light, the elements, the world itself, is generated ; I answer, that I do not comprehend the proposition. If the term mean any thing similar to what it means when applied to plants or animals, the proposition is certainly without proof: and, I think, draws as near to absurdity as any proposition can do, which does not include a contradiction in its terms. I am at a loss to conceive how the formation of the world can be compared to the generation of an animal. If the term generation signify something quite different from what it signifies on ordinary occasions, it may, by the same latitude, signify any thing. In which case, a w^ord or phrase taken from the language of Otaheite would con- vey as much theory concerning the origin of the universe, as it does to talk of its being generated. We know a cause (intelligence) adequate to the appearances which we wish to account for : we have this cause continually producing similar ap- pearances : yet rejecting this cause, the sufficiency of which we know, and the action of which is constantly before our eyes, we are invited to re- sort to suppositions destitute of a single fact for NATURAL THEOLOGY. 65 their support, and confirmed by no analogy with which we are acquainted. Were it necessary to inquire into the motives of men's opinions, I mean their motives separate from their arguments ; I should almost suspect, that, because the proof of a Deity drawn from the constitution of nature is not only popular, but vulgar, (which may arise from the cogency of the proof, and be indeed its high- est recommendation,) and because it is a species almost of puerility to take up with it ; for these reasons, minds, which are habitually in search of invention and originality, feel a resistless inclina- tion to strike off into other solutions and other ex- positions. The truth is, that many minds are not so indisposed to any thing which can be offered to them, as they are to the flatness of being content with common reasons: and, what is most to be lamented, minds conscious of superiority are the most liable to this repugnancy. The " suppositions" here alluded to all agree in one character ; they all endeavour to dispense with the necessity in nature of a particular, personal intelligence ; that is to say, with the exertion of an intending, contriving mind, in the structure and formation of the organized constitutions which the world contains. They would resolve all produc- tions into unconscious energies, of a like kind, in that respect, with attraction,; magnetism, electrici- ty, &c. ; without any thing further. In this, the old system of atheism and the new agree. And I much doubt whether the new 7* 66 NATURAL THEOLOGY. schemes have advanced any thing upon the old, or done^more than changed the terms of the nomen- clature. For instance, I could never see the dif- ference between the antiquated system of atoms, and BufTon's organic molecules. This philosopher, having made a planet by knocking off from the sun a piece of melted glass, in consequence of the stroke of a comet ; and having set it in motion, by the same stroke, both round its own axis and the sun; finds his next difficulty to be, how to bring plants and animals upon it. In order to solve this difficulty, we are to suppose the universe replen- ished with particles, endowed with life, but without organization or senses of their own ; and endowed also with a tendency to marshal themselves into organized forms. The concourse of these particles, by virtue of this tendency, but without intelligence, will, or direction, (for I do not find that any of these qualities are ascribed to them,) has produ- ced the living forms which we now see. Very few of the conjectures, which philosophers hazard upon these subjects, have more of preten- sion in them, than the challenging you to show the direct impossibility of the hypothesis. In the present example, there seemed to be a positive objection to the whole scheme upon the very face of it ; which was that, if the case were as here re- presented, new combinations ought to be perpetu- ally taking place ; new plants and animals, or or- ganized bodies which were neither, ought to be starting up before our eyes every day. For this. NATURAL THEOLOGY. 67 however, our philosopher has an answer. Whilst so many forms of plants and animals are already in existence, and consequently, so many " internal moulds," as he calls them, are prepared and at hand, the organic particles run into these moulds, and are employed in supplying an accession of substance to them, as well for their growth, as for their propagation. By which means, things keep their ancient course. But, says the same philoso- pher, should any general loss or destruction of the present constitution of organized bodies take place, the particles, for want of "moulds" into which they might enter, would run into different combi- nations, and replenish the waste with new species of organized substances. Is there any history to countenance this notion ? Is it known that any destruction has been so re- paired? any desert thus re-peopled? So far as I remember, the only natural appear- ance mentioned by our author, by way of fact whereon to build his hypothesis, is the formation of worms in the intestines of animals, which is here ascribed to the coalition of superabundant organic particles, floating about in the first passages ; and which have combined themselves into these simple animal forms, for want of internal moulds, or of vacancies in those moulds, into which they might be received. The thing referred to is rather a species of facts, than a single fact; as some other cases may, with equal reason, be included under it. But to make it a fact at all, or, in any sort. 68 NATURAL THEOLOGY. applicable to the question, we must begin with as- serting an equivocal generation, contrary to analo- gy, and without necessity: contrary to an analogy, which accompanies us to the very limits of our knowledge or inquiries ; for wherever, either in plants, or animals, we are able to examine the subject, we find procreation from a parent form : without necessity; for I apprehend that it is sel- dom difficult to suggest methods by which the eggs, or spawn, or yet invisible rudiments of these vermin, may have obtained a passage into the ca- vities in which they are found.* Add to this, that their constancy to their species, which, I believe, is as regular in these as in the other vermes, decides the question against our philosopher, if, in truth, any question remained upon the subject. Lastly; these wonder-working instruments, these " internal moulds," what are they after all ? what, when examined, but a name without a significa- tion ; unintelligible, if not self-contradictory ; at the best, differing in nothing from the "essential forms " of the Greek philosophy ? One short sen- tence of Buflfon's work exhibits his scheme as fol- lows: "When this nutritious and prolific matter, which is diffused throughout all nature, passes through the internal mould of an animal or vege- table, and finds a proper matrix, or receptacle, it * I trust I may bo excused for not citing, as another fact which is to confirm the hypothesis, a grave assertion of this writer, that the branches of trees upon which the stag feeds break out again in his horns. Such /ac<« merit no discussion. — {Kole of the Author.) NATURAL THEOLOGY. 69 gives rise to an animal or vegetable of the same species." Does any reader annex a meaning to the expression " internal mould," in this sentence ? Ought it then to be said, that though w^e have little notion of an internal mould, we have not much more af a designing mind ? The very contrary of this assertion is the truth. When we speak of an artificer or an architect, we talk of what is com- prehensible to our understanding, and familiar to our experience. We use no other terms, than what refer us for their meaning to our conscious- ness and observation ; what express the constant objects of both: whereas names like that we have mentioned refer us to nothing ; excite no idea ; convey a sound to the ear, but I think do no more. Another system, which has lately been brought forward, and with much ingenuity, is that of ap- petencies. The principle, and the short account of the theory, is this : Pieces of soft, ductile matter, being endued with propensities or appetencies for particular actions, would, by continual endeavours, carried on through a long series of generations, work themselves gradually into suitable forms; and, at length, acquire, though perhaps by obscure and almost imperceptible improvements, an organ- ization fitted to the action which their respective propensities led them to exert. A piece of ani- mated matter, for example, that was endued with a propensity to^y,though ever so shapeless, though no other we will suppose than a round ball to be- gin with, would, in a course of ages, if not in a 70 NATURAL THEOLOGY. million of years, perhaps in a hundred millions of years (for our theorists, having eternity to dispose of, are never sparing in time,) acquire wings. The same tendency to loco-motion in an aquatic ani- mal, or rather in an animated lump, which might happen to be surrounded by water, w ould end in the production of fins ; in a living substance, con- fined to the solid earth, would put out legs and feet ; or, if it took a different turn, would break the body into ringlets, and conclude by crawling upon the ground. Although I have introduced the mention of this theory into this place, I am unwilling to live to it the name of an atheistic scheme, for two reasons : first, because, so far as I am able to understand it, the original propensities and the numberless vari- eties of them (so different, in this respect, from the laws of mechanical nature, which are few and simple,) are, in the plan itself, attributed to the ordination and appointment of an intelligent and designing Creator : secondly, because, likewise, that large postulatum, which is all along assumed and pre-supposed, the faculty in living bodies of producing other bodies organized like themselves, seems to be referred to the same cause ; at least is not attempted to be accounted for by any other. In one important respect, however, the theory be- fore us coincides with atheistic systems, viz. in that, in the formation of plants and animals, in the structure and use of their parts, it does away final NATURAL THEOLOGY. 71 causes.'^ Instead of the parts of a plant or animal, or the particular structure of the parts, having been intended for the action or the use to which we see them applied ; according to this theory, they have themselves grown out of that action, sprung from that use. The theory therefore dispenses with that which we insist upon, the necessity, in each particular case, of an intelligent, designing mind, for the contriving and determining of the forms which organized bodies bear. Give our philosopher these appetencies ; give him a portion of living irritable matter (a nerve, or the clipping of a nerve,) to work upon : give also to his incipi- ent or progressive forms the power, in every stage, of their alteration, of propagating their like ; and, if he is to be believed, he could replenish the world with all the vegetable and animal produc- tions w^hich we at present see in it. The scheme under consideration is open to the same objection with other conjectures of a similar tendency, viz. a total defect of evidence. No changes, like those which the theory requires, have ever been observed. All the changes in Ovid's ^^ In on J sense this doctrine (if it deserves the namej of appe- tencies ca.n hardly be said to supersede final catises. For sup- pose the conatus or appetency to have formed an eye, such as we now have it, and constructed as we know it to be, all its uses continue; it is calculated to perform the office required, — to sup- ply that, the desire of supplying which is supposed so have produ- ced it. Stating that desire caused the production appears only to be a covert and somewhat absurd mode of stating the doctrine of final ca'ises. 72 NATURAL THEOLOGY. Metamorphoses might have been effected by these appetencies, if the theory were true ; yet not an example, nor the pretence of an example, is offer- ed of a single change being known to have taken place. Nor is the order of generation obedient to the principle upon which this theory is built. The mammae* of the male have not vanished by inusi- tation ; nee curtorum, jjer multa scecula^ Judceorum propagini deest prcBputium. It is easy to say, and it has been said, that the alterative process is too slow to be perceived ; that it has been carried on through tracts of immeasurable time ; and that the present order of things is the result of a graduation, of which no human records can trace the steps. It is easy to say this ; and yet it is still true, that the hypothesis remains destitute of evidence. The analogies which have been alleged are of the following kind : The hunch of a camel is said to be no other than the effect of carrying burdens ; a service in which the species has been employed * I coiifoss myself totally at a loss to guess at the reason, either final or efficient, for this part of the animal fianic: unless there be some foiuKlation for an opinion, of which I draw the hint from a paper of Mr. Everard Home, (Phil. Transact. 1799, Pt. 2,) vix. that the mamniaj of the foetus may be formed before the sex is de- termined.""'— (.,Vo/e of I he du'Jior.) ^^ The paper alluded to is upon Hermaphrodites, in vol. Ixxxi.x. p. 157, and the suggestion is in the renuirks upon the want of ovaria in certain monstrous births, and the male parts being found instead. The author (Sir E. Home) suggests thai this may be c x- plained by supposing the ovum, before impregnation, to have been equally adapted to becoming either a male or a female fatus. NATURAL THEOLOGY. 73 from the most ancient times of the world. The first race, by the daily loading of the back, would probably find a small grumous tumour to be form- ed in the flesh of that part. The next progeny would bring this tumour into the world with them. The life to which they were destined would in- crease it. The cause which first generated the tubercle being continued, it would go on, through every succession, to augment its size, till it attain- ed the form and the bulk under which it now ap- pears. This may serve for one instance : another, and that also of the passive sort, is taken from cer- tain species of birds. Birds of the crane kind, as the crane itself, the heron, bittern, stork, have, in general, their thighs bare of feathers. This pri- vation is accounted for from the habit of wading in water, and from the effiect of that element to check the growth of feathers upon these parts ; in consequence of which, the health and vegetation of the feathers declined through each generation of the animal ; the tender down, exposed to cold and wetness, became weak, and thin, and rare, till the deterioration ended in the result which we see, of absolute nakedness. I will mention a third instance, because it is drawn from an active habit, as the two last were from passive habits ; and that is the pouch of the pelican. The description which naturalists give of this organ is as follows : "From the lower edge of the under chap, hangs a bag, reaching from the whole length of the bill to the neck, which is said to be capable of containing 8 74 NATURAL THEOLOGY. fifteen quarts of water. This bag the bird has a power of wrinkling up into the hollow of the under chap. When the bag is empty, it is not seen : but when the bird has fished with success, it is in- credible to what an extent it is often dilated. The first thing the pelican does in fishing is to fill the bag ; and then it returns to digest its burden at leisure. The bird preys upon the large fishes, and hides them by dozens in its pouch. When the bill is opened to its widest extent, a person may run his head into the bird's mouth ; and conceal it in this monstrous pouch, thus adapted for very singu- lar purposes."* Now this extraordinary conforma- tion is nothing more, say our philosophers, than the result of habit; not of the habit or effort of a sin- gle pelican, or of a single race of pelicans, but of a habit perpetuated through a long series of gene- rations. The pelican soon found the conveniency of reserving in its mouth, when its appetite was glutted, the remainder of its prey, which is fish. The fulness produced by this attempt, of course stretched the skin which lies between the under chaps, as being the most yielding part of the mouth. Every distention increased the cavity. The origi- nal bird, and many generations which succeeded him, might find difficulty enough in making the pouch answer this purpose : but future pelicans, en- tering upon life with a pouch derived from their progenitors, of considerable capacity, would more readily accelerate its advance to perfection, by * Goldsmith, vol. vi. p 52, NATURAL THEOLOGY. 75 frequently pressing down the sac with the weight of fish which it might now be made to contain. These, or of this kind, are the analogies relied upon. Now, in the first place, the instances them- selves are unauthenticated by testimony ; and in theory, to say the least of them, open to great objections. Who ever read of camels without bunches, or with bunches less than those with which they are at present usually formed? A bunch, not unlike the camel's, is found between the shoulders of the buffalo ; of the origin of which it is impossible to give the account here given. In the second example : Why should the application of water, which appears to promote and thicken the growth of feathers upon the bodies and breasts of geese, and swans, and other water-fowls, have divested of this covering the thighs of cranes ? The third instance, which appears to me as plausible as any that can be produced, has this against it, that it is a singularity restricted to the species ; whereas, if it had its commencement in the cause and manner which have been assigned, the like conformation might be expected to take place in other birds, which feed upon fish. How comes it to pass, that the pelican alone was the inventress, and her descendants the only inheritors, of this curious resource V^ i'' The argument against the doctrine of appetencies may be urged thus upon well-known facts. If the camel's bunch has arisen from the animal, originally without any protuberance, having his back affected by burthens imposed, it would follow that human 76 NATURAL THEOLOGY. But it is the less necessary to controvert the instances themselves, as it is a straining of ana- contrivance could alter the shape of beasts, which it most certain- ly cannot, as daily experience in regard to most domestic animals shows. No change of form produced immediately and directly, as by cutting, compressing, rubbing, can be perpetuated in the breed. All we can do with regard to animals, and all that any animals can do with regard to themselves, is indirectly, as by af- fecting their health, to affect the proportions of their parts, as bone, fat, muscle ; the effects of which changes will be perceived in the progeny. We have here been observing only upon the fact ; but suppose the fact to be as the theory of appetencies assumes, — suppose the camel's bunch has been formed by weight and friction, and the pelican's pouch by the food distending the underchap, — in other words, suppose (contrary to what we have shown is the fact,) that the changes induced in one animal or race at a given time, are propagated and continue in their descendants, — it is plain that the skeptical argument gains nothing by this concession. For how are such changes continued ? Only by the process of gene- ration. Nay, how arc they at first effected ? By the operation of physical laws, — that is, by the constitution of matter. The quad- ruped's bunch and the bird's pouch, allowing the whole facte to be as the argument assumes it, are both originally formed and pro- pagated afterwards by the means of the qualities with which mat- ter is endowed ; and the inference of design is not affected by the step thus added to the process of reasoning. It can manifestly make no difference to that inference, whether we hold that the bird's pouch is provided for its ncessitics by a conformation at all times belonging to it according to the constitution of the world, or by one superinduced according to that same constitution. The utmost that the skeptical hypolliesis can gain by such concessions as we have been supposing to be made, is that the form of the world was at one time less perfect than it now is. A similar re- mark arises upon the conjecture of Laplace (in which others have followed him,) respecting the original arrangement of the motions and longitudes of Jupiter's three first satellites, treated of in an- other note. — (See notes to Chap, xxii.) NATURAL THEOLOGY. 77 logy beyond all limits of reason and credibility, to assert that birds, and beasts, and fish, with all their variety and complexity of organization, have been brought into their forms, and distinguished into their several kinds and natures, by the same process (even if that process could be demonstra- ted, or had it ever been actually noticed,) as might seem to serve for the gradual generation of a cam- el's bunch, or a pelican's pouch. The solution, when applied to the works of na- ture generally, is contradicted by many of the phsenomena, and totally inadequate to others. The ligaments or strictures, by which the tendons are tied down at the angles of the joints, could, by no possibility, be formed by the motion or exer- cise of the tendons themselves ; by an appetency exciting these parts into action ; or by any tenden- cy arising therefrom. The tendency is all the other way : the conatus in constant opposition to them. Length of time does not help the case at al), but the reverse. The valves also in the blood- vessels could never be formed in the manner which our theorist proposes. The blood, in its right and natural course, has no tendency to form them. When obstructed or refluent, it has the contrary. These parts could not grow out of their use, though they had eternity to grow in. The senses of animals appear to me altogether incapable of receiving the explanation of their origin which this theory affords. Including under the word " sense" the organ and the perception, 8* 78 NATURAL THEOLOGY. we have no account of either. How will our phi- losopher get at vision^ or make an eye ? How should the blind animal affect sight, of which blind animals we know, have neither conception nor de- sire ? Affecting it, by what operation of its will, by what endeavour to see, could it so determine the fluids of its body, as to inchoate the formation of an eye ? or suppose the eye formed, would the perception follow ? The same of the other senses. And this objection holds its force, ascribe what you will to the hand of time, to the power of hab- it, to changes too slow to be observed by man, or brought within any comparison which he is able to make of past things with the present ; concede what you please to these arbitrary and unattested suppositions, how will they help you ? Here is no inception. No laws, no course, no powers of na- ture which prevail at present, nor any analogous to these, would give commencement to a new sense. And it is in vain to inquire how that might pro- ceed, which could never begin. I think the senses to be the most inconsistent with the hypothesis before us, of any part of the ani- mal frame. But other parts are sufficiently so. The solution does not apply to the parts of animals, which have little in them of motion. If we could suppose joints and muscles to be gradually formed by action and exercise, what action or exercise could form a skull, and fill it with brains ? No ef- fort of the animal could determine the clothing of its skin. What conatus could give prickles to the porcupine or hedgehog, or to the sheep its fleece ? NATURAL THEOLOGY. 79 In the last place : What do these appetencies mean when applied to plants ? I am not able to give a signification to the term which can be trans- ferred from animals to plants ; or which is com- mon to both. Yet a no less successful organiza- tion is found in plants, than what obtains in ani- mals. A solution is wanted for one as well as the other Upon the whole, after all the schemes and struggles of a reluctant philosophy, the necessary resort is to a Deity. The marks of design are too strong to be gotten over. Design must have had a designer. That designer must have been a per- son. That person is God. 80 NATURAL THEOLOGY. CHAPTER XXIV. OF THE NATURAL ATTRIBUTES OF THE DEITY. It is an immense conclusion, that there is a God ; a perceiving, intelligent, designing Being ; at the head of creation, and from whose will it proceeded. The attributes of such a Being, suppose his reality to be proved, must be adequate to the magnitude, extent, and multiplicity of his opera- tions : which are not only vast beyond compari- son with those performed by any other power ; but, so far as respects our conceptions of them, infinite, because they are unlimitted on all sides. Yet the contemplation of a nature so exalted, however surely we arrive at the proof of its exist- ence, overwhelms our faculties. The mind feels its powers sink under the subject. One conse- quence of which is, that from painful abstrac- tion the thoughts seek relief in sensible images. Whence may be deduced the ancient, and almost universal propensity to idolatrous substitutions. They are the resources of a labouring imagination. False religions usually fall in with the natural pro- pensity ; true religions, or such as have derived themselves from the true, resist it. NATURAL THEOLOGY. 81 It is one of the advantages of the revelations vs^hich we acknowledge, that, whilst they reject idolatry with its many pernicious accompaniments, they introduce the Deity to human apprehension, under an idea more personal, more determinate, more within its compass, than the theology of na- ture can do. And this they do by representing him exclusively under the relation in which he stands to ourselves ; and, for the most part, under some precise character, resulting from that rela- tion, or from the history of his providences : which method suits the span of our intellects much better than the universality which enters into the idea of God, as deduced from the views of nature. When, therefore, these representations are well founded in point of authority, (for all depends upon that,) they afford a condescension to the state of our fa- culties, of which they, who have most reflected on the subject, will be the first to acknowledge the want and the value. Nevertheless, if we be careful to imitate the do- cuments of our religion, by confining our explana- tions to what concerns ourselves, and do not affect more precision in our ideas than the subject allows of, the several terms which are employed to de- note the attributes of the Deity may be made, even in natural religion, to bear a sense consistent with truth and reason, and not surpassing our com- prehension. These terms are, — Omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, eternity, self-existence, necessary existence, spirituality. 82 NATURAL THEOLOGY. "Omnipotence," " omniscience," "infinite " pow- er, "infinite" knowledge, are superlatives ; expres- sing our conception of these attributes in the strongest and most elevated terms which language supplies. We ascribe power to the Deity under the name of " omnipotence," the strict and correct conclusion being, that a power which could cre- ate such a world as this is, must be, beyond all comparison, greater than any which we experi- ence in ourselves, than any which we observe in other visible agents : greater also than any which we can want, for our individual protection and preservation, in the Being upon whom we depend. It is a power, likewise, to which we are not autho- rized, by our observation or knowledge, to assign any limits of space or duration. A^ery much of the same sort of remark is appli- cable to the term " omniscience," infinite know- ledge, or infinite wisdom. In strictness of language, there is a difference between knowledge and wis- dom ; wisdom always supposing action, and ac- tion directed by it. With respect to the first, viz. knoicledgey the Creator must know, intimately, the constitution and properties of the things which he created : which seems also to imply a foreknow- ledge of their action upon one another, and of their changes ; at least, so far as the same result from trains of physical and necessary causes. His omniscience also, as far as respects things present, is deducible from his natures, an intelligent be- ing, joined with the extent, or rather the univer- NATURAL THEOLOGY. 83 sality, of his operations. Where he acts, he is : and where he is, he perceives. The wisdom of the Deity, as testified in the works of creation, surpas- ses all idea we have of wisdom, drawn from the highest intellectual operations of the highest class of intelligent beings with whom we are acquainted; and, which is of the chief importance to us, what- ever be its compass or extent, which it is evident- ly impossible that we should be able to determine, it must be adequate to the conduct of that order of things under which we live. And this is enough. It is of very inferior consequence, by what terms we express our notion, or rather our admiration, of this attribute. The terms, which the piety and the usage of language have render- ed habitual to us, may be as proper as any other. We can trace this attribute much beyond what is necessary for any conclusion to which we have occasion to apply it. The degree of knowledge and power requisite for the formation of created fiature cannot, with respect to us, be distinguished from infinite.'" The divine "omnipresence" stands, in natural 18 It is not perhaps quite correct to state that " infinite^' as ap- plied to the Deity, means only a degree of power or wisdom be- yond all comparison greater than any such qualities possessed by ourselves ; and that this term, as well as " o?nni;}ofence," is merely a superlative. Those words also designate the existence of the at- tributes in such a degree, that any extent whatever of them beint? either presented to our observation, or conceived by our imno-ina- tion, the Deity possesses them in a still greater degree — a det^ree to which our conception can affix no bounds. 84 NATURAL THEOLOGY. theology, upon this foundation : — In every part and place of the universe with which we are ac- quainted, we perceive the exertion of a power, which we believe, mediately or immediately, to proceed from the Deity. For instance : in what part or point of space, that has ever been explored, do we not discover attraction? In what regions do we not find light ? In what accessible portion of our globe do we not meet with gravity, mag»- netism, electricity: together with the properties also and powers of organized substances, of vege- table or of animated nature ? Nay, further, we may ask. What kingdom is there of nature, what corner ©f space, in which there is any thing that can be examined by us, where we do not fall upon contrivance and design ? The only reflection per- haps which arises in our minds from this view of the world around us is, that the laws of nature everywhere prevail ; that they are uniform and universal. But what do you mean by the laws of nature, or by any law ? Effects are produced by power, not by laws. A law cannot execute itself A law refers as to an agent. Now an agency so general, as that we cannot discover its absence, or assign the place in which some effect of its con- tinued energy is not found, may, in popular lan- guage at least, and, perhaps, without much devia- tion from philosophical strictness, be called univer- sal : and, with not quite the same, but with no in- considerable propriety, the person, or Being, in whom that power resides, or from whom it is de- NATURAL THEOLOGY. 85 rived, may be taken to be omnipresent. He who upholds all things by his power, may be said to be every where present. This is called a virtual presence. There is also what metaphysicians denominate an essential ubi- quity ; and which idea the language of Scripture seems to favour : but the former, I think, goes as far as natural theology carries us.'^ " Eternity " is a negative idea, clothed with a positive name. It supposes, in that to which it is applied, a present existence; and is the negation of a beginning or an end of that existence. As '^ Upon this confessedly abstruse subject some statements will be found in the Appendix. The three doctrines are — ubiquity by diffusion, virtual; ubiquity, or that of power only; and ubiquity of essence. The last is expressed thus, to the exclusion of the second, by Sir I. Newton, in the Schol. Gen, to the Principia : — ' ' OmnipreRsens est non per virtutem solam sed efiam per substan- tiam; nam virtus sine substantia subsist(i*e non potest." It is per- haps hardly correct to say that Natural Theology carries us not to the idea of Essential Ubiquity. Dr. Clarke makes Essential Ubiquity one part of his conclusion from the argument a ;)n"on ; , and though his adversaries (see Chev. Ramsay, book i. prop. 8. Schol.) cliarged him with adopting the Diffusive Ubiquity, he is plainly not subject to this observation. The followers of Socinus, who maintained Virtual Ubiquity, are ably cotnbatted, and the Essential Ubiquity defended by Dr. Hancock (Boyle Lecture, vol. ii, p. 222,) upon arguments drawn from natural religion. We are here, it is to be observed, only speaking of the idea or doctrine it- self having been attained independent of Revelation ; and not in- quiring how far those arguments of unassisted reason have enfor- ced the belief of it, or even made it comprehensible. Descartes (Principia I. xxii.) does not enumerate Ubiquity at all among the attributes, unless in so far as it may be included under infinite per- fection generally ascribed. — (I. xxii. xxvii., II. xxxvi., III. i.) 9 86 NATURAL THEOLOGY. applied to the Deity, it has not been controverted by those who acknowledge a Deity at all. Most assuredly, there never was a time in which no- thing existed, because that condition must have continued. The universal blank must have re- mained; nothing could rise up out of it; nothing could ever have existed since; nothing could exist now. In strictness, however, we have no concern with duration prior to that of the visible w^orld. Upon this article therefore of theology, it is suffi- cient to know that the contriver necessarily exist- ed before the contrivance. "Self-existence" is another negative idea, viz. the negation of a preceding cause, as of a proge- nitor, a maker, an author, a creator.-*^ "Necessary existence" means demonstrable ex- istence."' "Spirituality" expresses an idea, made up of a negative part, and of a positive part. The nega- tive part consists in the exclusion of some of the known properties of matter, especially of solidity, of the vis inerticB, and of gravitation. The posi- tive part comprises perception, thought, will, power, action, by which last term is meant the origination ^ Self-existent inc ans, in any intelligible sense, only uncreated, independent, eternal. The ancient doctrine of Self-created, if it goes beyond the mere negative sense, is absolutely unintelligible, or, to use Dr. Clarke's words, "an express contradiction." 21 Necessary, properly means demonstrable in such a way, that the I ontrary involves a contradiction and is inconceivable. Dr. Paley here uses the word demonstrable per se in this sense ; for which he has the authority of several metaphysical writers. NATURAL THEOLOGY. 87 of motion ; the quality, perhaps, in which resides the essential superiority of spirit over matter, " which cannot move, unless it be moved ; and can- not but move, when impelled by another."* I ap- prehend that there can be no difficulty in apply- ing to the Deity both parts of this idea. * Bishop Wilkins's Principles of Natural Religion, p. 106. 88 NATURAL THEOLOGY. CHAPTER XXV. OF THE UMTY OF THE DEITY. Of the " Unity of the Deity," the proof is, tlie uniformity of plan observable in the universe. The universe itself is a system ; each part either de- pending upon other parts, or being connected with other parts by some common law of motion, or by the presence of some common substance. One principle of gravitation causes a stone to drop to- wards the earth, and the moon to wheel round it. One law of attraction carries all the different pla- nets about the sun.-^ This philosophers demon- 22 Bishop Brinkley considers the subject of nebulae and double stars " as hardly yet sufficiently investigated " for affording grounds of additional illustration to the cultivator of Natural Theology ; and it is much to be regretted that he, on this account, abandon- ed the design, which he says he had at one time formed, or add- ing some notes upon this branch of astronomical science. The Appendix will contain a reference to this subject, particularly to the additional argument drawn from the revolution of double stars in favour of the universal extension of gravitation. The fact of the heavenly bodies which form our system all moving in the same direction of revolution, is dcscrvins: of the deepest attention when we consider that it leads to the most im- portant result of the stability of the system explained above, (chap, xxii., notes;) and that it is one of innumerable arrangements which might have been made, and none of which could have led to this result. In any other case equal roots, or imaginary roots, or both, must have found their way into the equation from which the law of stability is deduced. {Mic C6l. 1. ii. c. 7, g. 55, 57, NATURAL THEOLOGY. 89 strate. There are also other points of agreement amongst them, which may be considered as marks of the identity of their origin, and of their intelligent Author. In all are found the conveniency and sta- bility derived from gravitation. They all expe- rience vicissitudes of days and nights, and changes of season. They all, at least Jupiter, Mars, and Venus, have the same advantages from their at- mosphere as we have. In all the planets, the axes of rotation are permanent. Nothing is more pro- bable than that the same attracting influence, act- ing according to the same rule, reaches to the fixed and liv. xv. c. 1.) Now the same profound geomatrician has shown, in another work, by the calculus of probabilities, that it is above four millions of millions to one in favour of the forty-three motions from west to east, (including rotation as well as revolu- tion and the motions of the sun and of the rings, as well as the planets and satellites,) having been directed by one original or First Cause ; and by the same calculus he has shown the proba- bility of the sun's rising again on the morrow of any given day, to be not much more than 1,800,000 to one, or, in other words, that this event is above two million tiziies less probable than the truth of the position that the motions in our system were designed by one First Cause. This illustrious philosopher has been cen- sured for not drawing in terms the conclusion to which his sub- lime researches, with those of Lagrange, have led the way, and at which he must himself have arrived, — that a Supreme Intel- ligence alone could have formed this magnificent and stable sys- tem. His reason for abstaining from indulging in such contem- plations probably was that his work is purely mathematical, and that this would have been a digression into another science. But the reason is not sufficient, and the omission must ever be lament- ed as a defect in a work so nearly perfect. Mr. Whewell has made some ingenious strictures upon this subject in his able and learned Bridgeicater Treatise, b. iii. c. 5 and 6. 9* 90 NATURAL THEOLOGY. Stars : but, if this be only probable, another thing is certain, viz. that the same element of light does. The light from a fixed star affects our eyes in the same manner, is refracted and reflected accord- ing to the same laws, as the light of a candle. The velocity of the light of the fixed stars is also the same as the velocity of the light of the sun, re- flected from the satellites of Jupiter. The heat of the sun, in kind, differs nothing from the heat of a coal fire.^ 23 The law by which the distances of the planets are regulated was referred to in a note br Bishop Brinkley to the 22d chapter, and affords an evidence of unity of design not to be passed over. It is this nearly, but not exactly. Form a series of numbers, each consisting of the number 4 added to the number 3, but to the num- ber 3 multiplied successively by 0, t, 2, 4, 8, 16, and the other powers of 2 : the mean distances of Mercury being 4, this series will represent the mean distance of the other planets successively. Taking the four newly-discovered planets between Mars and Ju- piter as one — the distances of Venus, the Earth, and Jupiter, coincide with the series exactly ; the others slightly differ. Thus Mercury by the supposition 4 4 Venus by the theory . . 7 by observation 7 Earth .... 10 .... 10 Mars 16 15 27 New planets . 28 Vesta . 23-73 Juno . 26-67 Ceres . . . 27-67 Pallas . . 27-68 Jupiter . . . . 52 . Saturn . 100 . Uranus . . 196 . 52 . . 95 . 192 " We cannot but remark," says Bishop Brinkley, " the near agreement of the law with the exact mean distances, and cannot hesitate to pronounce that those were assigned according to a law, NATURAL THEOLOGY. 91 In our own globe, the case is clearer. New countries- are continually discovered, but the old la\vs of nature are always found in them ; new plants, perhaps, or animals, but always in com- pany with plants and animals wdiich we already know ; and always possessing many of the same general properties. We never get amongst such original, or totally different, modes of existence, as to indicate, that we are come into the province of a different Creator, or under the direction of a different will. In truth, the same order of things attends us, wherever we go. The elements act upon one another, electricity operates, the tides rise and fall, the magnetic needle elects its posi- tion, in one region of the earth and sea, as well as in another. One atmosphere invests all parts of the globe, and connects all; one sun illuminates, one moon exerts its specific attraction upon all parts. If there be a variety in natural effects, as, e. g, in the tides of different seas, that very va- riety is the result of the same cause, acting under different circumstances. In many cases this is proved ; in all, is probable. The inspection and comparison of living forms although we are entirely ignorant of the exact law and of the rea- son for that law." This sentence derives a peculiar, though a painful interest from the circumstance of its being in all likelihood the last written by this profound and accompUshed astronomer, on subjects connect- ed with his favourite study. It closed the communication received from him, which was dated at Cloyne, June 25, 1835; and he died at Dublin, in less than three months after (September 14.) 92 NATURAL THEOLOGY. add to this argument examples without number. Of all large terrestrial animals the structure is very much alike ; their senses nearly the same ; their natural functions and passions nearly the same ; their viscera nearly the same, both in substance, shape, and office : digestion, nutrition, circulation, secretion, go on in a similar manner, in all ; the great circulating fluid is the same ; for, I think, no differ- ence has been discovered in the properties ofblood, from whatever animal it be drawn. The experi- ment of transfusion proves that the blood of one animal will serve for another. The skeleton also of the larger terrestrial animals show particular varieties, but still under a great general affinity. The resemblance is somewhat less, yet sufficient- ly evident, between quadrupeds and birds. They are all alike in five respects, for one in which they differ. In fah, which belong to another department, as it were, of nature, the points of comparison be- come fewer. But we never lose sight of our ana- logy, €. g. we still meet with a stomach, a liver, a spine; with bile and blood; with teeth; with eyes, (which eyes are only slightly varied from our Ovvn, and which variation, in truth, demonstrates, not an interruption, but a continuance of tlie same exquisite plan ; for it is the adaptation of the organ to the ele- ment, viz. to the different refraction of light passing into the eye out of a denser medium.) The provin- ces, also, themselves of water and earth, are con- nected by the species of animals which inhabit NATURAL THEOLOGY. 93 both; and also by a large tribe of aquatic animals, which closely resemble the terrestrial in their in- ternal structure ; I mean the cetaceous tribe, which have hot blood, respiring lungs, bowels, and other essential parts, like those of land-animals. This similitude, surely, bespeaks the same creation and the same Creator. Insects and shell-fish appear to me to differ from other classes of animals the most widely of any. Yet even here, besides many points of particular resemblance, there exists a general relation of a peculiar kind. It is the relation of inversion; the law of contrariety: namely, that, whereas, in other animals, the bones, to which the muscles are attached, lie within the body, in insects and shell-fish they lie on the outside of it. The shell of a lobster performs to the animal the office of a hone, by furnishing to the tendons that fixed basis or immovable fulcrum, without which, mechani- cally, they could not act. The crust of an insect is its shell, and answers the like purpose. The shell also of an oyster stands in the place of a hone; the bases of the muscles being fixed to it, in the same manner as, in other animals, they are fixed to the bones. All which (under wonderful vari- eties, indeed, and adaptations of form,) confesses an imitation, a remembrance, a carrying on, of the same plan. The observations here made are equally appli- cable to plants ; but, I think, unnecessary to be pursued. It is a very striking circumstance, and 94 NATURAL THEOLOGY. also sufficient to prove all which we contend for, that, in this part likewise of organized nature, we perceive a continuation of the sexual system. Certain however it is, that the whole argument for the divine unity goes no further than to an unity of counsel.^ It may likewise be acknowledged, that no argu- ments which we are in possession of, exclude the ministry of subordinate agents. If such there be, they act under a presiding, a controlling will ; be- cause they act according to certain general restric- tions, by certain common rules, and, as it should seem, upon a general plan: but still such agents, and different ranks, and classes and degrees of them, may be employed.^^ ^ The extraordinary discoveries in geology made since Dr. Pa- ley's time by the study of fossil osteology by no means impair his argument as to Unity when rightly considered. These will be fully discussed in the Appendix, and they throw material light upon other branches of the sebject. 25 Addison, a person of practical understanding, calm tempera- ment, and widely removed from all enthusiasm, (Spectator, No. 100,) states very plainly his behcf in spirits, not in the religious and philosophical sense of subordinate agents, adopted by Dr. Paley, but in the popular sense of ghosts. He rests his opinion, as Dr. Johnson did his strong inclination towards the same belief, upon the cogency of testimony. Respecting witchcraft, he else- where (No. 117) expresses the inclination of his opinion in favour of it generally and abstractedly ; but refusing all credit to particu- lar instances. The feeling which dictates such a disposition to believe in a spiritual world is natural, as well as amiable. But it may be questioned if religion does not lose as much as it can gain by indulging in it. NATURAL THEOLOGY. 95 CHAPTER XXVI. OF THE GOODNESS OF THE DEITY. The proof of the divine goodness rests upon two propositions : each, as we contend, capable of be- ing made out by observations drawn from the ap- pearances of nature. The first is, " that in a vast plurality of instances in which contrivance is perceived, the design of the contrivance is beneficial." The second, "that the Deity has superadded pleasure to animal sensations, beyond what was necessary for any other purpose, or when the pur- pose, so far as it was necessary, might have been effected by the operation of pain." First, " in a vast plurality of instances in which contrivance is perceived, the design of the contri- vance is heneficialJ^ No productions of nature display contrivance so manifestly as the parts of animals ; and the parts of animals have all of them, I believe, a real, and, with very few exceptions, all of them a known and intelligible subserviency to the use of the animal. Now, when the multitude of animals is considered, the number of parts in each, their figure and fit- ness, the faculties depending upon them, the vari- 96 NATURAL THEOLOGY. ety of species, the complexity of structure, the success, in so many cases, and felicity of the re- sult, we can never reflect without the profoundest adoration, upon the character of that Being from whom all these things have proceeded : we cannot help acknowledging what an exertion of benevo- lence creation was ; of a benevolence how minute in its care, how vast in its comprehension ! When we appeal to the parts and faculties of animals, and to the limbs and senses of animals in particular, we state, I conceive, the proper medium of proof for the conclusion which we wish to es- tablish. I will not say, that the insensible parts of nature are made solely for the sensitive parts : but this I say, that, when we consider the benevo- lence of the Deity, we can only consider it in re- lation to sensitive being. Without this reference, or referred to any thing else, the attribute has no object ; the term has no meaning. Dead matter is nothing. The parts, therefore, especially the limbs and senses, of animals, although they consti- tute, in mass, and quantity, a small portion of the material creation, yet, since they alone are instru- ments of perception, they compose what may be called the whole of visible nature, estimated with a view to the disposition of its Author. Conse- quently, it is in these that we are to seek his cha- racter. It is by these that we are to prove tliat the world was made wiih a benevolent design. Nor is the design abortive. It is a happy world after all. The air, the earth, the water NATURAL THEOLOGY. 97 teem with delighted existence. In a spring noon, or a summer evening, on whichever side I turn my eyes, myriads of happy beings crowd upon my view. "The insect youth are on the wing.'* Swarms of new-born ^265 are trying their pinions in the air. Their sportive motions, their wanton mazes, their gratuitous activity, their continual change of place without use or purpose, testify their joy, and the exultation which they feel in their lately discovered faculties. A hee amongst the flowers in spring is one of the most cheerful objects that can be looked upon. Its life appears to be all enjoyment ; so busy, and so pleased ; yet it is only a specimen of insect life, with which by reason of the animal being half domesticated, we happen to be better acquainted than we are with that of others. The whole-winged insect tribe, it is probable, are equally intent upon their proper employments, and, under every variety of consti- tution, gratified, and perhaps equally gratified, by the offices which the Author of their nature has assigned to them. But the atmosphere is not the only scene of enjoyment for the insect race. Plants are covered with aphides, greedily sucking their juices, and constantly, as it should seem, in the act of sucking. It cannot be doubted but that this is a state of gratification. What else should fix them so close to the operation, and so long? Other species are running about, with an alacrity in their motions which carries with it every mark of plea- sure. Large patches of ground are sometimes 10 98 NATURAL THEOLOGY. half covered with these brisk'' and sprightly natures. It" we look to what the waters produce, shoals of the fry of fish frequent the margins of rivers, of lakes, and of the sea itself. These are so happy, that they know not what to do with themselves. Their attitudes, their vivacity, their leaps out of the water, their frolics in it, (which I have noticed a thousand times with equal attention and amuse- ment,) all conduce to show their excess of spirits, and are simply the effects of that excess. Walk- ing by the sea-side, in a calm evening, upon a sandy shore, and with an ebbing tide, I have fre- quently remarked the appearance of a dark cloud, or, rather, very thick mist, hanging over the edge of the water, to the height, perhaps, ofhalfayard, and of the breadth of two or three yards, stretch- ing along the coast as far as the eye could reach, and always retiring with the water. When this cloud came to be examined it proved to be nothing else than so much space filled with young shrimps, in the act of boundmg into the air from the shal- low margin of the water, or from the wet sand. If any motion of a mute animal could express de- light, it was this: if they had meant to make signs of their happiness, they could not have done it more intelligibly. Suppose, then, what I have no doubt of, each individual of this number to be in a state of positive enpyment ; what a sum, collec- tively, of gratification and pleasure have we here before our view !-° '^ To these considerations it niu>;t he added, that the lives of NATURAL THEOLOGY. 99 The tjoung of all animals appear to me to re- ceive pleasm'e simply from the exercise of their limbs and bodily faculties, without reference to any end to be attained, or any use to be answered by the exertion. A child, without knowing any thing of the use of language, is in a high degree delighted with being able to speak. Its incessant repetition of a few articulate sounds, or, perhaps, of the single word which it has learnt to pronounce, proves this point clearly. Nor is it less pleased with its first successful endeavours to walk, or rather to run (which precedes walking,) although entirely ignorant of the importance of the attain- ment to its future life, and even without applying it to any present purpose. A child is delighted with speaking, without having any thing to say, and with walking, without knowing where to go. And, prior to both these, I am disposed to believe, that the waking hours of infancy are agreeably taken up w^ith the exercise of vision, or perhaps, more properly speaking, with learning to see. But it is not for youth alone that the great Pa- rent of creaton hath provided. Happiness is found with the purring cat, no less than with the playful kitten ; in the arm-chair of dozing age, as well as in either the sprightliness of the dance, or the ani- mation of the chase. To novelty, to acuteness such animals may be only apparently short. If time is but the succession of ideas, then, as Soame Jenyns has observed, the in- sect that flutters for a single summer's day may in reality live as Ion-; as th3 tortoise that breathes for a century. 1 00 NATURAL THEOLOGY. of sensation, to hope, to ardour of pursuit, suc- ceeds, what is, in no inconsiderable degree, an equivalent for them all, "perception of ease." Herein is the exact difference between the young and the old. The young are not happy but when enjoying pleasure ; the old are happy when free from pain. And this constitution suits with the degrees of animal power which they respectively possess. The vigour of youth was to be stimu- lated to action by impatience of rest ; whilst to the imbecility of age, quietness and repose become positive gratifications. In one important respect the advantage is with the old. A state of ease is, generally speaking, more attainable than a state of pleasure. A constitution, therefore, which can enjoy ease, is preferable to that which can taste only pleasure. This same perception of ease often- times renders old age a condition of great comfort ; especially when riding at its anchor after a busy or tempestuous life. It is well described by Rous- seau, to be the interval of repose and enjoyment between the hurry and the end of hfe. How far the same cause extends to other animal natures can- not be judged of with certainty. The appearance of satisfaction with which most animals, as their activity subsides, seek and enjoy rest, affords rea- son to believe, that this source of gratification is appointed to advanced life, under all, or most, of its various forms. In the species with which we are best acquainted, namely our own, I am far, even as an observer of human life, from thinking NATURAL THEOLOGY* 101 that youth is its happiest season, much less the only happy one : as a Christian, I am willing to believe that there is a great deal of truth in the following representation given by a very pious wri- ter, as w^ell as excellent man :* " To the intelli- gent and virtuous, old age presents a scene of tran- quil enjoyments, of obedient appetite, of well-re- gulated affections, of maturity in knowledge, and of calm preparation for immortahty. In this serene and dignified state, placed as it were on the con- fines of two worlds, the mind of a good man re- views what is past with the complacency of an ap- proving conscience ; and looks forward, with hum- ble confidence in. the mercy of God, and with de- vout aspirations towards his eternal and ever- increasing favour." What is seen in diflferent stages of the sam life, is still more exemplified in the lives of dif- ferent animals. Animal enjoyments are infinitely diversified. The modes of life, to which the orga- nization of different animals respectively deter- mines them, are not only of various but of oppo- site kinds. Yet each is happy in its own. For instance : animals of prey live much alone ; ani- mals of a milder constitution in society. Yet the herring, which lives in shoals, and the sheep, which lives in flocks, are not more happy in a crowd, or more contented amongst their companions, than in the pike, or the lion, with the deep solitudes of the pool^ or the forest. * Father's Instructions ; by Dr. Percival of Manchester, p. 317. 10* 102 NATURAL THEOLOGY. But it will be said, that the instances which we have here brought forward, whether of vivacity or repose, or of apparent enjoyment derived from either, are picked and favourable instances. We answer, first, that they are instances, nevertheless, which comprise large provinces of sensitive exist- ence ; that every case which we have described is the case of millions. At this moment, in ever}' given moment of time, how many myriads of ani- mals are eating their food, gratifying their appe- tites, ruminating in their holes, accomplishing their wishes, pursuing their pleasures, taking their pastimes ! In each individual, how many things must go right for it to be at ease ; yet how large a proportion out of every species is so in every as- signable instant 1 Secondly, we contend, in the terms of our original proposition, that throughout the whole of life, as it is diffused in nature, and as far as we are acquainted with it, looking to the average of sensations, the plurality and the pre- ponderancy is in favour of happiness by a vast ex- cess. In our own species, in which perhaps the assertion may be more questionable than any other, the prepollency of good over evil, of health, for example, and ease, over pain and distress,, is evinced by the very notice which calamities excite. What inquiries does the sickness of our friends produce ! what conversation their misfortunes ! This shows that the common course of things is in favour of happiness; that happiness is the rule^ misery the exception. Were the order reversed , NATURAL THEOLOGY. 103 our attention would be called to examples of health and competency, instead of disease and want. One great cause of our insensibility to the good- ness of the Creator, is the very extensiveness of his bounty. We prize but little what we share only in common with the rest, or with the generality of our species. When we hear of blessings, we think forthwith of successes, of prosperous fortunes, of honours, riches, preferments, i. e. of those advan- tages and superiorities over others, which we hap- pen either to possess, or to be in pursuit of, or to covet. The common benefits of our nature entire- ly escape us. Yet these are the great things. These constitute what most properly ought to be accounted blessings of Providence ; what alone, if we might so speak, are worthy of its care. Nightly rest and daily bread, the ordinary use of our limbs, and senses, and understandings, are gifts which admit of no comparison with any other. Yet because almost every man we meet with pos- sesses these, we leave them out of our enumera- tion. They raise no sentiment ; they move no grati- tude. Now, herein is our judgement perverted by our selfishness. A blessing ought in truth to be the more satisfactory, the bounty at least of the donor is rendered more conspicuous, by its very diffusion, its commonness, its cheapness : by its falling to the lot, and forming the happiness, of the great bulk and body of our species, as well as of ourselves. Nay, even when we do not possess it,, it ought to be matter of thankfiilness that others- 104 NATURAL THEOLOGY. do. But we have a different way of thinking. We court distinction. That is not the worst : we see nothing but what has distinction to recommend it. This necessarily contracts our views of the Creator's beneficence within a narrow compass ; and most unjustly. It is in those things which are so common as to be no distinction, that the ampli- tude of the Divine benignity is perceived. But pain, no doubt, and privations exist, in nu- merous instances, and to a great degree, which collectively would be very great, if they were com- pared with any other thing than with the mass of animal fruition. For the application, therefore, of our proposition to tha Xmixed state of things which these exceptions induce, two rules are necessary, and both, 1 think, just and fair rules. One is, that we regard those effects alone which are accompa- nied with proofs of intention : The other, that when we cannot resolve all appearances into benevo- lence of design, we make the few give place ta the many ; the little to the great ; that we take our judgement from a large and decided preponderancy„ if there be one.^ ^''This passage, with others which afterwards occur in this work, as well as the part here quoted from the author's Moral Philosopliy, has been, it should seem, somewhat misunderstood by several excellent authors, who have treated him as if he were denying; the existence of evil ; and have referred, though without any sk(!ptical view, to the old dilemma of the Epicureans, stated by Lactantius : — " Aut vulf, et non potest ; aut potest et non vult tol- Icre mala." But Dr. Palcy's whole discourse upon this subject must be taken as an attempt, and a successful one, to diminish the apparent amount of evil, by showing that many of the tbings^ NATURAL THEOLOGY. 105 I crave leave to transcribe into this place what I have said upon this subject in my Moral Philo- sophy : — " When God created the human species, either he v^ished their happiness, or he wished their mi^. sery, or he was indifferent and unconcerned about either. " If he had wished our misery, he might have made sure of his purpose, by forming our senses to be so many sores and pains to us, as they are now instruments of gratification and enjoyment ; or by placing us amidst objects so ill suited to our perceptions, as to have continually offended us, instead of ministering to our refreshment and de- light. He might have made, for example, every thing we tasted, bitter ; every thing we saw, loath- some ; every thing we touched, a sting ; every smell a stench ; and every sound, a discord. "If he had been indifferent about our happiness or misery, we must impute to our good fortune (as all design by this supposition is excluded,) both the capacity of our senses to receive pleasure, accounted evils are less bad than they seem to be. He explains the deductions which are fairly to be made ; he shows the com- pensations which exist ; he proves that out of evil good frequent- ly arises. Having done this, evil still remains, but in an amount exceedingly reduced ; and this remaining portion is that concern- ing which alone the question arises. All that follows of text must read with this view ; and it must be admitted that nothing can be more legitimate than the scope of the reasoning employed if regarded in this light. Viewed in any other, it would be liable to the objections which have been urged against it. 106 NATURAL THEOLOGY. and the supply of external objects fitted to pro- duce it. " But either of these, and still more, both of them, being too much to be attributed to accident, nothing remains but the first supposition, that God, when he created the human species, wished their happiness ; and made for them the provision which he has made, with that view and for that purpose, " The same argument may be proposed in dif- ferent terms ; thus : Contrivance proves design ; and the predominant tendency of the contrivance indicates the disposition of the designer. The world abounds with contrivances ; and all the con- trivances which we are acquainted with are di- rected to beneficial purposes. Evil, no doubt, ex- ists ; but is never, that we can perceive, the object of contrivance. Teeth are contrived to eat, not to ache ; their aching now and then is incidental to the contrivance, perhaps inseparable from it : or even, if you will, let it be called a defect in the contrivance ; but it is not the object of it. This is a distinction which well deserves to be attend- ed to. In describing implements of husbandry, you would hardly say of the sickle, that it is made to cut the reaper*s hand : though from the con- struction of the instrument, and the manner of using it, this mischief often follows. But if you had occasion to describe instruments of torture, or execution, — this engine, you would say, is to ex- tend the sinews : this to dislocate the joints: this NATURAL THEOLOGY. 107 to break the bones ; this to scorch the soles of the feet. Here, pain and misery are the very objects of the contrivance. Now, nothing of this sort is to be found in the works of nature. We never discover a train of contrivance to bring about an evil purpose. No anatomist ever discovered a system of organization calculated to produce pain and disease ; or, in explaining the parts of the hu- man body, ever said, this is to irritate ; this to in- flame ; this duct is to convey the gravel to the kid- neys ; this gland to secrete the humour which forms the gout : if by chance he come at a part of which he knows not the use, the most he can say is, that it is useless ; no one ever suspects that it is put there to incommode, to annoy, or to torment." The TWO CASES which appear to me to have the most difficulty in them, as forming the most of the appearance of exception to the representation here given, are those of venomous animals, and of animals preying upon one another. These proper- ties of animals, wherever they are found, must, I think, be referred to design ; because there is in all cases of the first, and in most cases of the second, an express and distinct organization pro- vided for the producing of them. Under the first head, the fangs of vipers, the stings of wasps and scorpions, are as clearly intended for their pur- pose, as any animal structure is for any purpose the most incontestably beneficial. And the same thing must, under the second head, be acknow- ledged of the talons and beaks of birds, of the tusks. 108 NATURAL THEOLOGY. teeth, and claws of beasts of prey ; of the shark's mouth, of the spider's web, and of numberless weapons of offence belonging to different tribes of voracious insects. We cannot, therefore, avoid the difficulty by saying, that the effect was not in- tended. The only question open to us is, wheth- er it be ultimately evil. From the confessed and felt imperfection of our knowledge, we ought to presume, that there may be consequences of this economy which are hidden from us : from the benevolence which pervades the general designs of nature, we ought also to presume, that these consequences, if they could enter into our calcula- tion, would turn the balance on the favourable side. Both these 1 contend to be reasonable pre- sumptions. Not reasonable presumptions, if these two cases were the only cases which nature pre- sented to our observation ; but reasonable pre- sumptions under the reflection, that the cases in question are combined with a multitude of inten- tions, all proceeding from the same author, and all, except these, directed to ends of undisputed utili- ty. Of the vindications, however, of this econo my, which we are able to assign, such as most ex- tenuate the difficulty are the following. With respect to venomous bites and stings, it maybe observed, — I. That, the animal itself being regarded, the faculty complained of is good ; being conducive, in all cases, to the defence of the animal ; in some cases, to the subduing of its prey ; and in some, NATURAL THEOLOGY. 109 probably, to the killing of it, when caught, by a mortal wound, inflicted in the passage to the stomach, which may be no less merciful to the victim, than salutary to the devourer. In the viper, for instance, the poisonous fang may do that which, in other animals of prey, is done by the crush of the teeth. Frogs and mice might be swallowed alive without it. 2. But it will be said, that this provision, when it comes to the case of bites, deadly even to hu- man bodies, and to those of large quadrupeds, is greatly overdone ; that it might have fulfilled its use, and yet have been much less deleterious than it is. Now I believe the case of bites which pro- duce death in large animals (of stings I think there are none,) to be very few. The experiments of the Abbe Fontana, which were numerous, go strongly to the proof of this point. He found that it required the action of five exasperated vipers to kill a dog of a moderate size ; but that to the kill- ing of a mouse, or a frog, a single bite was suffi cient ; which agrees with the use which we assign to the faculty. The Abbe seemed to be of opin- ion, that the bite even of the rattlesnake would not usually be mortal ; allowing, however, that in certain particularly unfortunate cases, as when the puncture had touched some very tender part, pricked a principal nerve, for instance, or, as it is said, some more considerable lymphatic vessel, death might speedily ensue. 3. It has been, I think, very justly remarked, 11 110 NATURAL THEOLOGY. concerning serpents, that, whilst only a few spe- cies possess the venomous property, that property auards the whole tribe. The most innocuous snake is avoided with as much care as a viper. Now the terror with which large animals regard this class of reptiles is its protection ; and this ter- ror is founded on the formidable revenge, which a few of the number, compared with the whole, are capable of taking. The species of serpents, described by Linnaeus, amount to two hundred and eighteen, of which thirty-two only are poi- sonous. 4. It seems to me, that animal constitutions are provided, not only for each element, but for each state of the elements, i. e. for every climate, and for every temperature : and that part of the mischief complained of arises from animals (the human ani- mal most especially) occupying situations upon the earth which do not belong to them, nor were ever intended for their habitation. The folly and wickedness of mankind, and necessities proceed- ing from these causes, have driven multitudes of the species to seek a refuge amongst burning sands, whilst countries blessed with hospitable skies, and with the most fertile soils, remain almost without a human tenant. We invade the territories ot wild beasts and venomous reptiles, and then com- plain that we are infested by their bites and stings. Some accounts of Africa place this observation in a strong point of view. " The deserts," says Adamson, " are entirely barren, except where NATURAL THEOLOGY. Ill they are found to produce serpents ; and in such quantities, that some extensive plains are ahnost entirely covered with them." These are the na- tures appropriated to the situation. Let them en- joy their existence; let them have their country. Surface enough vi^ill be left to man, though his numbers were increased a hundred-fold, and left to him, where he might live exempt from these annoyances. The SECOND CASE, viz. ih3it of animals devouring one another, furnishes a consideration of much larger extent. To judge whether, as a general provision, this can be deemed an evil, even so far as we understand its consequences, which, proba- bly, is a partial understanding, the following re- flections are fit to be attended to.^^ ^ The subject of apparently conflicting contrivances, including conflicting instincts, as well as apparently impeifect contrivances and instincts, will be considered at large in the Appendix. The progress of science is constantly diminishing the number of such instances, as far as our ignorance of design goes. That some conflict will continue ; in other words, that evil to a certain amount will, after all deductions, be found to exist, cannot be doubted. But that an immense preponderance of good exists in every depart- ment of nature, both of matter and of mind, is so clear, that, ar- guing as we do on every other subject, we have a right to impute the perception of any evil at all to our own ignorance ; and to conclude that, if we knew the whole system, and could extend our comprehension to the entire plan of creation, we should no longer believe there was evil at all. Of the different hypotheses to which we may have recourse for explaining what we are unable legitimately to solve, the Probationary State is one, and is the one which appears to tally best with the facts. It is hardly necessary 112 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 1. Immortality upon this earth is out of the ques- tion. Without death there could be no genera- tion, no sexes, no parental relation, i. e. as things are constituted, no animal happiness. The particu- lar duration of life, assigned to different animals, can form no part of the objection ; because, what- ever that duration be, whilst it remains finite and limited, it may always be asked, why it is no longer. The natural age of diflferent animals va- ries, from a single day to a century of yeaVs. No account can be given of this ; nor could any be given, whatever other proportion of life had ob- tained amongst them. The term then of life in different animals being the same as it is, the question is, what mode of taking it away is the best even for the animal itself. Now, according to the established order of na- ture, (which we must suppose to prevail, or we cannot reason at all upon the subject,) the three methods by which life is usually put an end to are acute diseases, decay, and violence. The simple and natural life of brutes is not often visit- ed by acute distempers ; nor could it be deemed an improvement of their lot if they were. Let it be considered, therefore, in what a condition of suffering and misery a brute animal is placed to add that we are now, as througliout these notes, after the ex- ample of the author, confining ourselves altogether to the intima- tions received from natural reason and observation, unaided by the light of revelation. NATURAL THEOLOGY. 113 which is left to perish by decay. In human sick- ness or infirmity, there is the assistance of man's rational fellow-creatures, if not to alleviate his pains, at least to minister to his necessities, and to supply the place of his own activity. A brute, in his wild and natural state, does every thing for himself. When his strength, therefore, or his speed, or his limbs, or his senses fail him, he is delivered over, either to absolute famine or to the protracted wretchedness of a life slowly wasted by the scarcity of food. Is it then to see the world filled with drooping, superannuated, half- starved, helpless, and unhelped animals, that you would alter the present system of pursuit and prey ? 2. Which system is also to them the spring of motion and activity on both sides. The pursuit of its prey forms the employment, and appears to constitute the pleasure, of a considerable part of the animal creation. The using of the means of defence, or flight, or precaution, forms also the business of another part. And even of this latter tribe, we have no reason to suppose, that their happiness is much molested by their fears. Their danger exists continually ; and in some cases they seem to be so far sensible of it, as to provide, in the best manner they can, against it ; but it is only when the attack is actually made upon them, that they appear to suffer from it. To contem- plate the insecurity of their condition with anxiety and dread, requires a degree of reflection, which 11* 114 NATURAL THEOLOGY. (happily for themselves) they do not possess. A hare, notwithstanding the number of its dangers and its enemies is as playful an animal as any other. 3. But, to do justice to the question, the system of animal destruction ought always to be consider- ed in strict connexion with another property of animal natm^e, viz. superfecundity . They are countervailing qualities. One subsists by the cor- rection of the other. In treating, therefore, of the subject under this view, (which is, I believe, the true one,) our business will be, first, to point out the advantages which are gained by the powers in nature of a superabundant multiplication ; and then to show, that these advantages are so many reasons for appointing that system of national hostilities, which we are endeavouring to account for. In almost all cases, nature produces her supplies with profusion. A single cod-fish spawns, in one season, a greater number of eggs than all the in- habitants of England amount to. A thousand other instances of prolific generation might be sta- ted, which, though not equal to this, would carry on the increase of the species with a rapidity which outruns calculation, and to an immeasura- ble extent. The advantages of such a constitu- tion are two; first, that it tends to keep the world always full ; whilst, secondly, it allows the pro- portion between the several species of animals to be diflJerently modified, as different purposes re- NATURAL THEOLOGY. 115 quire, or as different situations may afford for them room and food. Where this vast fecundity meets with a vacancy fitted to receive the species, there it operates with its whole effect ; there it pours in its numbers and replenishes the waste. We com- plain of what we call the exorbitant multiplica- tion of some troublesome insects ; not reflecting, that large portions of nature might be left void without it. If the accounts of travellers may be depended upon, immense tracts of forests in North America would be nearly lost to sensitive exist- ence, if it were not for gnats. " In the thinly in- habited regions of America, in which the waters stagnate and the climate is warm, the whole air is filled with crowds of these insects." Thus it is, that where we looked for solitude and death-like silence, we meet with animation, activity, enjoy- ment ; with a busy, a happy, and a peopled world. Again ; hosts of mice are reckoned amongst the plagues of the north-east part of Europe ; whereas vast plains in Siberia, as we learn from good au- thority, would be lifeless without them. The Caspian deserts are converted by their presence into crowds of warrens. Between the Volga and the Yaik, and in the country of Hyrcania, the ground, says Pallas, is in many places covered with little hills, raised by the earth cast out in forming the burrows. Do we so envy these bliss ful abodes, as to pronounce the fecundity by which they are supplied with inhabitants to be an evil ; a subject of complaint, and not of praise ? 116 NATURAL THEOLOGY. Further; by virtue of this same superfecundity, what we term destruction becomes almost instant- ly the parent of hfe. What we call blights are oftentimes legions of animated beings, claiming tlieir portion in the bounty of nature. What cor- rupts the produce of the earth to us, prepares it for them. And it is by means of their rapid multiplication, that they take possession of their pasture ; a slow propagation would not meet the opportunity. But in conjunction with the occasional use of this fruitfulness, we observe, also, that it allows the proportion between the several species of ani- mals to be differently modified, as different purpo- ses of utility may require. When the forests of America come to be cleared, and the swamps drained, our gnats will give place to other inhabit- ants. If the population of Europe should spread to the north and the east, the mice will retire be- fore the husbandman and the shepherd, and yield their station to herds and flocks. In what con- cerns the human species, it may be a part of the scheme of Providence, that the earth should be in- habited by a shifting, or perhaps a circulating popu- lation. In this economy, it is possible that there may be the following advantages: When old coun- tries are become exceedingly corrupt, simpler modes of life, purer morals, and better institutions, may rise up in new ones, whilst fresh soils reward the cultivator with more plentiful returns. Thus the different portions of the globe come into use NATirilAL THEOLOGY. 117 in succession as the residence of man ; and, in his absence, entertain other guests, which, by their sudden multiphcation, fill the chasm. In domesti- cated animals, we find the effect of their fecundity to be, that we can always command numbers ; we can always have as many of any particular species as we please, or as we can support. Nor do we complain of its excess; it being much more easy to regulate abundance, than to supply scarcity. But then this superfecundity, though of great occasional use and importance, exceeds the ordi- nary capacity of nature to receive or support its progeny. All superabundance supposes destruc- tion, or must destroy itself. Perhaps there is no species of terrestrial animals whatever, which would not overrun the earth, if it were permitted to multiply in perfect safety ; or of fish, which would not fill the ocean: at least, if any single species were left to their natural increase without disturbance or restramt, the food of other species would be exhausted by their maintenance. It is necessary, therefore, that the effects of such pro- lific faculties be curtailed. In conjunction with other checks and limits, all subservient to the same purpose, are the thinnings which take place among animals, by their action upon one another. In some instances we ourselves experience, very directly, the use of these hostilities. One species of insects rids us of another species; or reduces their ranks. A third species, perhaps, keeps the second within bounds ; and birds or lizards are a 118 NATURAL THEOLOGY. fence against the ordinate increase by which even these last might infest us. In other, more nume- rous, and possibly more important instances, this disposition of things, although less necessary or useful to us, and of course less observed by us, may be necessary and useful to certain other spe- cies ; or even for the preventing of the loss of cer- tain species from the universe : a misfortune which seems to be studiously guarded against. Though there may be the appearance of failure in some of the details of Nature's works, in her great pur- poses there never are. Her species never fail. The provision w hich was originally made for con- tinuing the replenishment of the world has proved itself to be effectual through a long succession of ages. What further shows, that the system of destruc- tion amongst animals holds an express rp.lation to the system of fecundity, — that they are parts in- deed ot one compensatory scheme, — is, that m each species the fecundity bears a proportion to the smallness of the animal, to the weakness, to the shortness of its natural term of life, and to the dangers and enemies by which it is surrounded. An elephant produces but one calf; a butterfly lays six hundred eggs. Birds of prey seldom pro- duce more than two eggs ; the sparrow tribe, and the duck tribe, frequently sit upon a dozen. In the rivers, we meet with a thousand minnows for one pike ; in the sea, a million of herrings for a single shark. Compensation obtains throughout. De- NATURAL THEOLOGY. 119 fencelessness and devastation are repaired by fecundity. We have dwelt the longer on these considera- tions, because the subject to which they apply, namely that of animals devouring one another, forms the chief, if not the only instance, in the works of the Deity, of an economy, stamped by marks of design, in which the character of utility can be called in question. The case of venomous animals is of much inferior consequence to the case of prey, and, in some degree, is also included under it. To both cases it is probable that many more reasons belong, than those of which we are in possession. Our FIRST PROPOSITION, and that which we have hitherto been defending, was, "that, in avast plu- rality of instances, in which contrivance is per- ceived, the design of the contrivance is beneficial." Our SECOND PROPOSITION is, "that the Deity has added ^/e«5Mre to animal sensations, beyond what was necessary for any other purpose, or when the purpose, so far as it was necessary, might have been effected by the operation of pain.'*^ ^ This is a most important consideration, and one which can- not be dwelt upon too constantly; and which assuredly will, by the contemplative and well-regulated mind, never be dwelt upon without experiencing the most pleasing and salutary influence. It will be further illustrated in the Appendix ; but in this place it may be right to add, that the induction of facts plainly shows the system of the universe to be governed upon the principle of inducement rather than denouncement ; of reward more than of punishment ; and not only are sentient beings guided by the more kindly process where the harshe- would have sufficed, but 120 NATURAL THEOLOGY. This proposition may be thus explained : The capacities, which, according to the established course of nature, are necessary to the support or preservation of an animal, however manifestly they may be the result of an organization con- trived for the purpose, can only be deemed an act or a pait of the same will, as that which decreed the existence of the animal itself ; because, whe- ther the creation proceeded from a benevolent or a malevolent being, these capacities must have been given, if the animal existed at all. Animal properties, therefore, which fall under this descrip- tion, do not strictly prove the goodness of God ; they may prove the existence of the Deity ; they may prove a high degree of power and intelli- gence : but they do not prove his goodness ; for asmuch as they must have been found in any crea- tion which was capable of continuance, although it is possible to suppose, that such a creation might have been produced by a being whose views rest- ed upon misery. But there is a class of properties, which may there is more inducement employed, more pleasure superadded, than is even necessary to work the effect intended. It is as if a human lawgiver were to prefer rewarding his subjects for obe- dience, rather than punishing them for contumacy ; and were then to add some bounty beyond what had been found quite sufficient to ensure their compliance. It must be constantly borne in mind, that there is not one single act performed by any animal, from man to the lowest insect in the scale, in fulfilling tlio apparent ends of its creation, the performance of which mii;lit not have been secured as effectually by the pressure or by the apprehen- sion of pain, as it now is, in so vast a number of instances, soli- cited by the enjoyment or the hope of some gratification. NATURAL THEOLOGY. 121 be said to be superadded from an intention ex- pressly directed to happiness ; an intention to give a happy existence distinct from the general inten- tion of providing the means of existence ; and that is, of capacities for pleasure, in cases wherein, so far as the conservation of the individual or of the species is concerned, they were not wanted, or wherein the purpose might have been secured by the operation of pain. The provision which is made of a variety of objects, not necessary to life, and ministering only to our pleasures ; and the pro- perties given to the necessaries of life themselves, by which they contribute to pleasure as well as preservation ; show a further design than that of giving existence.* A single instance will make all this clear. As- suming the necessity of food for the support of animal life, it is requisite that the animal be pro- vided with organs fitted for the procuring, receiv- ing, and digesting of its food. It may also be ne- cessary, that the animal be impelled by its sensa- tions to exert its organs. But the pain of hunger would do all this. Why add pleasure to the act of eating ; sweetness and relish to food ? why a new and appropriate sense for the perception of the pleasure? Why should the juice of a peach * See this topic considered in Dr. Balguy's Treatise upon the Divine Benevolence. This excellent author first, I think, pro- posed it; and nearly in the terms in which it is here stated. Some other observations also under this head are taken from that treatise — J^ote of the JliU'ior. 12 122 NATURAL THEOLOGY. applied to the palate, affect the part so difierently from what it does when rubbed upon the palm of the hand ? This is a constitution which, so far as appears to me, can be resolved into nothing but the pure benevolence of the Creator. Eating is necessar}^ ; but the pleasure attending it is not ne- cessary : and that this pleasure depends, not only upon our being in possession of the sense of taste, which is different from every other, but upon a particular state of the organ in which it resides, a felicitous adaptation of the organ to the object, will be confessed by any one, who may happen to have experienced that vitiation of taste which fre- quently occurs in fevers, when every taste is irregu- lar, and every one bad. In mentioning the gratifications of the palate, it may be said that we have made choice of a trifling example.^*' I am not of that opinion. They af- ^ Neither this nor any other thing which our nature, physical or moral, is formed to relish, can be deemed trifling; and it is well observed afterwards that the very capacity of being pleased with what, by comparison with other things, are termed trivial matters, is itself a source of enjoyment provided for us by the divine bene- ficence. AH men have within themselves the power of being amused or occupied, and interested — tliat is pleased, gratified — with things which, until they make the attempt, they are disposed to regard as wholly incapable of affording any satisfaction. 'J his is a most important source of enjoyment, and one more inde- pendent of external circumstances than they could believe who have never made the experiment. "Le goCit (says Marmontel, J\l6m. I. 431) s'accommodc aux objects dont il pent jouir; et cctle sage maxim e, Q,uand on n'a pas ce que I'on aime, II faut aimer ce que Ton a. NATURAL THEOLOGY. 123 tord a share of enjoyment to man; but to brutes, I believe that they are of very great importance. A horse at Hberty passes a great part of his waking hours in eating. To the ox, the sheep, the deer, and other ruminating animals, the pleasure is doubled. Their whole time almost is divided be- tween browsing upon their pasture and chewing their cud. Whatever the pleasure be, it is spread over a large portion of their existence. If there be animals, such as the lupous fish, which swallow their prey whole, and at once, without any time, as it should seem, for either drawing out, or rehsh- ing, the taste in the mouth, is it an improbable con- jecture, that the seat of taste with them is in the stomach; or, at least, that a sense of pleasure, whe- ther it be taste or not, accompanies the dissolution of the food in that receptacle, which dissolution in general is carried on very slowly? If this opinion est en effet non seulement une le^on dela nature, mais un moyen qu'elle se menage pour nous procurer des plaisirs." The earlier and by far the most interesting part of his book abounds in illus- trations of a kindred truth — the gratification derived from the humblest sources by those who have known none other. "Nos galettes de sarrazin, humectees, toutes brMantes, de ce bon beurre du Mont-d'or, etaient pour nos le plus friand r^gal, Je ne sais pas quel mets nous efit paru meilleur que nos raves et nos chd- taignes ; et en hiver, lorsque ces belles raves grillaient le soir k I'entour du foyer, ou que nous entendions bouillonner I'eau du vase ou cuisaient ces ch^taignes si sovoureuses et si douces, le cceur nous palpitait de joie." — (lb. p. 9.) " Gluand j'arrivais chez moi, et que, dans un bon lit ou au coin d'un bon feu, je me sentais tout ranime, c'etait pour moi I'lin das moments les plus delicieux de la vie ; jonissancfi que la mollessc ne m'aurait jamais fait con- naUre."--(Ib. 34.) 124 NATURAL THEOLOGY. be right, they are more than repaid for the defect of palate. The feast lasts as long as the digestion. In seeking for argument, we need not stay to insist upon the comparative importance of our ex- ample : for the observation holds equally of all, or of three at least, of the other senses. The neces- sary purposes of hearing might have been answer- ed without harmony ; of smell, without fragrance ; of vision, without beauty. Now, " if the Deity had been indifferent about our happiness or misery, we must impute to our good fortune (as all design by this supposition is excluded,) both the capacity of our senses to receive pleasure, and the supply of external objects fitted to excite it." I allege these as two felicities, for they are different things, yet both necessary : the sense being formed, the ob- jects, which were applied to it, might not have suited it ; the objects being fixed, the sense might not have agreed with them. A coincidence is here required, which no accident can account for. There are three possible suppositions upon the sub- ject, and no more. The first ; that the sense, by its original constitution, was made to suit the ob- ject : The second ; that the object, by its original constitution, was made to suit the sense : The third ; that the sense is so constituted, as to be able, either universally, or within certain limits, by habit and familiarity, to render every object pleasant. Which* ever of these suppositions we adopt, the effect evin- ces, on the part of the Author of nature, a studious benevolence. If the pleasures which we derive NATURAL THEOLOGY. 125 from any of our senses depend upon an original congruity between the sense and the properties perceived by it, we know by experience that the adjustment demanded, with respect to the quali- ties which we conferred upon the objects that sur- round us, not only choice and selection, out of a boundless variety of possible qualities with which these objects might have been endued, but di pro- portioning also of degree, because an excess or de- fect of intensity spoils the perception, as much al- most as an error in the kind and nature of the quality. Likewise the degree of dulness or acute- uess in the sense itself is no arbitrary thing, but, in order to preserve the congruity here spoken of, requires to be in an exact or near correspondency with the strength of the impression. The dulness of the senses forms the complaint of old age. Persons in fevers, and, I believe, in most maniacal cases, experience great torment from their preter- natural acuteness. An increased, no less than an impaired sensibility, induces a state of disease and suffering. The doctrine of a specific congruity between animal senses and their objects is strongly favour- ed by what is observed of insects in the election of their food. Some of these will feed upon one kind of plant or animal, and upon no other ; some ca- terpillars upon the cabbage alone ; some upon the black currant alone. The species of caterpillar which eats the vine will starve upon the alder ; nor will that which we find upon fennel touch the 12* 126 NATURAL THEOLOGY. rose-bush. Some insects confine themselves to two or three kinds of plants or animals. Some again show so strong a preference as to afford reason to believe that, though they may be driven by hunger to others, they are led by the pleasure of taste to a few particular plants alone ; and all this, as it should seem, independently of habit or imitation. But should we accept the third hypothesis, and even carry it so far as to ascribe every thing which concerns the question to habit, (as in cer- tain species, the human species most particularly, there is reason to attribute something,) we have then before us an animal capacity, not less per- haps to be admired than the native congruities which the other scheme adopts. It cannot be shown to result from any fixed necessity in na- ture, that what is frequently applied to the senses should of course become agreeable to them. It is, so far as it subsists, a power of accommoda- tion provided in these senses by the Author of their structure, and forms a part of their per- fection. In whichever way we regard the senses, they appear to be specific gifts, ministering, not only to preservation, but to pleasure. But what we usually call the senseSf are probably themselves far from being the only vehicles of enjoyment, or the whole of our constitution which is calculated for the same purpose. We have many internal sensations of the most agreeable kind, hardly referable to any NATURAL THEOLOGY. 127 of the five senses. Some physiologists have holden that all secretion is pleasurable ; and that the com- placency which in health, without any external assignable object to excite it, we derive from life itself, is the effect of our secretions going on well within us. All this may be true ; but if true, what reason can be assigned for it, except the will of the Creator? It may reasonably be asked, Why is any thing a pleasure ? and I know no answer which can be returned to the question, but that which refers it to appointment. We can give no account whatever of our plea- sures in the simple and original perception ; and even when physical sensations are assumed, we can seldom account for them in the secondary and complicated shapes in which they take the name of diversions. I never yet met with a sportsman, who could tell me in what the sports consisted ; who could resolve it into its principle, and state that principle. I have been a great follower of fishing myself, and in its cheerful solitude have passed some of the happiest hours of a sufficiently happy life : but, to this moment, I could never trace out the source of the pleasure which it afforded me. The "quantum in rebus inane !" whether ap- plied to our amusements or to our graver pursuits, (to which, in truth, it sometimes equally belongs,) is always an unjust complaint. If trifles engage, and if trifles make us happy, the true reflection suggested by the experiment is upon the tendency of nature to gratification and enjoyment ; which 128 NATURAL THEOLOGY. is, in other words, the goodness of its Author to- wards his sensitive creation. Rational natures also, as such, exhibit qualities which help to confirm the truth of our position. The degree of understanding found in mankind is usually much greater than what is necessary for mere preservation. The pleasure of choosing for themselves, and of prosecuting the object of their choice, should seem to be an original source of enjoyment. The pleasures received from things, great, beautiful, or new, from imitation, or from the liberal arts, are, in some measure, not only su- peradded, but unmixed, gratifications, having no pains to balance them.* I do not know whether our attachment to pro- perty be not something more than the mere dictate of reason, or even than the mere effect of associa- tion. Property communicates a charm to what- ever is the object of it. It is the first of our ab- stract ideas ; it cleaves to us the closest and the longest. It endears to the child its plaything, to the peasant his cottage, to the landholder his estate. It supplies the place of prospect and scenery. Instead of coveting the beauty of distant situations, it teaches every man to find it in his own. It gives boldness and grandeur to plains and fens, tinge and colouring to clays and fallows. All these considerations come in aid of our second proposition. The reader will now bear in * Balguy on the Divine Benevolence NATURAL THEOLOGY. 129 mind what our two propositions were. They were, firstly, that in a vast plurality of instances, in which contrivance is perceived, the design of the contrivance is beneficial : secondly, that the Deity has added pleasure to animal sensations be- yond what was necessary for any other purpose ; or when the purpose, so far as it was necessary, might have been effected by the operation of pain. Whilst these propositions can be maintained, we are authorized to ascribe to the Deity the cha- racter of benevolence ; and what is benevolence at all, must in him be infinite benevolence, by reason of the infinite, that is to say, the incalcula- bly great, number of objects upon which it is exercised. Of the ORIGIN OF EVIL HO Universal solution has been discovered ; I mean, no solution which reaches to all cases of complaint. The most compre- hensive is that which arises from the considera- tion o^ general rules?^ We may, I think, without *' These observations on General Laws, and those which fol- low upon the doctrine of Imperfections, have been misunderstood, in the same way with the former remarks, referred to in the second note upon this chapter ; but it must be allowed that the expres- sions here used respecting General Laws are somewhat incau- tious, and more liable to cavil. Nevertheless, the whole scope of the argument which follows plainly shows that our author never thought of solving the difficulty as to evil by resorting to the exist- ence of laws, which are themselves only the modes of acting pursued by the Deity himself In truth this portion of his argu- ment is, like that gn which we formerly commented, only to ba 130 NATURAL THEOLOGY. much difficulty be brought to admit the four fol- lowing points: first, that important advantages may accrue to the universe from the order of na- ture proceeding according to general laws : se- condly, that general laws, however well set and constituted, often thwart and cross one another : thirdly, that from these thw^artings and crossings, frequent particular inconveniences will arise : and, fourthly, that it agrees with our observation to suppose, that some degree of these inconveniences takes place in the works of nature. These points may be allowed ; and it may also be asserted, that the general laws with which we are acquainted are directed to beneficial ends. On the other hand, with many of these laws we are not acquainted at all, or we are totally unable to trace them in their branches, and in their operation ; the effect of which ignorance is, that they cannot be of im- portance to us as measures by which to regulate our conduct. The conservation of them may be of importance in other respects, or to other beings, but we are uninformed of their value or use ; unin- formed consequently, when, and how far, they may or may not be suspended, or their effects turned aside, by a presiding and benevolent will, considered as stating a deduction to be made from the total amount of evil; in other words, the reasoning is only a reduction of the apparent quantity to the real. Any thing beyond this would re- ally be recurring to the ancient doctrine of the heathens, whose gods were limitted in power and controlled by fate. NATURAL THEOLOGY. 131 without incurring greater evils than those which would be avoided. The consideration, therefore, of general laws, although it may concern the ques- tion of the origin of evil very nearly, (which I think it does,) rests in views disproportionate to our fa- culties, and in a knowledge which we do not pos- sess. It serves rather to account for the obscurity of the subject, than to supply us with distinct an- swers to our difficulties. However, whilst we as- sent to the above-stated propositions, as principles, whatever uncertainty we may find in the applica- tion, we lay a ground for believing, that cases of apparent evil, for which we can suggest no particu- lar reason, are governed by reasons, which are more general, which lie deeper in the order of second causes, and which on that account are re- moved to a greater distance from us. The doctrine of imperfections, or, as it is called, of evils of imperfection, furnishes an account, founded, like the former, in views of universal na- ture. The doctrine is briefly this : — It is proba- ble, that creation may be better replenished by sensitive beings of different sorts, than by sensitive beings all of one sort. It is likewise probable, that it may be better replenished by different orders of beings rising one above another in gradation, than by beings possessed of equal degrees of per- fection. Now, a gradation of such beings implies a gradation of imperfections. No class can justly complain of the imperfections which belong to its place in the scale, unless it were allowable for it 132 NATURAL THEOLOGY. to complain, that a scale of being was appointed in nature ; for which appointment there appear to be reasons of wisdom and goodness. In like manner Jiiiiteness, or what is resolvable into finiteness, in inanimate subjects, can never be a just subject of complaint ; because if it were ever so, it would be always so ; we mean, that we can never reasonably demand that things should be larger or more, when the same demand might be made, whatever the quantity or number was. And to me it seems that the sense of mankind has so far acquiesced in these reasons, as that we seldom complain of evils of this class, when we clearly perceive them to be such. What I have to add, therefore, is, that we ought not to com- plain of some other evils, which stand upon the same foot of vindication as evils of confessed im- perfection. We never complain, that the globe of our earth is too small : nor should we complain, if it were even much smaller. But where is the difference to us, between a less globe, and part of the present being uninhabitable ? The inhabitants of an island may be apt enough to murmur at the sterility of some parts of it, against its rocks, or sands, or swamps : but no one thinks himself au- thorized to murmur, simply because the island is not larger than it is. Yet these are the same griefs. The above are the two metaphysical answers which have been given to this great question. They are not the worse for being metaphysical. NATURAL THEOLOGY. 133 provided they be founded (which I think they are) in right reasoning : but they are of a nature too wide to be brought under our survey, and it is often difficult to apply them in the detail. Our speculations, therefore, are perhaps better employ- ed when they confine themselves within a narrow- er circle. The observations which follow are of this more limitted, but more determinate, kind. Of bodily pain, the principal observation, no doubt, is that which vv^e have already made, and already dwelt upon, viz, "that it is seldom the ob- ject of contrivance ; that when it is so, the contri- vance rests ultimately in good." To which, however, may be added that the an- nexing of pain to the means of destruction is a sal- utary provision ; inasmuch as it teaches vigilance and caution ; both gives notice of danger, and ex- cites those endeavours which may be necessary to preservation. The evil consequence, which sometimes arises from the want of that timely in- timation of danger which pain gives, is known to the inhabitants of cold countries by the example of frost-bitten limbs. I have conversed with pa- tients who had lost toes and fingers by this cause. They have in general told me, that they were to- tally unconscious of any local uneasiness at the time. Some I have heard declare, that, whilst they were about their employment, neither their situation, nor the state of the air, was unpleasant. They felt no pain ; they suspected no mischief; 13 134 NATURAL THEOLOGY. till, by the application of warmth, they discovered, too late, the fatal injury which some of their ex- tremities had suffered. I say that this shows the use of pain, and that we stand in need of such a monitor. I believe also that the use extends far- ther than we suppose, or can now trace ; that to disagreeable sensations we, and all animals, owe, or have owed, many habits of action which are salutary, but which are become so familiar, as not easily to be referred to their origin. ^Pain also itself is not without its alleviations. It may be- violent and frequent ; but it is seldom both violent and lon^-continued : and its pauses and intermissions become positive pleasures. It has the power of shedding a satisfaction over in- tervals of ease, which, I believe, few enjoyments exceed. A man resting from a fit of the stone or gout, is, for the time, in possession of feelings w^hich undisturbed health cannot impart. They may be dearly bought, but still they are to be set against the price. And, indeed, it depends upon the duration and urgency of the paiu, whether they be dearly bought or not. I am far from being sure that a man is not a gainer by suffering a mo- derate interruption of bodily ease for a couple of 32 This cliai)ter, wc are told by Dr. Fenwick in his sketch of Dr. Clark's life, " was written when Dr. Paley was suffering u:i- der sever-! attacks of a p-iinful disorder under which he had long lahourcd, and which afterwards proved fatal." Dr. Fenwick just- ly remarks upon tlic additional interest which this circumstance conununicates to the author's remarks upon the iultrruptions of pain. — r.Ieadly's Memoirs of Paley, p. 204. NATURAL THEOLOGY. 135 hours out of the four-and-twenty. Two very common observations favour this opinion : one is, that remissions of pain call forth, from those v^4io experience them, stronger expressions of satisfac- tion and of gratitude towards both the author and the instruments of their relief, than are excited by advantages of any other kind : the second is, that the spirits of sick men do not sink in proportion to the acuteness of their sufferings ; but rather ap- pear to be roused and supported, not by pain, but by the high degree of comfort which they derive from its cessation, or even its subsidency, when- ever that occurs ; and which they taste with a relish, that diffuses some portion of mental com- placency over the whole of that mixed state of sensations in which disease has placed them. In connexion with bodily pain may be consi- dered bodily disease, whether painful or not. Few diseases are fatal. I have before me the account of a dispensary in the neighbourhood, which states six years' experience as follows : — Admitted - - - 6,420 Cured ... - 5,476 Dead - - - - 234 " And this I suppose nearly to agree with what other similar institutions exhibit. Now, in all these cases, some disorder must have been felt, or the patients would not have applied for a remedy; yet we see how large a proportion of the maladies which were brought forward have either yielded 136 NATURAL THEOLOGY. to proper treatment, or, what is more probable, ceased of their own accord. We owe these fre- quent recoveries, and^ where recovery does not take place, this patience of the human constitution under many of the distempers by which it is visit- ed, to two benefactions of our nature. One is, that she works within certain limits ; allows of a certain latitude within which health may be pre- served, and within the confines of which it only suffers a graduated diminution. Different quanti- ties of food, different degrees of exercise, different portions of sleep, different states of the atmosphere, are compatible with the possession of health. So likewise it is with the secretions and excre- tions, with many internal functions of the body, and with the state, probably, of most of its internal organs. They may vary considerably, not only without destroying life, but without occa- sioning any high degree of inconveniency. The other property of our nature, to which we are still more beholden, is its constant endeavour to re- store itself, when disordered, to its regular course. The fluids of the body appear to possess a power of separating and expelling the noxious substance which may have mixed itself with them. This they do, in eruptive fevers, by a kind of despuma- tion, as Sydenham calls it, analogous in some measure to the intestine action by which ferment- ing liquors work the yest to the sux'face. The solids, on their part, when their action is obstruct-, ed, not only resume that action, as soon as the ob-^ NATURAL THEOLOGY. 137 struction is removed, but they struggle with the impediment. They take an action as near to the true one, as the difficulty and the disorga- nization with which they have to contend will allow of. Of mortal diseases, the great use is to reconcile us to death. The horror of death proves the value of life. But it is in the power of disease to abate, or even extinguish, this horror ; which it does in a wonderful manner, and, oftentimes, by a mild and imperceptible gradation. Every man who has been placed in a situation to observe it, is surprised with the change which has been wrought in himself, when he compares the view which he entertains of death upon a sick-bed, with the heart-sinking dismay with which* he should some time ago have met it in health. There is no similitude between the sensations of a man led to execution, and the calm expiring of a patient at the close of his disease. Death to him is only the last of a long train of changes ; in his progress through which, it is possible that he may experi- ence no shocks or sudden transitions. Death itself, as a mode of removal and of suc- cession, is so connected with the whole order of our animal world, that almost every thing in that world must be changed, to be able to do without it. It may seem likewise impossible to separate the fear of death from the enjoyment of life, or the perception of that fear from rational natures. Brutes are in a great measure delivered from all 13* 138 NATURAL THEOLOGY. anxiety on this account by the inferiority of their faculties ; or rather they seem to be armed with the apprehension of death just sufficiently to put them upon the means of preservation, and no farther. But would a human being wish to pur- chase this immunity at the expense of those men- tal powers which enable him to look forward to the future ? Death implies separation : and the loss of those whom we love must necessarily, so far as we can conceive, be accompanied with pain. To the brute creation, nature seems to have stepped in with some secret provision for their relief, under the rupture of their attachments. In their in- stincts towards their offspring, and of their off- spring to them, I have often been surprised to ob- serv^e how ardently they love, and how soon they forget. The pertinacity of human sorrow (upon which time also, at length, lays its softening hand,) is probably, therefore, in some manner connected with the qualities of our rational or moral nature. One thing however is clear, viz. that it is better that we should possess affections, the sources of so many virtues, and so many joys, although they be exposed to the incidents of life, as well as the interruptions of mortality, than, by the want of them, be reduced to a state of selfishness, apathy, and quietism.^ Of other external evils, (still confining ourselves *i The remarks made in the two former notes (2 and 31) arc applicable to this part of the text also- NATURAL THEOLOGY. 139 to what are called physical or natural evils,) a con- siderable part come within the scope of the follow- ing observation : — The great principle of human satisfaction is engagement. It is a most just dis- tinction, which the late Mr. Tucker has dwelt upon so largely in his works, between pleasures in which we are passive, and pleasures in which we are active. And, I believe, every attentive ob- server of human life will assent to his position, that, however grateful the sensations may occa- sionally be in which we are passive, it is not these, but the latter class of our pleasures, which consti- tute satisfaction ; which supply that regular stream of moderate and miscellaneous enjoyments, in which happiness, as distinguished from voluptuous- ness, consists. Now for rational occupation, which is, in other words, for the very material of con- tented existence, there would be no place left, if either the things with which we had to do were absolutely impracticable to our endeavours, or if they were too obedient to our uses. A world, furnished with advantages on one side, and beset with difficulties, wants, and inconveniences on the other, is the proper abode of free, rational, and active natures, being the fittest to stimulate and exercise their faculties. The very refractoriness of the objects they have to deal with, contributes to this purpose. A world in which nothing de- pended upon ourselves, however it might have suited an imaginary race of beings, would not have suited mankind. Their skill, prudence, in- J 40 NATURAL THEOLOGY. dustry ; their various arts and their best attain- ments, from the application of which they draw, if not their highest, their most permanent gratifica- tions, would be insignificant, if things could be either moulded by our volitions, or, of their own accord, conformed themselves to our views and wishes. Now it is in this refractoriness that we discern the seed and principle o{ physical evil, as far as it arises from that which is external to us. Civil evils,'^^ or the evils of civil life, are much more easily disposed of, than physical evils: be- cause they are, in truth, of much less magnitude, and also because they result, by a kind of neces- sity, not only from the constitution of our nature, but from a part of that constitution which no one would wish to see altered. The case is this : Mankind will in every country breed up to a cer- tain point of distress. That point may be differ- ent in different countries or ages, according to the established usages of life in each. It will also shift upon the scale, so as to admit of a greater or less number of inhabitants, according as the quan- tity of provision, which is either produced in the ** In all arguments respecting civil and political evils it is im- portant to keep the distinction steadily in view between content- ment under necessary sufferings, and quietism under such as nay be avoided by improvements in our institutions. Contentment, indeed, under even the latter, is a virtue as well as a solace, during the period required for their safe and legitimate amendment ; but this is no exception to the rule which we have glanced at; for the sufferings must be considered necessary until their removal can be safely effected. NATURAL THEOLOGY. 141 country, or supplied to it from other countries, may happen to vary. But there must always be such a point, and the species will always breed up to it. The order of generation proceeds by some- thing like a geometrical progression. The increase of provision, under circumstances even the most advantageous, can only assume the form of an arithmetic series. Whence it follows that the population will always overtake the provision, will pass beyond the line of plenty, and will continue to increase till checked by the difficulty of procu- ring subsistence.* Such difficulty, therefore, along with its attendant circumstances, must be found in every old country ; and these circumstances con- stitute what we call poverty, which necessarily imposes labour, servitude, restraint. It seems impossible to people a country with inhabitants who shall be all easy in circumstances. For suppose the thing to be done, there would be such marrying and giving in marriage amongst them, as would in a few years change the face of affairs entirely : i. e., as would increase the con- sumption of those articles which supplied the na- tural or habitual wants of the country to such a degree of scarcity, as must leave the greatest part of the inhabitants unable to procure them without toilsome endeavours ; or, out of the different kinds of these articles, to procure any kind except that which was most easily produced. And this, in * See a statement of this subject in a late treatise upon popu- lation.— Note of the »^uthor. 42 NATURAL THEOLOGY. fact, describes the condition of the mass of the community in all countries : a condition unavoid- ably, as it should seem, resulting from the provi- sion which is made in the human, in common with all animal constitutions, for the perpetuity and multiplication of the species. It need not however dishearten any endeavours for the public service, to know that population na- turally treads upon the heels of improvement. If the condition of a people be meliorated, the con- sequence will be, either that the mean happiness will be increased, or a greater number partake of it ; or, which is most likely to happen, that both effects will take place together. There may be limits fixed by nature to both, but they are limits not yet attained, nor even approached, in any country of the world. And when we speak of limits at all, we have respect only to provisions for animal wants. There are sources, and means, and auxiliaries, and aug- mentations of human happiness, communicable without restriction of numbers; as capable of being possessed by a thousand persons as by one. Such are those which flow from a mild, contrasted with a tyrannic government, whether civil or domestic ; those which spring from religion ; those which grow out of a sense of security ; those which de- pend upon habits of virtue, sobriety, moderation, order : those, lastly, which are found in the pos- session of well-directed tastes and desires, com- pared with the dominion of tormenting, pernicious. NATURAL THEOLOGY. 143 contradictory, unsatisfied, and unsatisfiable pas- sions. ■ The distinctions of civil life are apt enough to be regarded as evils by those who sit under them ; but, in my opinion, with very little reason. In the first place, the advantages which the higher conditions of life are supposed to confer, bear no proportion in value to the advantages which are bestowed by nature. The gifts of na- ture always surpass the gifts of fortune. How much, for example, is activity better than attend- ance ; beauty than dress ; appetite, digestion, and tranquil bowels, than all the studies of cookery, or than the most costly compilation of forced or far- fetched dainties ! Nature has a strong tendency to equalization. Habit, the instrument of nature, is a great leveller ; the familiarity which it induces taking off' the edge both of our pleasures and our sufferings. Indulg- ences which are habitual, keep us in ease, and can- not be carried much further. So that with respect to the gratifications of which the senses are capa- ble, the difference is by no means proportionable to the apparatus. Nay, so far as superfluity gene- rates fastidiousness, the difference is on the wrong side. It is not necessary to contend, that the advan- tages derived from wealth are none, (under due regulations they are certainly considerable,) but that they are not greater than they ought to be. Money is the sweetener of human toil ; the substi- 144 NATURAL THEOLOGY. tute for coercion ; the reconciler of labour with liberty. It is, moreover, the stimulant of enter- prise in all objects and undertakings, as well as of diligence in the most beneficial arts and em- ployments. Now, did affluence, when possessed, contribute nothing to happiness, or nothing be- yond the mere supply of necessaries, — and the secret should come to be discovered, — we might be in danger of losing great part of the uses which are at present derived to us through this important medium. Not only would the tran- quillity of social life be put in peril by the want of a motive to attach men to their private concerns ; but the satisfaction which all men receive from success in their respective occupations, which col- lectively constitutes the great mass of human comfort, w^ould be done away in its very principle. With respect to station, as it is distinguished from riches, whether it confer authority over others, or be invested with honours which apply solely to sentiment and imagination, the truth is that what is gained by rising through the ranks of life, is not more than sufficient to draw forth the exertions of those who are engaged in the pursuits which lead to advancement, and which, in general, are such as ought to be encouraged. Distinctions of this sort are subjects much more of competition than of enjoyment ; and in that competition their use consists. It is not, as hath been rightly observed, by what the Lord Mayor NATURAL TIIEOL03Y. 145 feels in his coach, but by what the apprentice feels who gazes at him, that the public is served. As we approach the summits of human great- ness, the comparison of good and evil, with res- pect to personal comfort, becomes still more pro- blematical ; even allowing to ambition all its plea- sures. The poet asks, " What is grandeur, what is power?" The philosopher answers, "Con- straint and plague ; et in maxima quaque for tuna minimum licere." One very common error mis- leads the opinion of mankind on this head, viz: that, universally, authority is pleasant, submission painful. In the general course of human affairs, the very reverse of this is nearer the truth. Com- mand is anxiety, obedience ease. Artificial distinctions sometimes promote real equality. Whether they be hereditary, or be the homage paid to office, or the respect attached by public opinion to particular professions, they serve to confront that grand and unavoidable distinc- tion which arises from property, and which is most overbearing where there is no other. It is of the nature of property, not only to be irregu- larly distributed, but to run into large masses. Public laws should be so constructed as to favour its diffusion as much as they can. But all that can be done by laws, consistently with that degree of government of his property which ought to be left to the subject, will not be sufficient to coun- teract this tendency. There must always, there- fore, be the difference between rich and poor ; 14 14G NATURAL THEOLOGY. and tliis difference Avill be the more grinding when no pretension is allowed to be set up against it. So that the evils, if evils they must be called, which spring either from the necessary subordi- nations of civil life, or from the distinctions which have naturally, though not necessarily, grown up in most societies, so long as they are unaccompa- nied by privileges injurious or oppressive to the rest of the community, are such as may, even by the most depressed ranks, be endured with very little prejudice to their comfort. The mischiefs of which mankind are the occa- sion to one another, by their private wickednesses and cruelties ; by tyrannical exercises of power : by rebellions against just authority ; by wars ; by national jealousies and competitions operating to the destruction of third countries ; or by other in- stances of misconduct either in individuals or so- cieties, are all to be resolved into the character of man as a free agent. Free agency, in its very essence, contains liability to abuse. Yet, if you deprive man of his free agency, you subvert his nature. You may have order Irom him and regu- larity, as you may from the tides or the trade- winds, but you put an end to his moral character, to virtue, to merit, to accountablcness, to the use indeed of reason. To which must be added the observation, that even the bad qualities of man- kind have an origin in their good ones. The case is this : Human passions are either necessary NATURAL THEOLOGY. 147 to human welfare, or capable of being made, and, m a great majority of instances, in fact made, conducive to its happiness. These passions are strong and general ; and, perhaps, would not an- swer their purpose unless they were so. But strength and generality, when it is expedient that particular circumstances should be respected, be- come, if left to themselves, excess and misdirec- tion. From which excess and misdirection, the vices of mankind (the causes, no doubt, of much misery) appear to spring. This account, whilst it shows us the principle of vice, shows us, at the same time, the province of reason and of self- government ; the want also of every support which can be procured to either from the aids of reli- gion ; and it shows this, without having recourse to any native, gratuitous malignity in the hu.nan constitution. Mr. Hume, in his posthumous dia- logues, asserts, indeed, of idleness, or aversion to labour, (which he states to lie at the root of a con- siderable part of the evils which mankind suffer,) that it is simply and merely bad. But how does he distinguish idleness from the love of ease ? or is he sure, that the love of ease in individuals it not the chief foundation of social tranquillity? It will be found, I believe, to be true, that in every community there is a large class of its members, whose idleness is the best quality about them, being the corrective of other bad ones. If it were possible, in every instance, to give a right determination to industry, we could never have 148 NATURAL THEOLOGY. too much of it- But this is not possible, if men are to be free. And without this, nothing would be so dangerous, as an incessant, universal, inde- fatigable activity. In the civil world, as well as in the material, it is the vis inertice which keeps things in their places. Natural Theology has ever been pressed with this question, — Why, under the regency of a supreme and benevolent Will, should there be in the world so much as there is of the appear- ance o^ chance? The question in its whole compass lies beyond our reach : but there are not wanting, as in the origin of evil, answers which seem to have con- siderable weight in particular cases, and also to embrace a considerable number of cases. I. There must be chance in the midst of de- sign : by which we mean, that events which are not designed, necessarily arise from the pursuit of events which are designed. One man travelling to York, meets another man travelling to London. Their meeting is by chance, is accidental, and so would be called and reckoned, though the jour- neys which produced the meeting were, both of them, undertaken with design and from delibera- tion. The meeting, though accidental, was never- theless hypothetically necessary, (which is the only sort of necessity that is intelligible :) for if the two journeys were commenced at the time, pur- sued in the direction, and with the speed, in which NATURAL THEOLOGY. 149 and with which, they were in fact begun and per- formed, the meeting could not be avoided. There was not, therefore, the less necessity in it for its being by chance. Again, the rencounter might be most unfortunate, though the errand, upon which each party set out upon his journey, were the most innocent or the most laudable. The b; effect maybe unfavourable, without impeachmen of the proper purpose, for the sake of which the train, from the operation of which these conse- quences ensued, was put in motion. Although no cause act without a good purpose, accidental con- sequences, like these, may be either good or bad. 11. The appearance of chance will always bear a proportion to the ignorance of the observer. The cast of a die as regularly follows the laws of motion, as the going of a watch ; yet, because we can trace the operation of those laws through the works and movements of the watch, and canno trace them in the shaking or throwing of the die (though the laws be the same, and prevail equalh in both cases,) we call the turning up of the num ber of the die, chance, the pointing of the index of the watch, machinery, order, or by some name which excludes chance. It is the same in those events which depend upon the will of a free and rational agents The verdict of a jury, the sen- tence of a judge, the resolution of an assembly, the issue of a contested election, will have more or less the appearance of chance, might be more or less the subject of a wager, according as we 14* 150 NATURAL THEOLOGY. were less or more acquainted with the reasons which influenced the deHberation. The differ- ence resides in the information of the observer, and not in the thing itself; which, in all the cases proposed, proceeds from intelligence, from mind, from counsel, from design.^^ Now, when this one cause of the appearance of chance, viz . the ignorance of the observer, comes to be applied to the operations of the Deity, it is easy to foresee how fruitful it must prove of diffi- culties and of seeming confusion It is only to think of the Deity, to perceive what variety of objects, what distance of time, what extent of space and action, his counsels may, or rather must, comprehend. Can it be wondered at, that, of the purposes which dwell in such a mind as this, so small a part should be known to us? It is only necessary, therefore, to bear in our thought, that in proportion to the inadequateness of our infor- mation, will be the quantity in the world of ap- parent chance. III. In a great variety of cases, and of cases comprehending numerous subdivisions, it appears, for many reasons, to be better that events rise up by chance^ or, more properly speaking, with the appearance of chance, than according to any ob- sei-vable rule whatever. This is not seldom the *^ Sec note to page 68 of the former volume respecting Chance. This paragraph is wholly free from the inaccuracy taken notice of in the former note. NATURAL THEOLOGY. 151 case", even in human arrangements. Each person's place and precedency, in a public meeting, may be determined by lot. Work and labour may be allotted. Tasks and burdens may be allotted : Opeiumque laborem Partibr.3 aequabat justis, aut sorte trahebat. Military service and station may be allotted. The distribution of provision may be made by lot, as it is in a sailor's mess ; in some cases also, the dis- tribution of favours may be made by lot.^ In all these cases, it seems to be acknowledged, that there are advantages in permitting events to chance superior to those which would or could arise from regulation. In all these cases also, though events rise up in the way of chance, it is by appointment that they do so. In other events, and such as are independent of human will, the reasons for this preference of uncertainty to rule appear to be still stronger. For example : it seems to be expedient that the period of human life should be uncertain. Did mortality follow any fixed rule, it would produce a security in those that were at a distance from it, which would lead to the greatest disorders ; and a horror in those who approached it, similar to that which a condemned prisoner feels on the night before his execution. But, that death be uncer- tain, the young must sometimes die, as well as the old. Also were deaths never sudden, they who are in health would be too confident of life. The strong and the active, who want most to be warned 152 NATURAL THEOLOGY. and checked, would live without apprehension o^ restraint. On the other hand, were sudden death very frequent, the sense of constant jeopard; would interfere too much with the degree of ease and enjoyment intended for us ; and human life be too precarious for the business and interests which belong to it. There could not be depend- ence either upon our own lives, or the Hves of those with whom we were connected, sufficient to carry on the regular offices of human society Tiic manner, therefore, in which death is mad<^ to occur, conduces to the purposes of admonition without overthrowing the necessary stability of human affairs.^^ Disease being the forerunner of death, there is the same reason for its attacks coming upon us under the appearance of chance, as there is for uncertainty in the time of death itself. The seasons are a mixture of regularity and chance. They are regular enough to authorize expectation, whilst their being, in a considerable degree, irregular, induces, on the part of the cul- tivators of the soil, a necessity for personal at- 36 It must never bo forgotten that, according to the scheme, whether of Natural or of Revealed Rehgion, the doctrine of a Future State removes one branch of the evil here treated of, and answers the common skeptical objection grounded upon the de- struction of one being made the means of benefit to another. In the view of religion, the person removed by Providence is to be considered as suffering no loss whatever, — he is at once taken to a superior state. The survivors alone are to be considered a . regards the question of evil. ' NATURAL THEOLOGY. 153 tendance, for activity, vigilance, precaution. It is this necessity which creates farmers ; which divides the profit of the soil between the owner and the occupier ; which by requiring expedients, by increasing employment, and by rewarding ex- penditure, promotes agricultural arts and agricul- tural life, of all modes of life the best, being the most conducive to health, to virtue, to enjoyment. I believe it to be found in fact, that where the soil is the most fruitful, and the seasons the most constant, there the condition of the cultivators of the earth is the most depressed. Uncertainty, therefore, has its use even to those who sometimes complain of it the most. Seasons of scarcity them - selves are not without their advantages.^'' They call forth new exertions ; they set contrivance and ingenuity at w^ork : they give birth to im- provements in agriculture and economy ; they promote the investigation and management of public resources. Again : there are strong intelligible reasons, why there should exist in human society great disparity of wealth and station ; not only as these things are acquired in different degrees, but at the first setting out of life. In order, for instance, to answer the various demands of civil life, there ought to be amongst the members of every civil society a diversity of education, which can only belong to an original diversity of circumstances. ^^ See former note upon the only legitimate application of such arguments. 154 NATURAL THEOLOGY. As this sort of disparity, which ought to take place from the beginning of life, must, ex hypo- thesi, be previous to the merit or demerit of the persons upon whom it falls, can it be better dis- posed of than by chance ? Parentage is that sort of chance : yet it is the commanding circumstance which in general fixes each man's place in civil life, along with every thing which appertains to its distinctions. It may be the result of a bene- ficial rule, that the fortunes or honours of the father devolve upon the son ; and, as it should seem, of a still more necessary rule, that the low or laborious condition of the parent be communi- cated to his family ; but with respect to the suc- cessor himself, it is the drawing of a ticket in a lottery. Inequalities, therefore, of fortune, at least the greatest part of them, vh. those which attend us from our birth, and depend upon our birth, may be left, as they are left, to chance, without any just cause for questioning the regency of a su- preme Disposer of events. But not only the donation, when by the neces- sity of the case they must be gifts, but even the acquirahilily of civil advantages, ought perhaps, in a considerable degree, to lie at the mercy of chance. Some would have all the virtuous rich, or, at least, removed from the evils of poverty, without })erceiving, I suppose, the consequence, that all the poor must be wicked. And how such a society could be kept in subjection to govern- ment, has not been shown : for the poor, that is. NATURAL THEOLOGY. 155 they who seek their subsistence by constant ma- nual labour, must still form the mass of the com- munity ; otherwise the necessary labour of life could not be carried on ; the work could not be done, which the wants of mankind in a state of civilization, and still more, in a state of refinement, require to be done. It appears to be also true, that the exigencies of social life call not only for an original diversity of external circumstances, but for a mixture of different faculties, tastes, and tempers. Activity and contemplation, restlessness and quiet, courage and timidity, ambition and contentedness, not to say even indolence and dulness, are all wanted in the world, all conduce to the well "oing on of hu- man affairs, just as the rudder, the sails, and the ballast of a ship, all perform their part in the navigation. Now, since these characters require for their foundation different original talents, dif- ferent dispositions, perhaps also different bodily constitutions ; and since, likewise, it is apparently expedient, that they be promiscuously scattered amongst the different classes of society, — can the distribution of talents, dispositions, and the con- stitutions upon w hich they depend, be better made than by chance ? The oj)j)osites of apparent chance, are constancy and sensible interposition ; every degree of secret direction being consistent with it. Now of con- stancy, or of fixed and known rules, we have seen in some cases the inapplicability ; and inconve- 156 NATURAL THEOLOGY. niences which we do not see, might attend their application in other cases. Of sensible interposition, we may be permitted to remark, that a Providence, always and cer- tainly distinguishable, would be neither more nor less than miracles rendered frequent and com- mon. It is difficult to judge of the state into which this would throw us. It is enough to say, that it would cast us upon a quite different dis- pensation from that under which we live. It would be a total and radical change. And the change would deeply affect, or perhaps subvert, the whole conduct of human affairs. I can readily believe, that, other circumstances being adapted to it, such a state might be better than our present state. It may be the state of other beings ; it may be ours hereafter. But the question with which we are now concerned is, how far it would be con- sistent with our condition, supposing it in other respects to remain as it is ? And in this question there seem to be reasons of great moment on the negative side. For instance : so long as bodily labour continues, on so many accounts, to be ne- cessary for the bulk of mankind, any dependency upon supernatural aid, by unfixing those motives which promote exertion, or by relaxing those habits which engender patient industry, might introduce negligence, inactivity, and disorder, into the most useful occupations of human life ; and thereby deteriorate the condition of human life itself. NATURAL THEOLOGY. 157 As moral agents we should experience a still greater alteration ; of which more will be said under the next article. Although, therefore, the Deity, who possesses the power of winding and turning, as he pleases, the course of causes which issue from himself, do in fact interpose to alter or intercept effects which, without such interposition, would have taken place ; yet it is by no means incredible that his Providence, which always rests upon final good, may have made a reserve with respect to the mani- festation of his interference, a part of the very plan which he has appointed for our terrestrial ex- istence, and a part conformable with, or in some sort required by, other parts of the same plan. It is at any rate evident, that a large and ample pro- vince remains for the exercise of Providence without its being naturally perceptible by us ; because obscurity, when applied to the interrup- tion of laws, bears a necessary proportion to the imperfection of our knowledge when applied to laws themselves, or rather to the effects which these laws, under their various and incalcula- ble combinations, would of their own accord pro- duce. And if it be said, that the doctrine of Divine Providence, by reason of the ambigu- ity under which its exertions present themselves, can be attended with no practical influence upon our conduct; that, although we believe ever so firmly that there is a Providence, we must pre- pare, and provide, and act, as if there were none ; 15 158 NATURAL THEOLOGY. I answer, that this is admitted ; and that we fur- ther allege, that so to prepare, and so to provide, is consistent with the most perfect assurance of the reality of a Providence : and not only so, but that it is, probably, one advantage of the present state of our information, that our provisions and preparations are not disturbed by it. Or if it be still asked. Of what use at all, then, is the doctrine, if it neither alter our measures nor regulate our conduct ? I answ^er again, that it is of the greatest use, but that it is a doctrine of sentiment and piety, not (immediatedly at least) of action or con- duct ; that it applies to the consolation of men's minds, to their devotions, to the excitement of gratitude, the support of patience, the keeping aUve and the strengthening of every motive for endeavouring to* please our Maker ; and that these are great uses.^ ^ The views taken in these three paragraphs are most import- ant, and they lead to another of equal moment, (if, indeed, they do not include it,) respecting the obscurity which hangs over the subject of a Future State. Skeptics have constantly asked, — Why a matter, beyond all comparison the most important and the most interesting to man, should be left in any the least doubt? in other words, Why the combined operation of Natural and Re- vealed Religion should not be to make us just as certain of what shall befall us upon our removal fiomthis world as we are of what is hkely to happen on the morrow of any given day ? The answer is, — because this matter is so immeasurably more important and more interesting to us than all others ; and because, unless our whole nature were changed, the absolute certainty of enjoyments without end and without limit would make the performance of our present task impossible. If indeed, the further question is pressed, — " Why are we so constituted ?" — this is onlv another NATURAL THEOLOGY. 159 Of all views under which human life has ever been considered, the most reasonable, in my judge- ment, is that which regards it as a state o{ pro- bation. If the course of the world was separated from the contrivances of nature, I do not know that it would be necessary to look for any other form ©f what in truth all these reasonings conceal, the question, Why man was created a finite being ? For in this all the skeptical questions of the description adverted to invariably end. Thus, to take an instance from one gratification which of necessity pre- supposes evil, — There is pleasure in the cessation of pain, and in the enjoyment of rest after labour ; as there also is in satisfying the thirst for knowledge. It is not a contingent but a necessary truth, that this gratification of ease, or of curiosity satisfied, cannot be obtained without the preceding evil of suffering or fatigue, or the preceding imperfection of ignorance. But it is said, why might we not have been so made as to have other equal pleasures M'ithout the evil ? And had such been our constitution, the same objectors would have said, — "Here is one source of enjoyment cut off." Nay, if life were an alternation of positive enjoyment with mere ease, they would still say, — "Why any interval of positive enjoyment, compared with which mere ease is worthless, and so an evil ? " And if all were positive enjoyment, they would say, — "Why is it not more exquisite?" In other words, — "Why is man a finite being?" All our speculations, however, upon this subject must proceed upon the assumption that the de- sign of Providence was to create a finite, mortal creature, endowed with free will, but influenced by motives inducing and dissuading. Any inquiry into the reason for such a determination being taken by the Supreme Being far exceeds the bounds of our faculties ; and the question as to evil must be always handled with the im- pression that, beyond a certain way, we never can make progress towards its entire solution. The whole subject, with the different doctrines held upon it, will be treated at large in the Appendix, where it will be contended that the most enlarged views lead to the conclusion of rational optimism and a probationary state. 160 NATURAL THEOLOGY. account of it than what, if it may be called an account, is contained in the answer, that events rise up by chance. But since the contrivances of nature decidedly evince intention ; and since the course of the world and the contrivances of nature have the same author, we are, by the force of this connexion, led to believe that the appearance un- der which events take place, is reconcilable with the supposition of design on the part of the Deity. It is enough that they be reconcilable with this supposition ; and it is undoubtedly true that they may be reconcilable, though we cannot reconcile them. The mind, however, which contemplates the works of nature, and in those works sees so much of means directed to ends, of beneficial ef- fects brought about by wise expedients, of con- certed trains of causes terminating in the happiest results ; so much, in a word, of counsel, intention, and benevolence ; a mind, I say, drawn into the habit of thought, which these observations excite, can hardly turn its view to the condition of our own species without endeavouring to suggest to itself some purpose, some design, for which the 5>tate in which we are placed is fitted, and which it is made to serve. Now we assert the most probable supposition to be, that it is a stale of moral probation ; and that many things in it suit with this hypothesis which suit no other. It is not a state of unmixed happiness, or of happiness simply ; it is not a state of designed misery, or of misery simply ; it is not a state of retribution ; it NATURAL THEOLOGY. 161 is not a state of punishment. It suits with none of these suppositions. It accords much better with the idea of its being a condition calculated for the production, exercise, and improvement of moral qualities, with a view to a future state, in which these qualities, after being so produced, ex- ercised, and improved, may, by a new and more favourable constitution of things, receive their re- ward, or become their own. If it be said, that this is to enter upon a religious rather than a phi- losophical consideration, I answer, that the name of Religion ought to form no objection if it shall turn out to be the case that the more religious our views are, the more probability they contain. The degree of beneficence, of benevolent inten- tion and of power, exercised in the construction of sensitive beings, goes strongly in favour, not only of a creative, but of a continuing care, that is, of a ruling Providence. The degree of chance which appears to prevail in the world, requires to be reconciled with this hypothesis. Now it is one thing to maintain the doctrine of Providence along with that of a future state, and another thing with- out it. In my opinion, the two doctrines must stand or fall together. For although more of this apparent chance may perhaps, upon other princi- ples, be accounted for than is generally supposed, yet a future state alone rectifies all disorders ; and if it can be shown that the appearance of disorder is consistent with the uses of life as di preparatory state, or that in some respects it promotes these 15* 162 NATURAL THEOLOGY. uses, then, so far as this hypothesis may be ac- cepted, the ground of the difficuly is done away. In the wide scale of human condition there is not, perhaps, one of its manifold diversities which does not bear upon the design here suggested. Virtue is infinitely various. There is no situation in which a rational being is placed, from that of the best-instructed Christian down to the condi- tion of the rudest barbarian, which affords not room for moral agency ; for the acquisition, exer- cise, and display of voluntary qualities, good and bad. Health and sickness, enjoyment and suffer- ing, riches and poverty, knowledge and ignorance, power and subjection, hberty and bondage, civili- zation and barbarity, have all their offices and duties, all serve for \.\\q formation of character: for, when we speak of a state of trial, it must be remembered that characters are not only tried, or proved, or detected, but that they are generated also, and formed by circumstances. The best dispositions may subsist under the most depressed, the most afflicted fortunes. A West-Indian slave, who, amidst his wrongs, retains his benevolence, 1, for my part, look upon as amongst the fore- most of human candidates for the rewards of vir- tue. The kind master of such a slave : that is, he who, in the exercise of an inordinate authority, postpones, in any degree, his own interest to his slave's comfort, is likewise a meritorious charac- ter; but still he is inferior to his slave. All, how- vcr, which I contend for is, that these destinies, NATURAL THEOLOGYi 163 opposite as they may be in every other view^ are both trials, and equally such. The observation may be applied to every other condition : to the whole range of the scale, not excepting even its lowest extremity. Savages appear to us all alike ; but it is owing to the distance at which we view savage life, that we perceive in it no discrimina- tion of character. I make no doubt but that moral qualities, both good and bad, are called into action as much, and that they subsist in as great variety in these inartificial societies as they are or do in polished life. Certain at least it is, that the good and ill treatment which each individual meets with, depends more upon the choice and voluntary conduct of those about him, than it does or ought to do under regular civil institutions and the coercion of public laws. So again, to turn our eyes to the other end of the scale : namely, that part of it which is occupied by mankind enjoying the benefits of learning, together with the lights of revelation ; there also the advantage is all along probationary. Christianity itself, I mean the revelation of Christianity, is not only a bless- ing but a trial. It is one of the diversified means by which the character is exercised : and they who require of Christianity that the revelation of it should be universal, may possibly be found to require that one species of probation should be adopted, if not to the exclusion of others, at least to the -narrowing of that variety which the wis- 164 NATURAL THEOLOGY. dom of the Deity hath appointed to this part of his moral economy.* Now if this supposition be well founded : that is, if it be true that our ultimate, or our most per- manent happiness will depend, not upon the tem- porary condition into which we are cast, but upon our behaviour in it, then is it a much more fit subject of chance than we usually allow or appre- hend it to be, in what manner the variety of ex- ternal circumstances, which subsist in the human world, is distributed amongst the individuals of the species. " This life being a state of proba- tion, it is immaterial," says Rousseau, " what kind of trials we experience in it, provided they pro- duce their effects." Of two agents who stand indifferent to the moral Governor of the universe, one may be exercised by riches, the other by poverty. The treatment of these two shall appear to be very opposite, whilst in truth it is the same ; for though, in many respects, there be great dis- parity between the conditions assigned, in one main article there may be none, viz., in that they * The reader will observe that I speak of the revelation of Christianity as distinct from Christianity itself. The dispensation may already be universal. That part of mankind which never heard of Christ's name, may nevertheless be redeemed : that is, be placed in a better cond tion, with respect to their future state, by his intervention ; may be the objects of his benignity and inter- cession, as well as of the propitiatory virtue of his passion. But this is not " natural theology ;" therefore I will not dwell longer upon it. — Ao/f of the Jiuthor. NATURAL THEOLOGY. 165 are alike trials ; have both their duties and temp- tations, not less arduous or less dangerous in one case than the other ; so that if the final award follow the character, the original distribution of the circumstances under which that character is formed, may be defended upon principles not only of justice but of equality. What hinders, there- fore, but that mankind may draw lots for their condition? They take their portion of faculties and opportunities, as any unknown cause, or con- course of causes, or as causes acting for other pur- poses, may happen to set them out : but the event is governed by that which depends upon them- selves, the application of what they have received. In dividing the talents, no rule was observed : none was necessary: in rewarding the use of them, that of the most correct justice. The chief differ- ence at last appears to be, that the right use of more talents, i. e. of a greater trust, will be more highly rewarded than the right use of fewer tal- ents, i. e. of a less trust. And since, for other purposes, it is expedient that there be an inequal- ity of concredited talents here, as well probably as an inequality of conditions hereafter, though all remuneratory, — can any rule, adapted to that in- equality, be more agreeable, even to our appre- hensions of distributive justice, than this is ? We have said that the appearance of casualty which attends the occurrences and events of life, not only does not interfere with its uses as a state of probation, but that it promotes these uses. 166 NATURAL THEOLOGY. Passive virtues, of all others the severest and the most sublime ; of all others, perhaps, the most acceptable to the Deity, — would, it is evident, be excluded from a constitution in which happiness and misery regularly followed virtue and vice. Patience and composure under distress, affliction, and pain; a steadfast keeping up of our confidence in God, and of our reliance upon his final goodness, at the time when every thing present is adverse and discouraging ; and (what is no less difficult to retain,) a cordial desire for the happiness of others, even when we are deprived of our own ; these dispositions, which constitute, perhaps, the perfection of our moral nature, would not have found their proper office and object in a state of avowed retribution ; and in which, consequently, endurance of evil would be only submission to punishment. Again : one man's sufferings may be another man's trial. The family of a sick parent is a school of filial piety. The charities of domestic life, and not only these, but all the social virtues, are called out by distress. But then misery, to be the proper object of mitigation, or of that benevo- lence which endeavours to relieve, must be really or apparently casual. It is upon such sufferings alone that benevolence can operate. For were there no evils in the world but what were punish- ments, properly and intelligibly such, benevolence would only stand in the way of justice. Such evils, consistently with the administration of moral NATURAL THEOLOGY. 167 government, could not be prevented or alleviated, that is to say, could not be remitted in whole or in part, except by the authority w^hich inflicted them, or by an appellate or superior authority. This consideration, which is founded in our most acknowledged apprehensions of the nature of penal justice, may possess its weight in the Divine coun- sels. Virtue perhaps is the greatest of all ends. In human beings, relative virtues form a large part of the whole. Now relative virtue presup- poses, not only the existence of evil, without which it could have no object, no material to work upon, but that evils be apparently, at least, mis- fortunes ; that is, the effects of apparent chance. It may be in pursuance, therefore, and in further- ance of the same scheme of probation, that the evils of life are made so to present themselves. I have already observed, that when we let in religious considerations we often let in light upon the difficulties of nature. So in the fact now to be accounted for, the degree of happiness which we usually enjoy in this life may be better suited to a state of trial and probation than a greater degree would be. The truth is, we are rather too much delighted with the world than too little. Imperfect, broken, and precarious as our plea- sures are, they are more than sufficient to attach us to the eager pursuit of them. A regard to a future state can hardly keep its place as it is. If we were designed therefore to be influenced by that regard, might not a more indulgent system. 1C)S NATURAL THEOLOGY. a higher or more uninterrupted state of gratifica- tion, have interfered with the design ? At least it seems expedient that mankind should be sus- ceptible of this influence, when presented to them ; that the condition of the world should not be such as to exclude its operation, or even to weaken it more than it does. In a religious view (however we may complain of them in every other,) priva- tion, disappointment, and satiety are not without the most salutary tendencies. JfATURAL THEOLOGY. 169 CHAPTER XXVII. CONCLUSION. In all cases, wherein the mind feels itself in danger of being confounded by variety, it is sure to rest upon a few strong points, or perhaps upon a single instance. Amongst a multitude of proofs, it is owe that does the business. If we observe in any argument, that hardly two minds fix upon the same instance, the diversity of choice shows the strength of the argument, because it shows the number and competition of the examples. There is no subject in which the tendency to dwell upon select or single topics is so usual, because there is no subject, of which, in its full extent, the latitude is so great, as that of natural history applied to the proof of an intelligent Creator. For my part, I take my stand in human anatomy; and the examples of mechanism I should be apt to draw out from the copious cata- logue which it supplies, are the pivot upon which the head turns, the ligaments within the socket of the hip-joint, the pulley or trochlear muscles of the eye, the epiglottis, the bandages which tie down the tendons of the wrist and instep, the sht 16 170 NATURAL THEOLOGY. or perforated muscles at the hands and feet, the knitting of the intestines to the mesentery, the course of the chyle into the blood, and the consti- tution of the sexes as extended throughout the whole of the animal creation. To these instances, the reader's memory will go back, as they are se- verally set forth in their places : there is not one of the number which I do not think decisive ; not one which is not strictly mechanical : nor have I read or heard of any solution of these appear- ances, which, in the smallest degree, shakes the conclusion that we build upon them. But, of the greatest part of those, who, either in this book or any other, read arguments to prove the existence of a God, it w ill be said, that they leave off only where they began ; that they were never ignorant of this great truth, never doubted of it ; that it does not therefore appear, what is gained by researches from which no new opinion is learned, and upon the subject of which no proofs were wanted. Now I answer that, by investigation, the following points are always gained, in favour of doctrines even the most generally acknowledged, (supposing them to be true,) viz, stability and impression. Occasions will arise to try the firmness of our most habitual opinions. And u])on these occasions, it is a mat- ter of incalculable use to feel our foundation : to find a support in argument for what we had taken up upon authority. In the present case, the argu- ments upon which the conclusion rests are exactly NATURAL THKOLOGY. 171 such, as a truth of universal concern ought to rest upon. " They are sufficiently open to the views and capacities of the unlearned, at the same time that they acquire nev^^ strength and lustre from the discoveries of the learned," If they had been altogether abstruse and recondite, they would not have found their way to the understandings of the mass of mankind ; if they had been merely popular, they might have wanted solidity. But, secondly, what is gained by research in the stabihty of our conclusion, is also gained from it in impression,^^ Physicians tell us, that there ^ We have adverted in a former note (Chap, xxv.) to the la- mented silence of Laplace upon the inferences to which his most important researches so naturally lead. An objection of a kind in some respects similar, but in others materially different, has often been urged against another class of writers, — the historians who record, without observation, events in which pious men are prone to trace the interposition of Providence. This charge was brought, upon one remarkable occasion, against the narrative of a cele- brated voyage of discovery ; and the author. Dr. Hawkesworth, defended himself in an elaborate and ingenious manner : H'e urged that either the event (the ceasing of the wind at a critical moment, by which Captain Cook's ship, after it had struck on a coral rock, was saved, contrary to all expectation) happened in the ordinary course of nature, and then ought no more to be called providential than the rising of the sun upon any given day ; or it was produced by an extraordinary interposition, and then the same power might have rendered this unnecessary by pre- venting the ship from striking. (Voyages, vol. i. p. xxi., second edition.) But this reasoning proceeds upon an entire misappre- hension of the objection. No one denies that the good and the evil come from the same Almighty hand ; but resting in the be- lief, avowed by Dr. Hawkesworth himself in explicit terms, that " the Supreme Being is equally wise and benevolent in the dis- 172 NATURAL THEOLOGY. is a great deal of difference between taking a medicine, and the medicine getting into the con- stitution. A difference not unHke which obtains with respect to those great moral propositions, which ought to form the directing principles of human conduct. It is one thing to assent to a proposition of this sort ; another, and a very dif- ferent thing, to have properly imbibed its influ- ence. I take the case to be this : perhaps almost every man living has a particular train of thought, into which his mind glides and falls, when at lei- sure from the impressions and ideas that occa- sionally excite it : perhaps, also, the train of thought, here spoken of, more than any other thing, determines the character. It is of the ut- most consequence, therefore, that this property of our constitution be well regulated. Now it is by frequent or continued meditation upon a sub- ject, by placing a subject in different points of pSnsation of both evil and good as means of effecting ultimate purposes worthy of his ineffable perfections," {ib. p. xx.) Me may, with the most absolute consistency, express thankfulness for the one and resigned submission to the other dispensation ; and it is a wholesome habit of thinking, and one according with our duty to that awful and benevolent Being, as well as conducive to our own mental improvement, to make our gratitude for his bounties keep pace with our resignation to his will. Those, therefore, who, like Laplace, pass by an occasion of marking the proofs of his existence and intelligence where it naturally presents itself, expose themselves to blame ; and' those who, as it were, go out of their way to avoid marking instances of his bounty, are alike censurable. Both classes neglect a fit opportunity of promoting human improvement. NATURAL THEOLOGY. 173 view, by induction of particulars, by variety of ex- amples, by applying principles to the solution of phenomena, by dwelling upon proofs and conse- quences, that mental exercise is drawn into any particular channel. It is by these means, at least, that we have any power over it. The train of spontaneous thought, and the choice of that train, may be directed to different ends, and may ap- pear to be more or less judiciously fixed, accord- ing to the purpose in respect of which we consider it : but, in a moral view, I shall not, I believe, be contradicted when I say, that, if one train of thinking be more desirable than another, it is that which regards the phenomena of nature with a constant reference to a supreme intelHgent Author. To have made this the ruling, the habitual senti- ment of our minds, is to have laid the foundation of every thing which is religious. The world thenceforth becomes a temple, and life itself one continued act of adoration. The change is no less than this ; that, whereas, formerly God was seldom in our thoughts, we can now scarcely look upon any thing without perceiving its relation to him. Every organized natural body, in the pro- visions which it contains for its sustentation and propagation, testifies a care, on the part of the Creator, expressly directed to these purposes. We are on all sides surrounded by such bodies ; examined in their parts, wonderfully curious; compared with one another, no less wonderfully diversified. So that the mind, as well as the eye, 16* 374 NATURAL THEOLOGY. may either expatiate in variety and multitude, or fix itself down to the investigation of particular divisions of the science. And in either case it will rise up from its occupation, possessed by the sub- ject, in a very different manner, and w^ith a very different degree of influence, from what a mere assent to any verbal proposition which can be formed concerning the existence of the Deity, at least that merely complying assent with which those about us are satisfied, and with which we are too apt to satisfy ourselves, will or can pro- duce upon the thoughts. More especially may this difference be perceived, in the degree of ad- miration and of awe, with which the Divinity is regarded, when represented to the understanding by its own remarks, its own reflections, and its own reasonings, compared with w^hat is excited by any language that can be used by others. The works of nature want only to be contemplated. When contemplated, they have every thing in them which can astonish by their greatness : for, of the vast scale of operation through which our discoveries carry us, at one end we see an intelH- gent Power arranging planetary systems, fixing, for instance, the trajectory of Satufn, or con- structing a ring of two hundred thousand miles diameter, to surround his body, and be suspended like a magnificent arch over the heads of his in- habitants ; and, at the other, bending a hooked tooth, concerting and providing an appropriate mechanism, for the clasping and reclasping of the NATURAL THEOLOGY. 175 filaments of the feather of the humming-bird. We have proof, not only of both these works pro- ceeding from an intelligent agent, but of their proceeding from the same agent : for, in the first place, we can trace an identity of plan, a con- nexion of system, from Saturn to our ow^n globe ; and when arrived upon our globe, we can, in the second place, pursue the connexion through all the organized, especially the animated, bodies which it supports. We can observe marks of a common relation, as w^ell to one another, as to the elements of which their habitation is composed. Therefore one mind hath planned, or at least hath prescribed, a general plan for all these produc- tions. One Being has been concerned in all. Under this stupendous Being we live. Our happiness, our existence, is in his hand. All we expect must come from him. Nor ought we to feel our situation insecure. In every nature, and in every portion of nature, which we can descry, we find attention bestowed upon even the mi- nutest parts. The hinges in the wings of an ear- wig, and the joints of its antennas, are as highly wrought, as if the Creator had had nothing else to finish. We see no signs of diminution of care by multiplicity of objects, or of distraction of thought by variety. We have no reason to fear, therefore, our being forgotten, or overlooked, or neglected.^" *> There is assuredly nothing that more tends to absorb our whole faculties in devout admiration than the contemplation of that universal power and pervading skill which is here remarked 176 NATURAL THEOLOGY. The existence and character of the Deity is, in every view, the most interesting of all human speculations. In none, however, is it more so, than as it facilitates the belief of the fundamental articles of Revelation. It is a sep to have it proved, that there must be something in the world more than what we see. It is a further step to know, that, amongst the invisible things of nature, there must be an intelligent mind, con- cerned in its production, order, and support. These points being assured to us by Natural Theology, we may well leave to Revelation the disclosure of many particulars, which our re- searches cannot reach, respecting either the na- ture of this Being as the original cause of all things, or his character and designs as a moral governor; and not only so, but the more full con- firmation of otner particulars, of which, though they do not lie altogether beyond our reasonings and our probabilities, the certainty is by no means equal to the importance. The true theist will be the first to listen to any credible communication of Divine knowledge. Nothing which he has by the author. The same being that fashioned the insect whose existence is only discerned by a microscope, and gave that invisi- ble speck a system of ducts and other organs to perform its vital functions, created the enormous mass of the planet thirteen hun- dred times larger than our earth, and launched it in its course round the sun, — and the comet, wheeling with a velocity that would carry it round our globe in less than two minutes of time, and yet revolving through so prodigious a space that it takes near six centuries to encircle the sun ! NATURAL THEOLOGY. 177 learnt from Natural Theology will diminish his desire of further instruction, or his disposition to receive it with humility and thankfulness. He wishes for light : he rejoices in light. His inward veneration of this great Being will incline him to attend with the utmost seriousness, not only to all that can be discovered concerning him by re- searches into nature, but to all that is taught by a revelation which gives reasonable proof of having proceeded from him. But, above every other article of revealed re- ligion, does the anterior belief of a Deity bear with the strongest force upon that grand point, which gives indeed interest and importance to all the rest — the resurrection of the human dead. The thing might appear hopeless, did we not see a power at work adequate to the effect, a power under the guidance of an intelligent will, and a power penetrating the inmost recesses of all sub- stance. I am far from justifying the opinion of those who " thought it a thing incredible that God should raise the dead :" but I admit that it is first necessary to be persuaded, that there is a God to do so. This being thoroughly settled in our minds, there seems to be nothing in this process (con- cealed as we confess it to be) which need to shock our belief. They who have taken up the opinion that the acts of the human mind depend upon o?- ganizatiojiy that the mind itself indeed consists in organization, are supposed to find a greater diffi- culty than others do in admitting a transition by 1*78 NATURAL THEOLOGY. death to a new state of sentient existence, because the old organization is apparently dissolved. But I do not see that any impracticability need be ap- prehended even by these ; or that the change, even upon their hypothesis, is far removeH from the an- alogy of some other operations which we know with certainty that the Deity is carrying on. In the ordinary derivation of plants and animals from one another, a particle, in many cases, minuter than all assignable, all conceivable dimension — an aura, an effluvium, an infinitesimal — determines the organization of a future body : does no less than fix, whether that which is about to be pro- duced shall be a vegetable, a merely sentient, or a rational being ; an oak, a frog, or a philosopher ; makes all these differences ; gives to the future body its qualities, and nature, and species. And this particle, from which springs, and by which is determined, a whole future nature, itself proceeds from, and owes its constitution to, a prior body ; nevertheless, which is seen in plants most decisive- ly, the incepted organization, though formed with- in, and through, and by, a preceding organization, is not corrupted by its corruption, or destroyed by its dissolution ; but, on the contrary, is sometimes extricated and developed by those very causes ; survives and comes into action, when the purpose for which it was prepared requires its use. Now an economy which nature has adopted, when the purpose was to transfer an organization from one individual to another, may have something analo- NATURAL THEOLOGY, 179 gous to it when the purpose is to transmit an or- ganization from one state of being to another state : and they who found thought in organization may see something in this analogy applicable to their difficulties ; for, whatever can transmit a similari- ty of organization will answer their purpose, be- caase, according even to their own theory, it may be the vehicle of consciousness, and because con- sciousness carries identity and individuality along with it through all changes of form or of visible quahties. In the most general case, that, as we have said, of the derivation of plants and animals from one another, the latent organization is either itself similar to the old organization, or has the power of communicating to new matter the old organic form. But it is not restricted to this rule. There are other cases, especially in the progress of insect life, in which the dormant organization does not much resemble that which incloses it, and still less suits with the situation in which the inclosing body is placed, but suits with a different situation to which it is destined. In the larva of the libellula, which lives constantly, and has still long to live under water, are descried the wings of a fly, which two years afterwards is to mount into the air. Js there nothing in this analogy? It serves at least to show, that, even in the observa- ble course of nature, organizations are formed one beneath another ; and, amongst a thousand other instances, it shows completely that the Deity can mould and fashion the parts of material nature, so 180 NATURAL THEOLOGY. as to fulfil any purpose whatever which he is pleased to appoint. They who refer the operations of mind to a sub- stance totally and essentially different from matter, (as most certainly these operations, though affected by material causes, hold very little affinity to any properties of matter with which we are acquaint- ed,) adopt perhaps a juster reasoning and a better philosophy : and by these the considerations above suggested are not wanted, at least in the same degree. But to such as find, which some persons do find, an insuperable difficulty in shaking oft^ an adherence to those analogies, which the corporeal world is continually suggesting to their thoughts ; to such I say, every consideration will be a relief, which manifests the extent of that intelligent power which is acting in nature, the fruitfulness of its re- sources, the variety, and aptness, and success of its means ; most especially every consideration, which tends to show that, in the translation of a conscious existence, there is not, even in their own way of regarding it, any thing greatly beyond, or totally unlike, what takes place in such parts (pro- bably small parts) of the order of nature, as are accessible to our observation. Again; if there be those who think, that the contractedness and debility of tlic human facul- ties in our present state seem ill to accord with the higli destinies which the expectations of reli- gion point out to us ; I would only ask them, whe- ther any one, who saw a child two hours after its NATURAL THEOLOGY. 181 birth, could suppose that it would ever come to understa.nd fluxions ;* or who then shall say, what further amplification of intellectual powers, what accession of knowledge, what advance and im- provement, the rational faculty, be its constitution what it will, may not admit of, when placed amidst new objects, and endowed with a senso- rium adapted, as it undoubtedly will be, and as our present senses are, to the perception of those substances, and of those properties of things, with which our concern may lie. Upon the whole ; in every thing which respects this awful, but, as we trust, glorious change, we have a wise and powerful Being, (the author, in nature, of infinitely various expedients for infi- nitely various ends,) upon whom to rely for the choice and appointment of means adequate to the execution of any plan which his goodness or his justice may have formed, for the moral and ac- countable part of his terrestrial creation. That great office rests with Am; be it ow^s to hope and to prepare, under a firm and settled persua- sion, that, living and dying, we are his ; that life is passed in his constant presence, that death re- signs us to his merciful disposal. * See Search's Light of Nature, passim. 17 APPENDIX: CONTAINING ADDITIONAL NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS TO PALEY'S NATURAL THEOLOGY, BY SIR CHARLES BELL, K. G. H., F. R. S., L. & E. FORMERLY PROF. ROY. COLL. SUIIG., AND MEM. COUNCIL OF LONDON, AND NOW OF THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH. ON CHAPTERS I. AND II., AND INTKODUCTORY TO THE MECHANISM OF THE FRAME. Archdeacon Paley has, in these two introduc- tory chapters, given us the advantage of simple but forcible language, with extreme ingenuity, in illustration. But for his example, we should have felt some hesitation in making so close a compari- son between design, as exhibited by the Creator in the animal structure, and the mere mechanism, the operose and imperfect contrivances of human art. Certainly, there may be a comparison ; for a superficial and rapid survey of the animal body may convey the notion of an apparatus of levers, pullies, and ropes — which may be compared with the spring, barrel, and fusee, the wheels and pin- ions, of a watch. But if we study the texture of animal bodies more curiously, and especially if we compare animals with each other — for example, the simple structure of the lower creatures with the complicated structure of those higher in the scale of existence-— we shall see, that in the lowest hnks of the chain animals are so simple, that we should almost call them homogeneous ; and yet in these we find lifb, sensibility, and motion. It is in the animals higher in the scale that we discover 17* 186' NATURAL THEOLOGY. parts having distinct endowments, and exhibiting complex mechanical relations. The mechanical contrivances which are so obvious in man, for in- stance, are the provisions for the agency and do- minion of an intellectual power over the materials around him. We mark this early, because there are authors who, looking upon this complexity of mechanism, confound it with the presence of life itself, and think it a necessary adjunct — nay, even that life proceeds from it : whereas the mechanism which we have to examine in the animal body is formed with reference to the necessity of acting upon, or receiving impressions from, things external to the body — a necessary condition of our state of exist- ence in a material world. Many have expressed their opinion very boldly on the necessary relation between organization and life, who have never extended their views to the system of nature. To place man, an intelli- gent and active being, in this world of matter, he must have properties bearing relation to that mat- ter. The existence of matter implies an agency of certain forces ; — the particles of bodies must suffer attraction and repulsion ; and the bodies formed by the balance of these influences upon their atoms or particles must have weight or gra- vity, and possess mechanical properties. So must the living body, independently of its peculiar en- dowments, have similar composition and qualities, and have certain relations to the solids, fluids. MECHANISM OF THE FRAME. 187 gases, heat, light, electricity, or galvanism, which are aroiind it. Without these, the intellectual prin- ciple could receive no impulse — could have no agency and no relation to the material world. The whole body must gravitate or have weight ; with- out which it could neither stand securely, nor ex- ert its powers on the bodies around it. But for this, muscular power itself, and all the apphances which are related to that power, would be useless. When, therefore, it is affirmed that organization or construction is necessary to life, we may at least pause in giving assent, under the certainty that we see another and a different reason for the construction of the body. Thus we perceive, that as the body must have weight to have power, so must it have mechanical contrivance, or arrange- ment of its parts. As it must have weight, so must it be sustained by a skeleton ; and when we exa- mine the bones, which give the body height and shape, we find each column (for in that sense a bone may be first taken) adjusted with the finest attention to the perpendicular weight that it has to bear, as well as to the lateral thrusts to which it is subject in the motions of the body. The bones also are as levers, on the most accu- rate mechanical principles. And whilst these bones are necessary to give firmness and strength to the frame, it is admirable to observe, that one bone never touches another; but a fine elastic material, the cartilage, intervenes betwixt their ends, the effect of which is to give a very consi- 188 NATURAL THEOLOGY. derable degree of elasticity to the whole frame. Without such elasticity, a jar would reach the more delicate organs, even in the very recesses of the body, at every violent motion ; and, but for this provision, every joint would creak by the at- trition of the surfaces of the bones. The bones are surrounded with the flesh or muscles. The mus- cle is a particular fibrous texture, which alone, of all the materials constituting the frame, possesses the peculiar inherent power or endowment of con- tracting : it is this power which we are to under- stand, when professional men speak of irritability. The contraction of the muscle bears no proportion to the cause which brings it into operation, more than the touch of the spur upcn the horse's side does as a mechanical impetus to the force with which the animal propels both himself and rider. Each muscle of the body — and by common esti- mate there are hundreds — is isolated; and no property of motion is propagated from one to an- other ; they are distinct instruments of motion. The muscles surround the bones, and are so beau- tifully classed, that in every familiar motion of the limbs some hundreds of them are adjusted in their exact degree,, to eftect the simplest change in the positioa of the body. Each fibre of a muscle, and a muscle may con- tain millions of fibres, is so attached to the tendon, that the whole power is concentrated there ; and it is the tendons of the muscles which, like ropes, convey the force of the muscles to the bones.. The MECHANISM OF THE FRAME. 189 bones are passive levers ; the muscles are the active parts of the frame. With all the seeming intricacy in the running and crossing of these tendons, they are adjusted accurately on mechanical principles. Where it is necessary, they run in sheaths, or they receive new directions by lateral ligamentous attach- ments, or there are placed under them smooth and lubricated pulUes, over which they run ; and where there is much friction, there is a provision equal in effect to the friction-wheel of machinery. Thus the bones are levers, with their heads most curiously carved and articulated ; and, joined to the intricate relations of the muscles and ten- dons, they present on the whole a piece of perfect mechanism. It is with this texture — the coarsest, roughest portion of the animal frame — that our author is running a parallel when he compares it with the common mechanical contrivances of machinery. Whilst these grosser parts of the animal body exhibit a perfection in mechanical adaptation far greater than the utmost ingenuity of man can exhibit in his machinery, let the reader remember that they bear no comparison with the finer parts of the animal body : such, for example, as the structure of those nerves which convey the man- date of the will to the moving parts, or of the vessels which are conveying the blood in the circulation, and where the laws of hydrauhcs may be finely illustrated ; or of those secreting glands 190 NATURAL THEOLOGY. where some will affirm the galvanic influence is in operation with something finer than the apparatus of plates and troughs^ But were we to institute a comparison between the mechanical contrivances of man and these finer mechanisms in the animal frame, we must recollect that there are structures in the body much more admirable, as we shall have abundant opportunities of showing as we proceed in the present volume. The organs of the senses, which are so many inlets for the qualities of surrounding matter to excite corresponding sensations and perceptions, will afford us delightful subjects of contemplation ; and proofs more conclusive of design in the human body — not only in regard to the system of that body itself, but as it forms a part of the system of the universe. ON DESIGN IN ANIMAL BODIES. 191 II. ON DESIGN AS EXHIBITED IN THE MECHANICAL STRUCTURE OF ANIMAL BODIES. In all animal bodies, besides those structures on which their economy and much of their vital func- tions depend, there is a firm texture necessary. Without this, the vegetable w^ould have no charac- teristic form ; and animals would want the protec- tion necessary for their delicate organs, and could not move upon their extremities. We have to show with what admirable contrivance, in the different classes of organized beings, this firm fabric is reared — sometimes to protect the parts, as a shell, and sometimes to give them form and mo- tion, as in the skeleton. In vegetables, as in animals, there is a certain firm material necessary to support the parts which are the living active organs of their system, and which are so beautiful and interesting. The lig- neous or woody fibre is a minute, elastic, semi- opaque filament, which, closing in and adhering to other filaments of the same kind, forms the grain or solid part of the wood. The best demonstration of the office of the woody fibre is in the leaf. When the leaf of a plant is prepared by maceration and 192 NATURAL THEOLOGY. putrefaction, and the soft part washed away, there remains an elegant skeleton of wood, which retains the form of the leaf, and which is perfectly well suited to support its delicate organization. It is the same substance which, when accumulated and condensed, gives form and strength to the roots and branches of the oak ; and these, though fan- tastic and irregular in their growth, preserve a mechanical principle of strength as obvious to the ship-builder, in the knees of timber, as in the delicate skeleton of the leaf. Lord Bacon speaks of "knee-timber, that is good for ships that are to be tossed." The woody fibre, though not directly engaged in the living functions of the tree, is yet essential for extending the branches and leaves to the influence of the atmosphere, and by its elasticity under the pressure of the wind, giving what is equivalent to exercise for the motion of the sap. A tree opposed to winds and to a severe climate is dense in its grain, and the wood is preferred by the workman to that which is the growth of a milder climate. We cannot miss seeing the analogy of the woody fibre with the bones of animals. Bones are firm, to sustain the animal's weight, and to give it form. They are jointed, and move under the action of muscles ; and this exercise promotes the activity of the living parts, and is necessary to health. But let us first observe the structure of some of the lower animals. It will be agreeable to find the hard material, thougli always appro- ON DESIGN IN ANIMAL BODIES. 193 priate and perfect, becoming more and more me- chanical and complex in its construction, from the lithophytes, testacea, Crustacea, reptiles, fishes, mammalia, up to man. The texture of a sponge, its form and elasticity, depend upon a membranous and horny substance, to which both siliceous and calcareous spiculae are added. Carbonate of lime is the hardening material of shell, united to a membranous or cartilaginous animal matter. Our author describes the slime of a snail hardening into shell by the influence of the atmosphere ; but this is a very imperfect, and indeed erroneous view of the matter. The shell of the oyster, and even the pearl, consist of con- centric layers of membrane and carbonate of lime ; and it is their lamellated arrangement which causes the beautiful iridescence in the polished surface of those shells.* In the rough outer surface of an oyster-shell, we shall see the marks of the successive layers. We have to un- derstand, that that which now forms the centre and utmost convexity of the shell was, at an earlier stao^e, sufficient to cover the whole animal. But as the oyster grows, it throws out from its surface a new secretion, composed of animal matter and carbonate of lime, which is attached to the shell already formed, and projects further at its edges. *■ See the discoveries of 'Sir David Brewster on this subject. Phil. Trans. 1814, p. 397. 18 194 NATURAL THEOLOGY. Thus the animal is not only protected by this covering, but, as it grows, the shell is made thicker and stronger by successive layers. The reader will not be unwilling that we should stop here to show that, rudely composed as this covering of the oyster seems to be, it not only answers the purpose of protecting the ani- mal, but is shaped with as curious a destination to the vital functions of respiration and obtaining food as any thing we can survey in the higher animals. We cannot walk the streets without noticing that, in the fish-shops, the oysters are laid with their flat sides uppermost ; they would die were it otherwise. The animal breathes and feeds by opening its shell, and thereby receiving a new portion of water into the concavity of its under-shell ; and if it did not thus open its shell, the water could neither be propelled through its bronchiae or respiratory apparatus, nor sifted for its food. It is in this manner that they lie in their native beds : were they on their flat surface, no food could be gathered, as it were, in their cup ; and if exposed by the retreating tide, the opening of the shell Vvould allow the water to escape, and leave them dry — thus depriving them of respiration as well as food.* We perceive, then, that the form of the oyster- * In conlirmation orfliose remarks, llie iicclogist, when he sees those shells \n beds of tliluviuin, can del ermine wliether the oysters were overwhelmed in their native beds, or were rolled away and scattered as shells merely. ON DESIGN IN ANIMAL BODIES. 195 shell, rude as it seems, is not a thing of chance. Since the shell is a cast of the body of the animal, the peculiar shape must have been given to the soft parts, in anticipation of that of the shell — an instance of prospective contrivance. That the general conformation of the shell should have relation to what we may term its function, will be less surprising when we find a minute mechanical intention in each layer of that shell. We should be inclined to say that the earthy matter of the shell crystallizes, were it not that the striated or fibrous appearance differs in the direction of the fibres in each successive stra- tum— -each layer having the striae composing it parallel to one another, but directed obliquely to those of the layer previously formed, and the whole exhibiting a strong texture arranged upon well-known mechanical principles. Shell is not alive, as true bone is. If the shell of any of the testacea be broken, the surface of the animal secretes a new shell ; not, however, by the concretion of mucus, but by the regular secre- tion of a substance combined of earthy and gela- tinous matter.* Delicate experiments have been made by steeping shells in diluted nitric acid, by which it is shown that the carbonate of lime is the earthy material of shells ; and that, when that * We owe our knowledge of the formation of shell to the great French naturalist Reaumur, who, by ingenious experiments, showed the distinction of shell and bone, and that the former was secreted from the surface of the animal. 196 NATURAL THEOLOGY. earth is dissolved in the acid, a gelatinous sub- stance of the form of the shell remains. Crustaceous animals, such as the lobster and crab,* have their shell formed of the same sub- stances as the testacea, but vsrith the addition of phosphate of lime to the carbonate of lime. A question may arise, How do these animals grow ? It is said that they cast their shells and remain retired until a new shell is secreted ; and Reau- mur has given a very particular account of the process of separation in the cray-fish. Naturalists have not found these cast-off shells. If they be not cast, the animals must, at a particular season, have their shells so softened as to permit sudden expansion of their bodies within ; yet it would be difficult to say by what internal means this shell could be thus softened and made pliant. We presume the reason that the shells of the Crustacea are not found in our museums is because they are not thrown off at once, but that the portions are detached in succession. In these Crustacea we find an approximation to bone, inasmuch as the shell is articulated, and has certain processes di- rected inwards to which the muscles are attached. The hardening material of bone is the phos- phate of lime ; and this earthy substance is not merely united with cartilage or gelatinous matter, but membranes and vessels enter into tlie compo- sition of bone. Bone is not excreted, or thrown. * Vol. i. p. 297. ON DESIGN IN ANIMAL BODIES. 197 out of the system of the animal body, but, on the contrary, it participates in those laws that govern living matter. It is continually undergoing the changes of deposition and absorption, under the influence of blood-vessels and absorbing vessels ; by which means it growls with the growth of the soft parts. In fishes, which live in an element that supports the weight, the bones have a very large propor- tion of elastic cartilage in their composition, and some have so little of the phosphate of lime in their bones as to be denominated cartilaginous fishes. Indeed, in the higher classes of animals which live upon land, there is in the different bones a finely-appropriated union of earth, cartil- age, and fibre, to give them the due proportion of resistance, elasticity, and toughness. Not only is the bone of each class of animal peculiar in the proportion of the ingredients, but each bone of the skeleton, as of man, has a due proportion of earth, and cartilage, and fibre to suit its oflice. The temporal bone, in which the ear is situated, is as dense as marble, (it is called os petrosu??i,) and of course is suited to propagate the vibration of sound : the heel-bone, or the projection of the elbow, on which the powerful muscles pull, is, on the other hand, fibrous, as if partaking of the na- ture of a tendon or rope ; whilst the columnar bones, which support the weight, have an inter- mediate degree of density, and an admirable form, as we shall see presently. 18* 198 NATURAL THEOLOGT. Let us consider the structure, growth, and de- cay of the deer's horns, as an example of the most rapid growth of bone, and a curious instance of its appropriation to a particular purpose. And, first, why should these antlers be deciduous, falling at an appointed season ? The breeder of domes- tic cattle and horses endeavours to propagate the favourite qualities of fleece or carcase, of speed or power, by crossing. Nature accomplishes her purpose by giving to the strongest. The antlers of the stag which is in maturity and vigorous health grow with the greatest spread of palms and crotches : with the growth of the horn there is increase of strength in the neck and shoulder.* We cannot be surprised, then, that in contention with his rivals, he that carries the largest antlers should obtain supremacy over the herd. After the season, his antlers fall ; and we then find the stag feeding. with the other males, which before he had driven off. Be this, how- ever, as it may, the growth and fall of the horn is a remarkable phenomenon, and deserving further consideration. The horn of the deer is bone, and is formed as an internal part : that is to say, it is covered du- ring its growth. It grows from the outer table of the skull, a ; but there extends, at the same time, jfrom the integuments of the head, a soft vascular coTering, h^ like velvet, so that, during the whole * The carotid artery, which nourislics the head, increases pidly in size during the growth oftlie antlers. ra- ON DESIGN IN ANIMAL BODIES, 199 period of its growth, the horn, c, has around it a tender soft covering, full of vessels, and which is Section of the root of a deer's horn. necessary to its growth and support. But when the horn has acquired its full form and strength, this velvet covering is destroyed by a very curious process. At the root of the horn, near the skull, a circlet of tubercles, d, called the burr or pearl, is found : the principal vessels run between these tubercles, and, as the tubercles grow, they close in upon the ascending blood-vessels, compress them, and prevent their conveying blood to the horn : then the membrane, which was vascular, becomes insensible and dead, and in time is rub- bed off. In old treatises on hunting, the separation of 200 NATURAL THEOLOGY. the onter cuticle, or velvet, is called fraying ; and the huntsmEin, in leading on his hounds upon a hart of many " tines," judges of his size and strength by the fraying-post — the height of the tree against which he has been butting and rub- bing his horns to separate the outer covering. The horns, when the velvet is detached, are now perfect. It is after this that the stag seeks the female in the depth of the forest ; and now it is that, in encountering his rivals, fierce contests ensue. They dart against each other with great fury^ take no repose, and in a very few weeks be- come quite exhausted. In the museum of the College of Surgeons there are two superb sets of antlers entangled and w^edged together : they be- longed to two males, which had struck so fiercely against each other that they could not withdraw their horns, and being thus strangely locked to- gether, they starved, and were found dead. The stag is a very different animal, in regard to strength, at different seasons of the year. He feeds, too, on different herbage, sometimes pre- ferring the broom and heath ; at another season he resorts to copses, springs, and corn fields ; and these correspond w^ith his different condition as to strength and fatness, and with his passions. It is after the period of contention that the stag is once more found in the copses and underw^ood, feeding peacefully with his former rivals. And now the process of absorption takes place at the root of the horns, and thev are shed : sometimes ON DESIGN IN AMMAL BODIES. 201 one is carried a considerable time after the other is fallen ; and it is observed that the oldest and strongest harts shed their antlers the soonest. The remarkable circumstance is, that such is the provision, through the absorption at the root of the horn, that a slight shock will now detach that which bore the united force of the two combatants before. The fallow-deer have the same habits and passions ; but they will contend in herds for favourite pasture grounds, and divide into parties under the oldest and strongest of the herd. Who can doubt that the antlers are for a temporary purpose, since, for the greater part of the year, they are either wanting, or in a tender state of growth. Nature bestows them only as arms for the combat which is to decide for the strongest, and give a sire to the herd. We shall now advert to the forms of the bones of the greater animals, and to those of man. That the bones which form the interior of ani- mal bodies should have the most perfect shape, combining strength and lightness, ought not to surprise us, when we find this in the lowest vege- table production. A reed, or a quill, or a bone may be taken to prove that in nature's works strength is given with the least possible expense of materials. The long bones of animals are for the most part hol- low cylinders, filled up with the lightest substance, marrow ; and in birds the object is attained by means (if we may be permitted to say so) still 202 NATURAL THEOLOGY. more artificial. Every one must have observed, that the breast-bone of a fowl extends along the whole body, and that the body is very large com- pared with the weight : this is for the purpose of rendering the creature specifically lighter and more buoyant in the air ; and that it may have a surface for the attachment of muscles equal to the exertion of raising it on the wing. This com- bination of lightness with increase of volume is [A, section of the fomnr, or thigh-bone, to show the hollow of its shaft, and the cancellated structure of its upper and lower ends ; b, the head, by which it is articulated to the pelvis ; c, the ;^rcat trochanter ; d, the surface by which it is articulated to the ON DESIGN IN ANIMAL BODIES. 203 gained by air-cells extending through the body, and communicating by tubes between the lungs and cavities of the bones. By these means the bones, although large and strong to withstand the operation of powerful muscles upon them, are much lighter than those of quadrupeds. The long bones of the human body, being hol- low tubes, are called cylindrical, though they are not accurately so, the reason of which we shall presently explain ; and we shall at the same time show that their irregularities are not accidental, as some have imagined. But let us first demon- strate the advantage which, in the structure of the bones, is derived from the cylindrical form, or a form approaching to that of a cylinder. If a piece of timber supported on two points, thus — bear a weight upon it, it sustains this weight by different qualities in its different parts. For ex- ample, divide it into three equal pai ts (A, B, C) : the upper part A supports the weight by its soli- dity and resistance to compression : the lowest part B, on the other hand, resists by its tough- ness or adhesive quality. Between the portions 204 NATURAL THEOLOGY. acting in so difterent a manner, there is an inter- mediate neutral or central part C, that may be taken away without materially weakening the beam, which shows that a hollow cylinder is the form of strength. We may observe a further illustration of this when a tree is blown down and broken at the stem : to the windward the broken part gapes ; it has been torn asunder like the snapping of a rope : to the leeward side of the tree the fibres of the stem are crushed into one another and splintered ; whilst the central part is bent. This, we presume, must always be the case, more or less. We may observe, too, why the arch is the form of strength. It this transverse piece of timber were in the form of an arch, and supported at the extremities, then its whole thickness, its centre, as well as the upper and lower parts, would support weight by resisting compression. But the demonstration may be carried much further, to show the form of strength in the bone. If the part of the cylinder which bears the pres- sure be made more dense, the power of resistance will be much increased ; whereas, if a ligamentous covering be added on the other side, it will strengthen the part which resists extension ; and we observe a provision of this kind in the tough ligaments whicli run along the vertebrae of the back. When we see the bone cut across, we are forced to acknowledge that it is formed on the principle ON DESIGN IN ANIMAL BODIES. . 205 of the cylinder — that is, that the material is re- moved from the centre, and accumulated on the circumference, thus : — We find a spine or ridge, A, running along the bone, B C, which, when divided by the saw in a transverse direction, exhibits the irregularity, whereof A is the section. The section of this spine shows a surface as dense as ivory ; that part is, therefore, much more capable of resisting compression than the other part of the cylinder, which is common bone. This declares what the spine is, and the anatomists must be wrong who imagine that the bone is moulded by the action of the muscle, or that the spine is a mere ridge, arising by accident among the muscles. It is, on the contrary, a strengthen- ing of the bone in the direction on which the weight bears. If we resume the experiment with the piece of timber, we shall learn why the spine is harder than the rest of the bone. If a portion of the upper part of the timber be cut away, and a harder wood inserted in its place, the insertion 19 206 NATURAL THEOLOGY. of the harder portion of wood increases this pro- perty of resistance. With this fact before us we liM A may return to the examination of the spine of bone. We see that it is calculated to resist pressure, first, because it is further removed from the centre of the cylinder, and, secondly, because it is more dense, to resist compression, than the other parts of the circumference of the bone.* This explanation of the use of a spine upon a bone gives a new interest to osteology. The ana- tomist ought to deduce from the form of the spine the motions of the limb, the forces bearing upon the bone, and the nature and the common place of fracture ; while, to the general inquirer, an agree- able process of reasoning is introduced in that de- partment, which is altogether without interest when the " irregularities " of the bone are spoken of, as if they were the accidental consequences of the pressure of the flesh upon it. Although treating of the purely mechanical prin- ciple, it is perhaps not far removed tVom our proper object to remark that a person of feeble texture * As the line A B extends furtlier from the centre than B C, on the principle of a lever, the resistance to transverse fracture will be greater in the direction A C than B C. ON DESIGN OF ANI]V;AL BODIES. 207 and indolent habits has the bone smooth, thin, and light ; but that nature, solicitous for our safety, in a manner which we could not anticipate, combines with the powerful muscular frame a dense and perfect texture of bone, where every spine and tubercle is completely developed. And thus the inert and mechanical provisions of the bone always bear relation to the living muscular power of the limb, and exercise is as necessary to the perfect constitution and form of a bone as it is to the in- crease of the muscular power. Jockeys speak correctly enough when they use the term ^'hlood and bo7ie" as distinguishing the breed or genealo- gy of horses ; for blood is an allowable term for the race, and bone is so far significant, that the bone of a running horse is remarkably compact compared witli the bone of a draught horse. The reader can easily understand, that in the gallop the horse must come on his fore legs with a shock proportionate to the span ; and that in the horse, as in man, the greater the muscular power the denser and stronger is the bone. The bone not being as a mere pillar, intended to bear a perpen- dicular weight, we ought not to expect uniformity in its shape. Each bone, according to its place, bears up against the varying forces that are applied to it. Consider two men wrestling together, and then think how various the direction of the resist- ances must be : now they are pulling, and the bones are like ropes ; or again, they are writhing and twisting, and the bones bear a force like the 208 NATURAL THEOLOGY. axle-tree between two wheels ; or they are like a pillar under a great weight ; or those bones are acting as levers. We see, therefore, why, to with- stand these different shocks, a bone should con- sist, as we have stated, of three parts, the earth of bone (sub-phosphate of lime) to give it firmness ; fibres to give it toughness ; and cartilage to give it elasticity. We may pursue this subject a little further still, taking the text of our author — " The proportion- ing of one thing to another. ^^ Chap. xvii. sec. v. The great functions by which animals live and breathe and are nourished, are the same through the whole chain, from the simplest polypus or mass of jelly that floats in the sea, to the largest and most complex of all terrestrial creatures. The appetite for food, the powers of assimilation, cir- culation, aeration, secretion, are the same func- tions in all living creatures, only modified by their size or condition. When we consider the aston- ishing variety in the shapes of animated beings, we are apt to forget the necessity of apportioning their size and strength, not only to the vegetable productions and to the materials found on the surface of the earth, but to the magnitude of the globe — to the " great motions that are passing in the heavens." On that plan of living structure which pervades all the varieties of animals in which bones afford resistance and muscles activity, there must be a limit to stature. The resisting parts of the smaller animals, which have an ex ON DESIGN IN ANIMAL BODIES. 209 ternal covering instead of bones, have compara- tively much less material in them than the larger. Accordingly, philosophers have contrasted the power of the flea w^ith that of the horse, deciding greatly in favour of the former. The rationale of this is not quite apparent at first ; but a little con- sideration will convince us, that the resisting ma- terial being exterior to the animal's body, and con- sequently removed from the centre, it must pos- sess more power against transverse fracture, as well as bestow a mechanical advantage for the action of the muscles. But this is not all : any de- gree of density and strength may be given to it, from its being a mere secretion, and being unor- ganized. We may compare, however, the bones of man with those of the elephant, or other huge animals.* Now, it would seem that the material of bone (which we must recollect is porous, since it constitutes a living part, and is nourished by blood-vessels) could not, by any variety of confor- mation, bear up a greater mass than that of the elephant. On examining the bones of these im- mense animals, including the megatherium and rhinoceros, they are dense and strong, and clumsy, as we would term it ; their spines and processes are large, and their cavities filled up : all which indicates, that to support a larger animal on ex- tremities, some other material than the vascular bone would be required. Those immense bones * Vol. i. p. 309. 19* 210' NATURAL THEOLOGY. that are found in digging the earth, and which^ in\ ignorant ages, have given rise to strange fancies,, are the bones of animals inhabiting the water — whales or reptiles, whose bulk was extended in the water, or that crawled on their bellies, and they could never have given- support sufficient to have raised their enormous weight on extremities. With regard to the position, that " a chicken roost- ing on its perch is related to the spheres revolving in the firmament," I have elsewhere illustrated the necessity of a fixed point from which the muscles can act, and that the necessity of resistance im- plies that of weight, and that that weight must be proportioned to the mas& of the globe we inhabit, as well as to the power of the muscular frame.* * See the introduction to the Bridgewater Treatise, on "The Hand." DESIGN OF THE HEAD. 211 III. DESIGN OR MECHANieAL CONTRIVANCE AS EXHIB- ITED IN THE BONES OF THE HEAD AND THEIR JOININGS. We have elsewhere spoken of the " architec- ture " of the skull, which, though at first a start- ling term, has been acquiesced in from the re- markable instances that we have given of design, in comparing the texture and connexion of the bones with the art of the builder and carpenter. The more important the part is to life — the more vital the organ, we find the texture or fabric which protects it the more perfect. The human skull presents us with many curious proofs that the forces or injuries to which it is exposed are cal- culated and provided against. But we shall take our first examples from the skulls of animals ; and here we see that the brain is not covered in the same manner in all, but that in each variety there is a provision against the forces to which the skull is subjected. The skull of a dog is hardly in any respect like the skull of a ram ; the bones of the former are thin ; the line of union, which is called the suture, is simplb ; it is not provided to with- stand percussion : but in the latter animal there is reared over the proper brain-case a series of archr 212 NATURAL THEOLOGY. ed cells of strong bone, and each bone is joined to another by a line, serrated, deep, and regular ; the mechanical strength of the union always cor- responding with the strength of the bones ; and the whole being formed into a base suited for the support of the horns, and calculated to sustain the shock when the animal butts with the whole weight and strength. Tiie engraving represents the irregular line of union of the bones of the skull as seen on the outer surface. We might contrast the skull of the ram or goat with that of the tiger, where the strength is in its jaws. This animal, too, has the brain-case small, and, as it w^ere, buried in the head ; but the jaws, instead of being spongy bones, as in man, are dense and strong to sustain the teeth ; for what would avail these teeth, long and sharp and strong, could they be twisted from their socket ? and what would avail the strength of the jaws, and length and depth of the teeth, were not the proper skull surrounded with spines and arches of bone dense and strong enough to give attachment to the muscles of the jaws ? Thus, in the carnivo- rous animal, the strength of the bony textures of the head is all concentrated in the jaws of the DESIGN OF THE HEAD. 213 animal, and corresponds with its instinct to hold and rend its prey. But when the lion or the tiger have struck down their prey — and have gorged themselves and sought their dens, and when the lesser carnivorous animals have cleared the bones — there remains a rich repast which they cannot reach ; then comes the hyaena, which cracks the bones, and feeds upon the marrow. Of all the skulls that can be collected in a mu- seum, the jaws and teeth of the hyaena exhibit the most extraordinary strength : the bones having a clumsy form and dense texture quite peculiar, and suited for the socketing of the strong conical teeth. We see, therefore, that the fabric of the head, taken as a whole, bears a certain resemblance in all classes of animals ; but, though built upon the same general plan, the supports are given to for- tify the points which bear the shock. By such more obvious instances of adaptation we are led to inquire whether any similar adjust- ment of the resisting property of the bone is to be found in the human head. We must carry this along with us in our inquiry, that a shock or vi- bration going through the great mass of the hu- man brain proves more immediately destructive of the faculties, than the wound which penetrates the substance without a concussion. When we contemplate the condition of a child, its fearless- ness, its restless activity, the falls and knocks it gets, we must perceive that were not the textures 214 NATURAL THEOLOGY. of the bones and the brain adjusted, the child when it fell must have lain insensible, instead of rising and crying more from terror than the sense of injury. We may contrast this condition of the child with that of an old man losing his balance and falling on his head, who lies insensible from the shock. Is it not apparent that there is here a cal- culation of the accidents of life, and a provision against them, which yet leaves us threatened with danger, and, therefore, on our guard ? The difference in the textures of youth and age are instructive as to the causes of the diversity. The brain of the old man is firm ; the vibration injures its fibre. The brain of the child is soft, and in infancy it may be moulded to any shape. Then, again, the texture of the bone is entirely diflferent, and hardly like the same substance. It is thin and pliant in the child, actually dimpled by a blow ; whilst in age it is brittle from its density, and the vibration of the blow runs round it ; or if it be broken, it is like a piece of sharp glass en- tering the tender parts beneath. Much m.ore than will stand inquiry has been said of the forms of the head, in reference to the contained organs ; but there is a simple demonstra- tion which should precede all this ; the forms of the skull bear a relation to pressure and injury from without, and the parts most exposed are most protected. A man falling backwards has the back of his head exposed to injury; and the DESIGN OF THE HEAD. 215 examination and section of the bone at this part shows how nature has strengthened it, by giving it greater thickness and prominence, and by groin- ing it within. We say groining it : for there is noth- ing more resembhng the strong groinings or arches of the ground-story of a great building, than the ridges of the skull at this part of its base, which cross at a centre corresponding with the promi- nence of the occiput. In front, the form of the skull exhibits a provi- sion not less distinct in its object. The parts of the forehead which are most prominent and ex- posed, {eminent icB frontales^ exhibit, on their sec- tion, a thicker and denser bone ; whilst the lower part of the forehead is formed of cells or sinuses, which, throwing off the outer wall of the skull A. The parietal hox\e. B. The frontal bone. C. The occipitA bone. D. The tempered bone. E. The sphenoid bone. 216 NATURAL THEOLOGY. from the surface of the brain, still more effectually protects it. A person tumbling sideways pitches on the shoulder, and the convexity of the head comes to the ground precisely on that point (the centre of the parietal bone) where the bone is thickest and most dense. It is, on the whole, impossible to study the forms of the head without acknowledging that the shape, thickness, and texture of the skull have reference to the liability to pressure and blows from without. To take a further example : — It seems very natural, in carrying a burden, to poise it on the head. Now, whether we take the carpentry (called a centering) on which the stones of the arch of a bridge are laid in building it, or the arch of stone, or a dome — (for with all these the bones of the head may be aptly compared) — there has been The figure represents the two parietal bones — forming an arch, or a surmounted dome. DESIGN OP THE HEAD. 217 nothing ever contrived so perfect as the joining of the bones of the head to resist both pressure above, and straining at the sides. And if, on this subject, we solicit the reader's attention more par- ticularly to these joinings, it is because, in books merely anatomical, they are apt to be treated like things of accident, and described as the running of the fibres of one bone into another, the neces- sary consequence of their mode of growth ; or the accidental effect of the pressure of the muscle : whereas, on the contrary, the finest tools of the carpenter could make nothing so perfect or so demonstrative of design.* These provisions would surely have met with earlier attention had men contemplated in a true view the object of the animal frame-work ; which is not to give absolute safety against inordinate violence, but to balance the chances of life, — leav- ing us still under the conviction, that pain and injury follow violence : so that our experience of the injury, and our fear of pain, whilst they are the principal protection to life, lay the foundation of important moral qualities in our nature. * This subject is pursued in more detail in an Essay published by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, under the title of " Animal Mechanics." It is there shown that the bony substance of the skull separates, in the maturity of man, into tMo plates or tables, and of different degrees of hardness, with an in- termediate soft substance; and that by this arrangement of sub- stances of different densities, a shell or covering is given for the protection of the brain, opposing sufficient resistance to pressure, and at the same time calculated to stifle vibration from a blow. 20 218 JfATURAL THEOLOGY. IV. OF THE JOINTS. In comparing the skeleton with carpentry, or any thing artificial that admits of comparison with it, we remark that, in the bones, there is not a straight line, or regular form, whether they serve as a shaft, axle, or lever ; while, in the other, every part is levelled and squared, or formed ac- cording to some geometrical curve. This would lead a superficial thinker to conclude that the bones were formed irregularly, or without refer- ence to principle ; but the consideration of by Whom formed, leads to a review ; and a deeper examination brings with it the conviction that the curves, spines, and protuberances of the bones are formed with a relation to the weight which they bear, and the thrusts and twists to which they are subjected in the diflferent motions of the body. If we observe the various postures of a man at any manual labour, or under a weight, or running, or leaping, or wrestling, we shall be convinced that no carpentry of the bones, formed upon geo- metrical Hues or curves, could suit all this variety of motion. No splicing, dovetaihng, cogging, or any of all the various shapes into which the car- OF THE JOINTS. 219 penter or joiner cuts his material, could enable them to withstand the motions of the body, where it is so utterly impossible to estimate the forces, or to calculate upon the variety in the motion. That the varieties in the forms of the bones are not irregular, nor accidental, but are related to the motions to be performed, is apparent in the close examination of the human skeleton, and still more clearly evinced by comparative anatomy. The shapes of the bones are very closely re- lated to the motions to be performed by the dif- ferent joints. Let us observe the enlargement of the diameter of the bone at an articulation. This expansion of the articulated surface of the bone gives power to the binding ligaments, by remov- ing them from the centre of motion ; and by the increase of surface and additional strength of liga- ment, the danger of dislocation is much diminish- ed. The friction of two bodies whose surfaces move upon one another is not increased by the extent of surface, the pressure remaining the same. Hence the enlargement of the surfaces of the joint is attended with greater security without there being additional friction. But, for the most part, the surfaces of the bones, instead of sliding upon one another, have a rounded form, and roll upon each other. Now the friction, in this case, depends upon the diameter of the body which rolls, and is small in proportion as the diameter of that body is great, the weight being the same. By this we see that the large bones forming the 220 NATURAL THEOLOGY. knee-joint, for example, have every advantage of greater strength without increased friction. Our author has perhaps dwelt sufficiently on the smoothness given to the articulating surfaces of the bones by the cartilages and the synovial or lubricating fluid, vulgarly called joint-oil, (and ig- norantly so called ;) and after these general obser- vations, in order fully to comprehend the fine ad- justment of each bone in its articulation, we should require to go minutely into the anatomy. Then we should find with how curious a mechanical adaptation the motions are permitted in the pre- scribed direction, and checked in every other. We should be called to observe, also, how the mo- tions of one joint are related to those of another ; and how, by the combination of joints, each of which is securely checked and strengthened, there is a facility and extent of motioa produced by their combination : for example, in the arm and hand, where the motions are free, and varied in every possible direction. It is interesting to see how the joints of the lower extremities are modified in man in compa- rison with those of the upper. We have else- where remarked that the bones of the human pel- vis, thigh, and leg, exceed those of all other ani- mals in relative size, which shows a provision for the erect position of man. The same is evinced in the form of the joints, as the ankle, knee, and hip ; for whilst their combinations give every ne- cessary degree of motion consistent with security, OF THE JOINTS. 221 there is a happy provision, producing at once firm- ness and mobihty. That is to say, when the limb is thrown forward in walking or running, it is loose, and capable of being freely directed ; so that we plant it with every convenience to the ir- regularity of ground : but when the body is car- ried forward to be perpendicular over that limb, it acquires, by the curious adjustment of the bones, a firmness equal to that of a post. Again ; when the body is still further thrown forward, and the limb is disencumbered of the weight of the body, the joints are let loose so as to be bent easily, and to obey the action of the muscles. 20* 222 NATURAL THEOLOGY. V. OF THE SPINE. The spine is the most perfect structure in the whole animal machine. Perhaps, if our words were critically taken, it would be better to say, that the intention of the curious mechanical struc- ture here was the most apparent, and on that ac- count most the object of our admiration. By the skeleton is meant the collection of bones which gives form and strength to the superior class of animals ; and as these bones are bound together by a chain of vertebrae, the w^hole class of these animals is called vertehrata, from this most essen- tial part of the skeleton. Besides thus binding the bones together, and forming, as it w^ere, the very centre of the whole, the spine is a tube for protecting the most vital organ of all, the spinal marrow. But, again, when we look upon the skeleton of man as giving him the power of stand- ing erect, we observe that the spine, whilst it re- tains its other offices, has a new one imposed upon it : it is a pillar for sustaining not only the superior parts of the body, but the globe of the head, which we shall find it protects in a very unexpected manner. The reason of our admiration then, is in being able to perceive the modes by which these OF THE SPINE. 223 diflferent offices are performed by the construction of this column ; how nature has established the most opposite and inconsistent functions in one set of bones ; — for these bones are so strong as not to suffer under the longest fatigue or the great- est weight which the limbs can bear ; and so flex- ible, as to perform the chief turnings and bendings of the body ; and yet so steady withal, as to con- tain and defend the most material and the most delicate part of the nervous system. In some animals, the lowest of the vertebrata, the protecting texture of the spinal marrow hardly deserves the name of vertebral column. In cer- tain fishes,* for example, the spine consists of a cartilage made tough by ligamentous intertexture. In the myxine, this cartilage does not entirely enclose the spinal marrow ; for it Hes in a deep groove on the upper part of the spine. But let us not suppose that in fishes there is any imperfec- tion in the vertebral column : it is an elastic co- lumn, on which the muscles act so as to become the means of powerful locomotion; and in all fishes the spine has, more or less, this remarkable elasticity. Ascending in the scale of animals, we find the cartilage forming the spinal column sub- divided by cavities which contain a gelatinous fluid; and these cavities, being surrounded with a strong but elastic ligamentous covering, nothing can be conceived more admirably adapted to give * Myxine, lamprey, sturgeon, &c. 224 NATURAL THEOLOGY. a springiness to the whole column. Still ascend- ing, we discover that the bony matter becomes deposited between these cavities ; and here the separate vertebrae first appear. If two vertebrae of the great shark be taken out together, and the sac between them punctured, such is tlie elasticity of the walls of the sac, that the fluid will be spouted out to a distance. In other fishes, as the cod-fish, (an osseous fish,) the structure approaches to that of the mammalia ; the intervertebral sub- stance is gelatinous. In the whales, circular con- centric ligaments join the vertebrae, and a small portion in the centre consists of a glairy matter. In mammalia, and in man, there are strong and distinct bones of the vertebrae ; and these are joined by a ligamentous cartilage, the outer circle of which is remarkably strong, and the central soft and elastic. The toughness and strength of the exterior circle, and the soft condition of the centre, make a joint equivalent in action to what might be produced by a ball intervening between the surfaces : a facility of motion is thus bestowed which no form of solid could give ; and yet the joint is so strong, that the bone breaks from vio- lence, but the ligamentous cartilage never gives way. When the veterinary surgeon casts a horse, if he be not careful to restrain him, he will twist himself with a force which will break the vertebrae. It is a frequent accident in man ; but the texture that gives mobility to the spine never yields. The next thing admirable in the spine is the OF THE SPINE. 225 manner in which the head is sustained on a column possessing elasticity, and in which the brain is thereby saved from undue concussion in the move- ments of the body. This object is not attained altogether through the elastic substance in the spine which we have described ; but it is owing, in a great measure, to the general form of the spine in man. Had the vertebrae been built up, like a lofty column, of portions put correctly and vertically over one another, the spine would not have had the advantages which result from the structure that we have to describe. As the in- cumbent weight would then have fallen on the centres of all the bodies of the vertebrae, they must have yielded in a slight degree only. Ac- cordingly the figure of the italic / is given to the column, which waving line we need not admire because it is the line of beauty, as some have de- fined it, but because it is the form of elasticity. The spine being already in a curved shape, it bends easily ; the pressure is directed upon the margins of the vertebrae and of the intervertebral substances, and they therefore yield readily ; and by yielding, they produce an increase of the curve, a consequent shortening of the whole column, and admit an easy return to their original places. Suppose we rest the palm of the hand upon a walking-cane, which is elastic, but perfectly straight ; it bears a considerable pressure without yielding, and when it does yield, it is with a jerk; but if it be previously bent, however we may in- 226 NATURAL THEOLOGY. crease or diminish the pressure, there will be no shock : the hand will be supported, or the cane yield, with an easy and uninterrupted resiliency. Such we conceive to be the end obtained through the double curvature of the spine : that the brain shall receive no shock in the sudden motions of the body. Were we to give our attention to the processes of bone which stand out from the bodies of the vertebrae, we should find unexpected provisions there also. It is a common remark of anatomists, that the bones of the spine are secured in their proper places by the relations of the surfaces in contact ; the surface of the body being oblique in one direction, and those of the articulating pro- cesses in another — the one therefore preventing the bone being dislocated forwards, and the others preventing it being displaced backwards. There is something more than this. The articulating processes consist of two broad surfaces, which are inclined in such a manner that they slide upon one another — that is to say, the articulating surface of the vertebra above, being itself inclined, rests upon another which is also incHned. As the in- tervertebral substances of the bodies yield and re- coil, the articulating process of the upper vertebra shifts upon the inclined surface of the process on which it is seated, ascending and descending ; but the impediment is greater the more the vertebra descends, thus adding to the elasticity and security of the whole, and preventing the abrupt shocks OF THE SPINE. 227 which would be the consequence of the surfaces being horizontal. If a cannon were made to re- coil upon an ascending plane, or a surface form- ing a portion of a circle, it would represent the mechanism of the articulating processes of the vertebrae. Let the separate spine be presented before us, it stands up, like a mast, broad and strong below, and tapering upwards. The mast of a ship is supported by the shrouds and stays ; and if we sought for an analogy with these, we must fix upon the long muscles of the back, which run along the spine to sustain it. But as a mast goes by the board in a storm, we see where the spine would have been most in danger, had not nature provided against it. When we start forward in walking or running, it is by the exertion of the muscles of the lower extremities, and the body follows. Did the spine stand directly up perpen- dicularly, it would sustain a shock or jar at its base in these sudden motions. We see, there- fore, the intention of the lower vertebrae being inclined forwards from their foundation on the sacrum : for by this means, the jar which might endanger the junction of the lowest piece, is di- vided amongst the five pieces that form the curve. The same thing is seen in the quadruped : for as the spine in the back and loins lies horizontally, and the neck rises towards the perpendicular, there would be danger of dislocation, if the ver- tebrae of the neck rose suddenly and abruptly 228 NATURAL THEOLOGY. from the body : there is, therefore, at the lowest part of the neck a sweep or semicircle formed by the junction of several vertebrae, to permit the head to be erected ; a remarkable example of which is shown in the stag. We have elsewhere observed, that when a delicate piece of mechanism is contrived by the hands of man it may be locked up and preserved. But the most delicate textures of the living frame stand distinguished, above all, by this quality, that if they be not put to use, they very quickly degenerate. Not only is the faculty of action lost by inaction, as every one must be aware takes place in the functions of his own mind, and in the exercise of his senses, but the texture of the organs quickly degenerates. If by accident a Hmb should lose certain movements, the muscles, nerves, vessels, which nature intended to be sub- servient to these motions, become in a few weeks or months so wasted that they are hardly re- cognisable by the anatomist. If we apply this acknowledged principle to the spine, and take along with us that the texture of bone, cartilage, ligament, tendon, muscle, all the parts which enter into its structure and are necessary to its perfection, however varying in solidity or compo- sition, retain their perfection by being exercised, we shall readily perceive the effect of confinement on young females. Without any positive disease, but from being over-educated in modes which require sedentary application, the spine becomes OF THE SPINE. 229 weak and loose in texture, and yields to the pre- vailing posture, whatever that may be. We men- tion this because it is a principle important in every consideration to each individual, and appli- cable to both body and mind. The French philosophers have entertained the notion that the central parts of all animals are more permanent in their construction, whilst the extremities are subject to variety — a theory partly admitted by some eminent physiologists among ourselves, and which introduces obscurity and hy- potheses into one of the most remarkable proofs of design. Dr. Roget, in his excellent " Bridge- water Treatise," has taken up this idea. A spinal marrow belongs to the whole of the vertebrated class of animals ; and the spinal marrow must be protected by bone : accordingly, as the principal use of the spine is permanent, so must its form be. Yet whenever there is a change in the action, or rather in the play of the spine, we find the vertebrae conformable. Thus the motion of a fish through the water results from a lateral movement of the tail and spine ; but were the constituent bones formed like those of other animals of the same class, the lateral or transverse processes of the vertebrae would inter- fere with this motion : they are therefore removed, and in order to give strength to the chain of bones, the spinous processes are prolonged to- wards the back, and corresponding processes project towards the viscera. In the cetacea, as 21 230 NATURAL THEOLOGY. the whale and dolphin, &c., the position of the tail is reversed ; it lies out horizontally ; and the vertebrae correspond. These animals must rise to breathe the air, and their tails are thus provided to raise them easily to the surface ; a proof, if any were wanted, that the spine, the very centre of the system, is accommodated to the main function of respiration. The tail of animals is the prolongation of the spine. But it seems extraordinary that any one should make this the ground of an hypothesis, that when parts are repeated, they become more and more imperfect as they recede from the cen- tre. It is however referred to in view, because the bones constituting the tail become small-er and rounder, and terminate in cartilage in which there is no bone. Is it not, on the contrary, obvious that the tail of animals is constituted for its proper pur- pose, firm towards the root, with muscles to play it in all directions, and less firm and more elastic towards the end to carry the brush? Can any thing be better adapted to such purposes ? Would it be more perfect if there were vertebrae instead of round bones joined together ? In short, corres- ponding as this part does with its uses, sometimes as a brush to curl round the animal and be a man- tle for warmth, sometimes as a rudder in running, sometimes as a fan, and always reaching where the ear or the tongue cannot reach — must all the obvious provisions be lost sight of in the consider- ation that animal bodies are constituted so imper- OF THE SPINE. 231 fectly, that if a part like a vertebra be formed in the centre, repeated or prolonged, each link, as it recedes from the centre, must become less and less perfect, degenerating from what is presumed gratuitously to be its original form ? 232 NATURAL THEOLOGY. VII. OP THE THORAX AND MECHANISM OF RESPIRATION. Our author might have made more use of the thorax as affording proofs of his great argument. We have here represented the spine, breast-bone, and ribs, as the anatomist articulates them. Were he to make a skeleton in this fashion, it would be fragile in an extraordinary degree, compared with the natural body ; and if the skeleton fell, it would inevitably be broken. Let us see, then, what gives protection to the bones in the natural body. The celebrated John Hunter w^as much engaged in showing by what means elasticity came in aid of the muscular power, both in the textures circula- ting the blood, and in those ministering to the play of the lungs. We may observe how the same principle conduces to the protection of the ribs as well as assists their motion in respiration. The anterior part of the rib (/) which ekes out the rib (F G) and joins it to the breast-bone, (C,) is formed of elastic cartilaf^e ; and the rib having a free articulation behind to the spine, it results that each rib is possessed of elasticity. The ana- tomist making no proper substitute for this in the artificial skeleton, the bone breaks easily, like a piece of china. We have another proof in the na« THE THORAX AND RESPIRATION. ^33 This drawing has been taken from an artificial skeleton, which is seldom articulated correctly. The ribs do not lie here in a na- tural position , or, if ever they were placed so in the living body, it eould only be in violent inspiration, when they are raised to the very utmost. — [This figure is referred to at p. 118 of Vol. I., but the Number of the Appendix is called VII. instead of VI.] 21* 234 NATURAL THEOLOGY. tural bodyof the necessity for elasticity. We be- fore observed that a child, rash and unsteady, is liable to a thousand accidents to which those of maturer years are not exposed. Now, during all the active years of life, the whole textures of the frame, and especially of the thorax, both bone and cartilage, possess elasticity, corresponding with the hazards to which youth is subject : in short, the child falls and suffers no injury ; when an old man, striking his ribs upon the corner of the table, has them fractured. But let us observe the effect of elasticity in the act of respiration. The ribs do not move to accommodate them- selves to the motions of the lungs, but by moving draw the lungs after them, and cause their expan- sion. The interstices of the ribs being filled up, and a septum closing the thorax below, the en- largement of the cavity permits the lungs to be expanded by the weight of the atmosphere, the air entering them through the windpipe. We at once see the importance of the motions of the ribs, for the expansion of the chest and the play of the lungs. Our author has, however, omitted an es- sential part of this interesting subject. He has shown that the oblique position of the ribs is neces- sary to inspiration, and that, by the rising of th^ anterior part of the rib, the breast-bone is thrust forwards and the cavity enlarged. But the rib has a double motion. It has a motion on its own axis. Suppose a line drawn through the two extremities of a rib, which would represent the string of a THE THORAX AND RESPIRATION. 235 bow, that string is stationary, while the bow, re- presenting the rib, revolves ; thus the rib, by having its anterior extremity depressed and revolving as it is raised, enlarges the transverse diameter of the thorax as well as the anterior diameter. In this action the cartilage in front is twisted ; and the torsion of this elastic matter affects the muscular action in the manner following. We have understood the act of respiration to be essential to life, and that the expansion of the chest dilates the lungs, gives freedom of circulation through them, and decarbonizes the blood. It is interesting, therefore, to see how a property of dead matter, elasticity, becomes a guard upon life. Every one must feel that it is easier to expire the air than to inspire it ; and if we can imagine a person fainting, or in any mode in danger of death, (the very word expiring, in its common sense, implies that the last act of Hfe is the expulsion of the breath,) if the elasticity tends to enlarge the chest, it must tend to the preservation of life, by restoring the circulation through the lungs. This is exactly what happens from the elastic structure, of the whole compages of the chest. The elastic property preserves the chest in a middle state. The muscles of inspiration act against the elastici- ty : the muscles of expiration also act against it : the elasticity tends, therefore, to maintain an in- termediate state of dilatation of the thorax ; and accordingly the lungs are preserved in a condition to perform their functions for a certain period at 236 NATURAL THEOLOGY. least, after the vital actions would have ceased through the muscles, had there been no such structure. The great physiologist w^hom we have already mentioned, John Hunter, taught that v^^hen one part performed tvv^o functions, there was necessa- rily an imperfection. We have now the most suita- ble opportunity of controverting that position : for this texture of the thorax is subservient to many different functions. There is no imperfection evinced in the organ of smelling, because in order to draw in the odoriferous effluvia and make them pass over the olfactory nerve, we use the lungs. Nor do we experience any material interference with respiration, because we enjoy the power of speech through an impulse given to the air in ex- piration. Further, let us attend to the form and expansion of the chest as conducive to the motion and strength of the arm and hand. The motions of the superior extremity result from muscles which lie upon the chest ; and were it not for the expansion of the chest, from the contained atmos- pheric air, these muscles would not act with suffi- cient power, or a substitute must have been found either of projecting bones, or of some solid texture, to afford lodgement and attachment to these mus- cles. Then, again, considering man in his natural con- dition, the chances of life would run against him if he were incapable of floating upon water, or if the atmospheric air in his body were not anterior THE THORAX AND RESriRATION. 237 to his centre of gravity. The force of this argu- ment will be understood when we remember that the air contained within the lungs, after a man has made an inspiration, amounts to three hundred and thirty cubic inches. Looking to the means of guarding life, nothing can be more important than the condition of the lungs, in respect to the atmospheric air within them. The sensibility, and the rapid contraction of the glottis, which is at the mouth of the respira- tory tube, is for the purpose of arresting any for- eign matter afloat in the atmosphere, which might be drawn in by the stream of inspired air, and so reach the recesses of the lungs. But were this all, the oflice would be but half performed. The foreign body would be arrested ; but how would it be expelled if it lodged ? In common expiration the air is never expelled altogether from the lungs : there is enough retained to be propelled against this foreign body, and to eject it. And, but for this, the sensibility of the glottis, and the actions of the expiratory muscles, would be in vain ; we should be suffocated by the slightest husk of seed, or subject to deep inflammation by the collection of foreign matter drawn into the air-tubes. We may here observe, that the instinctive ac- tions for the protection of the body are calculated, if we may say so, for the natural condition of man. The manufacturer is sometimes removed from that condition ; and our invention must be taxed, ont only to maintain the purity of the at- 238 NATURAL THEOLOGY. mosphere in which he works, in a chemical sense, but to arrest, or convey away, the small portions of material which may be thrown off by the ope- rations of the flax-dresser, for example, in heck- ling, or of the cutler, whose occupation it is to grind the steel after the instrument is forged, or of the stone-cutter, &c., and so to prevent those particles being inhaled. The length of the pas- sages which lead to the lungs, the sensibility and muscular apparatus bestowed upon them, and the mucous secretions thrown into them, are the natural means by which foreign matter is arrested and thrown out. But in these artificial conditions of men, insoluble particles are continually floating in the atmosphere which they breathe ; these are drawn in and lodge in the lungs, and irritate to disease. The reader will find that the following extract, from a paper upon the actions of the windpipe, illustrates the present subject.* " We read that the trachea is formed of imper- fect hoops of cartilages joined by membranes, and that it is flat on the back part for these reasons : that it may be a rigid and free tube for respiring the air: that it may accommodate itself to the motions of the head and neck ; and that it may yield in the act of swallowing to the distended oesophagus, and permit the morsel to descend. This is perfectly correct : but there is a grand * Philosophical Transactions. THE THORAX AND RESPIRATION. 239 omission. Whilst all admit that a copious secre- tion is poured into this passage, it is not shown how the mucus is thrown off. " There is a fine and very regular layer of mus- cular fibres on the back part of the trachea, exte- rior to the mucous coat, and which runs from the extremities of the cartilages of one side to those of the other. This transverse muscle is beauti- fully distinct in the horse. " When a portion of the trachea is taken out, and every thing is dissected off but this muscle, the cartilages are preserved in their natural state, but the moment that the muscular fibres are cut across the cartilages fly open. This muscle, then, is opposed to the elasticity of the cartilages of the trachea. By its action it diminishes the calibre of the tube, and by its relaxation the canal widens without the operation of an opponent muscle. " The whole extent of the air-passages opens or expands during inspiration, and then the trachea is also more free ; but in expiration, and especially in forcible expectoration and coughing, the trachea is diminished in width. The effect of this simple expedient, is to free the passage of the accumu- lated secretion, which, without this, would be drawn in and gravitate towards the lungs. When the air is inspired, the trachea is wide, and the mucus is not urged downwards. When the air is expelled, the transverse muscle is in action, the- calibre of the tube is diminished, the mucus occu- 240 NATURAL THEOLOGY. pies a larger proportion of the canal, the air is sent forth with a greater impetus than that with which it was inhaled, and the consequence is a gradual tendency of the sputa towards the top of the trachea. In the larynx, the same principle holds ; for as the opening of the glottis enlarges in inspiration, and is straightened in expiration, the sensible glottis, by inducing coughing, gets rid of its encumbrance. Without this change in the calibre of the trachea, the secretions could not reach the upper end of the passage, but would fall back upon the lungs. "Experiments have been formerly made by M. Favier, which, although no such view as I now present was then in contemplation, prove how the action of the transverse muscle tends to expel for- eign bodies. The trachea of a large dog being opened, it was attempted to thrust different sub- stances into it during inspiration, but these were always sent out with impetus, and could not be retained. Why the dog could not be thus suffo- cated is apparent : the tube is furnished with this most salutary provision to secure the ready expul- sion of all bodies accidentally inhaled — the air passes inwards by the side of the foreign body, but, in its passage outwards, the circumstances are changed by the diminished calibre of the canal, and the body, like a pellet filling up a tube, must be expelled by the breath." We have, perhaps, pushed the inquiry far THE THORAX AND RESPIRATION. 241 enough ; and yet the interest might be increased by observing the manner in which the textures of the ribs are accommodated to variations in the mode of respiration, or to the necessity of the an- imal expressing the air from the lungs in diving. We have seen how the thorax is expanded in birds to the whole extent of the body, for obvious reasons ; and the counterpart of that is presented where the animal, instead of being buoyant in the atmosphere, has to dive into the water and crawl at the bottom — not at great depths, but yet under water, in shallow pools and marshy places. The frog has no ribs ; and its mode of respiration shows a complete change from that of animals which breathe with a diaphragm. It has the power of compressing its body, and expelling the air from the lungs ; and were it not for this, the animal would remain on the surface of the water as when cruel boys blow them up with a straw. The crocodile and other saurian reptiles have their ribs accommodated so as to produce a similar effect, and for a similar purpose. Instead of the arched form of the ribs, which we have described as capable of a slight change of figure only, they have ribs composed of distinct pieces, and jointed in such a manner as to enable them to compress the chest into a smaller volume. We have a sort of exposition of the uses, if not the necessity, of respiration to the voice, in observing by what substitutes sound is producecf, 22 242 NATURAL THEOLOGY. for example, in insects, which do not breathe by lungs. And indeed, the same consideration sug- gests the inquiry as to the means by which the atmosphere is agitated, in the same class of ani- mals, in subservience to the sense of smelling. CAPACITY OF THE CHEST. 243 VII. THE SUBJECT CONTINUED WITH REFERENCE TO THE CAPACITY OF THE CHEST, AND ITS CONDITION DURING BODILY EXERTION. We must approach this part of our subject by the consideration of that law of fluids which ap- pears, at first, so contradictory as to be called the " hydrostatic paradox." 244 NATURAL THEOLOGY. Suppose a machine formed of two boards of equal diameter, and joined together by leather nailed to their margins like a pair of bellows : a hole is made in the upper board into which is in- serted a tube. Now, if a person mount upon this apparatus when it is filled with water, and blow into the tube, he can raise the upper board, car- rying himself upwards by the force of his own breath — indeed, by the power of his cheeks alone. It is on the same principle that, when a forcing pump is let into a closed reservoir of water, it produces surprising effects. The piston of the hydraulic press being loaded with a weight of one pound, the same degree of pressure will be trans- mitted to every part of the surface of the reservoir that is given to the bottom of the tube, and the power of raising the upper lid will be multiplied in the proportion that its surface is larger than the diameter of the tube. Or, to state it con- versely: suppose we had to raise the column of water in the tube by compressing the reservoir, it would require the weight of a pound on every portion of the superficies of the reservoir equal in extent to the base of the piston, before the w^ater could be raised in the tube. If the appa- ratus which we have described were full of air instead of water,we should witness a similar effect ; for all fluids, w^iether elastic or not, press equally in all directions ; and this is the law on which the phenomenon depends. If we blow into the nozle of a common pair of bellows, it is surprising what CAPACITY OF THE CHEST. 245 a weight of books we can heave up if laid upon its board. Understanding, then, that the power of the hydraulic press, in raising the lid, depends on the size of the reservoir, and its relation to the tube ; and again, that in pressing the fluid up through the tube, the pressure upon the sides of the reser- voir must be the greater the larger the cavity, we can conceive how a glass-blower propels the air into his blow-pipe with great ease, if he blows with the contraction of the cheeks, the smaller cavity; but with an exhausting effort, if he blows by the compression of the larger cavity, the chest. Dr. Young made a calculation, the result of which was, that, in propelling the air through a tube of the same calibre, a weight of four pounds operat- 22* 246 NATURAL THEOLOGY. ing upon a cavity of the size of the mouth would be equal to the weight of seventy pounds pressing upon a cavity of the dimensions of the chest.* Let us see how beautifully this hydraulic prin- ciple is introduced to give strength in the common actions of the body. We have remarked that the extension of the superficies of the thorax is neces- sary to the powerful action of the muscles which lie upon it; and these are the muscles of the arms. We must all have observed, too, that in prepara- tion for a great effort, we draw the breath and expand the chest. The start into exertion, and of surprise, in man and animals, is this instinctive act. But unless there were some other means of preserving the lungs distended, the action of those muscles which should be thrown upon the arms, would be wasted in keeping the chest expanded. It is here, then, that the principle which we have noticed is brought into play. The chink of the glottis, which the reader has already understood to be the top of that tube which descends into the lungs, is closed by a muscle not weighing a thou- * The action of one who uses the blow-pipe is rather curious. The mouth is distended with air, and the passage at the back of the mouth closed; the man breathes through the nostrils, but, from time to time, admits a portion of air into the mouth in expi- ration. The pressure into the blow-pipe is from the distension and consequent elasticity of the cheeks, occasionally assisted by the buccinator muscle, or trumpeter's muscle, so called because it compresses the distended checks. In this way the stream of air through the blow-pipe is kept up uninterruptedly, whilst the man breathes freely through his nostrils. CAPACITY OF THE CHEST. 247 sandtlipart of the muscles which clothe the chest; and this little muscle controls them all. A sailor leaning his breast over a yard-arm, and exerting every muscle on the rigging, gives a direction to the whole muscular system, and applies the mus- cles of respiration to the motions of the trunk and arms, through the influence of this small muscle, that is not capable of raising a thousandth part of the weight of his body : because this little muscle operates upon the chink of the glottis, and is capa- ble of opposing the whole combined power of all the muscles of expiration. It closes the tube just in the same way that the man standing on the hy- draulic bellows can with his lips support his whole weight. Thus it is that the muscles which would else be engaged in dilating the chest are per- mitted to give their power to the motions of the arms. Some cruel experiments have been made, and, for whatever intended, they illustrate the necessity of closing the top of the windwipe during exertion. The windpipe of a dog was opened, which pro- duced no defect until the animal was solicited by his master to leap across a ditch, when it fell into the water in the act of leaping ; because the mus- cles which should have given force to the fore- legs, lost their power by the sudden sinking of the chest. The experiment is sufficiently repugnant to our feelings ; and I need not offend the reader by giving instances in further illustration from what sometimes takes place in man. 248 NATURAL THEOLOGY VIII. THE RELATION OF THE BODIES OF BIRDS TO THE ATMOSPHERE. The first object noticed in Chap. xvii. is the wing of a bird ; and this is given as an instance of the relation of the animal body to the elements by which it is siirromided. We entreat our readers' attention to the philosophy of this subject. And let us not be contented with admiring the struc- ture of the feather, or the adaptation of the bones of the wing to their office, but let us go deeper into the inquiry : it is a subject which will reward us. Let us take it for granted that a creature is to live by the exercise of the same functions with the races of mammalia or quadrupeds, as digestion, assimilation, respiration THE WORKS OF A WATCH. 381 times in an hour — the common rate of a watch that shows seconds. Having seen how the motions are regulated, we may consider the rate of i evolution in the wheels, according to the number of leaves in the pinions, or of the teeth in the circumference of the wheels. The central wheel, a, that w^hich is moved by the fusee, has sixty-four teeth ; these fall into the pin- ion of the third wheel, b, which has eight leaves, the wheel itself having sixty teeth ; these sixty teeth play into the pinion of the fourth wheel, c, which has eight leaves. The central wheel going round once in the hour, the fourth wheel will go round sixty times in an hour, and with the hand attached to its axle it will mark seconds. This will be more easily understood by a refer- ence to the sketch. The wheel on the axis, a, to which the minute-hand is attached, turns round once in an hour. Its sixty-four teeth play upon the pinion on the axle, b ; as this has eight leaves, it will revolve once for every eight teeth of a, and consequently eight times during the whole revolu- tibn of A, that is, in an hour. The wheel on the same axle, b, has sixty teeth, which turn the eight- leafed pinion of c ; it will, therefore, turn the axle. 382 NATURAL THEOLOGY. c, seven times and a half (for 60 -^- 8 = 7^) during one revolution, or sixty times during the eight rev- olutions which B makes in one hour. Thus we have the minute-hand and the second- hand measuring minutes and seconds of time on the dial ; but we have not yet the hand which shall go round in twelve hours and mark the hours on the dial. To effect this the same machinery is used : viz., the wheel and pinion ; but the moving power is applied so as to diminish the rate of mo- tion— that is, by making the force act from the leaves of the pinions to the teeth of the wheels, instead of from the teeth to the leaves. 36' We may remember that the centre wheel, a, goes round once in an hour; that the axle of this wheel passes through the dial and has the minute- hand attached to it. The pinion of this wheel, called the cannon pinion, has ten leaves, which I ay, during the hour, upon a wheel, b, having forty teeth, which, accordingly, is moved round only once in four hours. This wheel, b, has a pinion of twelve leaves working into a wheel of thirty-six teeth, and must therefore make three revolutions THE WORKS OF A WATCH. to cause that to revolve once. But as the former, B, requires four hours for one revolution, it must occupy twelve in making three : and consequently the thirty-six toothed wheel will take twelve hours to complete one. To its axle, therefore, the index is attached, which we call the hour-hand of the watch. The axle is a cylinder which incloses the axle of the minute-hand, so that both revolve, in- dicating the hours and minutes on the same circle of the dial. It has taken some hundred years to perfect a common time-piece, and the account of the suc- cessive improvements is very curious. 384 NATURAL THEOLOGY. o ■ ai Qj t»- i,^ ^ o rr „ C to — IXf$JJi.i-ig| •i.gs,ji- «•?-«>- c c c >< ^ o I c-5 w^ ^.5 iTE^-f rtl5 ^-r, hnx ?^-='r C »3 •- a? a, > *5 "5 i- m > ^ "S a. . C f-1 -o «^ -t; Pi-T 0) bC CO tUD -^ rt ;l c3 a; « c CO > c - C ri '^ Q) 3 ^ O -Q -vf <1> C _ « «-t3 " °=-^ = " ^^ " THE WORKS OF A WATCH. 385 In conclusion, we perceive the dependence of the wheels of a watch upon each other ; they are nothing singly ; they have no energy inherent in them. In the animal frame it is otherwise ; each distinct portion has a quality belonging to it, which stands in relation to the quality of some other part. Were any property different from that of form, which gives the mechanical power, possessed by part of the watch, it might derange the movements. It would be foolish to imagine any endowment like that of life, but we may suppose some such property as polarization, or magnetism, added to a wheel or lever: what could result but disturb- ance of the mechanical adjustment ? We take the following fehcitous example : A watchmaker had put into his hands a time- piece ; but notwithstanding the excellence of the workmanship, it went irregularly. He took the work to pieces and put it together twenty times : no defect could be discovered, and yet it was im- perfect— it was a bad watch ! At last, it occur- red to him that the defect must be in the balance- wheel, (which we have seen to be the regulator of the watch ;) he thought it possible that this part had become magnetized, and on applying a needle to it he found his suspicion true. By coming ac- cidentally into contact with a magnet, the metal of the balance-wheel had acquired an attraction for the steel work of the watch. A property, su- peradded to a part of the watch, and at variance * 34 386 NATURAL THEOLOGY. with the principle of mechanics on which the machinery was constructed, thus deranged the whole.* * We have taken the illustration from Cecil's " Remains," as quoted by Dr. Latham in his Lectures. The author uses it to ex- plain the effect of a certain bias or predilection in the mind, which deranges the otherwise sound reasoning. THE END. 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