belly of the animal, forms a pouch, into which filled from it and the water so deposited, is, the young litter are received at their birth; in the first place, not liable to pass into the where they have an easy and constant access intestines; in the second place, is kept sepato the teats; in which they are transported by rate from the solid aliment; and, in the third the dam from place to place; where they are place, is out of the reach of the digestive acat liberty to run in and out; and where they tion of the stomach, or of mixture with the find a refuge from surprise and danger. It gastric juice. It appears probable, or rather is their cradle, their asylum, and the machine certain, that the animal, by the conformation for their conveyance. Can the use of this of its muscles, possesses the power of squeezstructure be doubted of? Nor is it a mere ing back this water from the adjacent bags doubling of the skin; but it is a new organ, into the stomach, whenever thirst excites it to furnished with bones and muscles of its own. put this power in action.

Two bones are placed before the os pubis, and II. The tongue of the woodpecker is one of joined to that bone as their base. These sup- those singularities which nature presents us port, and give a fixture to, the muscles which with, when a singular purpose is to be answerserve to open the bag. To these muscles there ed. It is a particular instrument for a partiare antagonists, which serve in the same man- cular use; and what, except design, ever proner to shut it; and this office they perform so duces such? The woodpecker lives chiefly upexactly, that, in the living animal, the open- on insects, lodged in the bodies of decayed or ing can scarcely be discerned, except when the decaying trees. For the purpose of boring into sides are forcibly drawn asunder. Is there the wood, it is furnished with a bill, straight, any action in this part of the animal, any pro- hard, angular, and sharp. When, by means cess arising from that action, by which these of this piercer, it has reached the cells of the members could be formed? any account to be insects, then comes the office of its tongue: given of the formation, except design? which tongue is, first, of such a length that the III. As a particularity, yet appertaining to bird can dart it out three or four inches from more species than one, and also as strictly me- the bill,-in this respect differing greatly from chanical, we may notice a circumstance in the every other species of bird; in the second place, structure of the claws of certain birds. The it is tipped with a stiff, sharp, bony thorn; middle claw of the heron and cormorant is and, in the third place, (which appears to me oothed and notched like a saw. These birds the most remarkable property of all,) this tip re great fishers, and these notches assist them is dentated on both sides, like the beard of an n holding their slippery prey. The use is evi-arrow or the barb of a hook. The description dent; but the structure such as cannot at all of the part declares its uses. The bird, having be accounted for by the effort of the animal, exposed the retreats of the insects by the asor the exercise of the part. Some other fish-sistance of its bill, with a motion inconceivably ing birds have these notches in their bills, and quick, launches out at them this long tongue; for the same purpose. The gannet, or soland transfixes them upon the barbed needle at the goose, has the side of its bill irregularly jag-end of it; and thus draws its prey within its ged, that it may hold its prey the faster. Nor mouth. If this be not mechanism, what is? can the structure in this, more than in the Should it be said, that, by continual endeaformer case, arise from the manner of em-vours to shoot out the tongue to the stretch, ploying the part. The smooth surfaces, and the woodpecker species may by degrees have soft flesh of fish, were less likely to notch the lengthened the organ itself beyond that of other bills of birds, than the hard bodies upon which many other species feed.

We now come to particularities, strictly so called, as being limited to a single species of animal. Of these, I shall take one from a quadruped, and one from a bird.

birds, what account can be given of its form, of its tip? how, in particular, did it get its barb, its dentation? These barbs, in my opinion, wherever they occur, are decisive proofs of mechanical contrivance.

III. I shall add one more example, for the I. The stomach of the camel is well known sake of its novelty. It is always an agreeable to retain large quantities of water, and to re-discovery, when, having remarked in an ani. tain it unchanged for a considerable length of mal an extraordinary structure, we come at time. This property qualifies it for living in length to find out an unexpected use for it. the desert. Let us see, therefore, what is the The following narrative furnishes an instance internal organization, upon which a faculty so of this kind. The babyrouessa, or Indian rare, and so beneficial, depends. A number of hog, a species of wild boar, found in the East distinct sacs, or bags, (in a dromedary thirty Indies, has two bent teeth, more than half a of these have been counted,) are observed to lie yard long, growing upwards, and (which is the between the membranes of the second stomach, singularity) from the upper jaw. These inand to open into the stomach near the top by small square apertures. Through these orifices, after the stomach is full, the annexed bags are

Goldsmith, Nat. Hist. vol. iv. p. 244.

struments are not wanted for offence; that service being provided for by two tusks issuing from the upper jaw, and resembling those of the common boar: nor does the animal use them for defence. They might seem, ther

fore, to be both a superfluity and an encum- of the horns of animals; and for the same rea. brance. But observe the event ;-the animal son. The horn of a calf or a lamb does not sleeps standing; and, in order to support its bud, or at least does not sprout to any consi head, hooks its upper tusks upon the branches derable length, until the animal be capable of of trees. browsing upon its pasture; because such a substance upon the forehead of the young animal, would very much incommode the teat of the dam in the office of giving suck.

CHAPTER XIV.

PROSPECTIVE CONTRIVANCES.

I CAN hardly imagine to myself a more distinguishing mark, and, consequently, a more certain proof of design, than preparation, i. e. the providing of things beforehand, which are not to be used until a considerable time afterwards: for this implies a contemplation of the future, which belongs only to intelligence.

Of these prospective contrivances, the bodies of animals furnish various examples.

But in the case of the teeth,-of the human teeth at least, the prospective contrivance looks still farther. A succession of crops is provided, and provided from the beginning; a second tier being originally formed beneath the first, which do not come into use till several years afterwards. And this double or suppletory provision meets a difficulty in the mechanism of the mouth, which would have appeared almost insurmountable. The expansion of the jaw (the consequence of the proportionable growth of the animal, and of its skull,) necessarily separates the teeth of the first set, however compactly disposed, to a distance from one another, which would be very inconvenient. In due time, therefore, i. e. when the jaw has attained a great part of its dimensions, a new set of teeth springs up (loosening and pushing out the old ones before them,) more exactly fitted to the space which they are to occupy, and rising also in such close ranks, as to allow for any extension of line which the subsequent enlargement of the head may occasion.

I. The human teeth afford an instance, not only of prospective contrivance, but of the completion of the contrivance being designedly suspended. They are formed within the gums, and there they stop; the fact being, that their farther advance to maturity would not only be useless to the new-born animal, but extremely in its way; as it is evident that the act of sucking, by which it is for some time to be nourished, will be performed with more ease both to the nurse and to the infant, whilst the inside of the mouth, and edges of the gums, II. It is not very easy to conceive a more are smooth and soft, than if set with hard evidently prospective contrivance, than that pointed bones. By the time they are wanted, which, in all viviparous animals, is found in the teeth are ready. They have been lodged the milk of the female parent. At the mowithin the gums for some months past, but ment the young animal enters the world, there detained, as it were, in their sockets, so long is its maintenance ready for it. The particuas their farther protrusion would interfere with lars to be remarked in this economy, are neithe office to which the mouth is destined. Na-ther few nor slight. We have, first, the nuture, namely, that intelligence which was em-tritious quality of the fluid, unlike, in this reployed in creation, looked beyond the first year of the infant's life; yet, whilst she was providing for functions which were after that term to become necessary, was careful not to incommode those which preceded them. What renders it more probable that this is the effect of design, is, that the teeth are imperfect, whilst all other parts of the mouth are perfect The lips are perfect, the tongue is perfect; the cheeks, the jaws, the palate, the pharynx, the larynx, are all perfect: the teeth alone are not So. This is the fact with respect to the human mouth the fact also is, that the parts above enumerated, are called into use from the beginning; whereas the teeth would be only so many obstacles and annoyances, if they were there. When a contrary order is necessary, a contrary order prevails. In the worm of the beetle, as hatched from the egg, the teeth are the first things which arrive at perfection. The insect begins to gnaw as soon as it escapes from the shell, though its other parts be only gradually advancing to their maturity.

What has been observed of the teeth, is true

spect, every other excretion of the body; and in which nature hitherto remains unimitated, neither cookery nor chemistry having been able to make milk out of grass: we have, secondly, the organ for its reception and retention: we have, thirdly, the excretory duct, annexed to that organ: and we have, lastly, the determination of the milk to the breast, at the particular juncture when it is about to be wanted. We have all these properties in the subject before us: and they are all indications of design. The last circumstance is the strongest of any. If I had been to guess beforehand, I should have conjectured, that at the time when there was an extraordinary demand for nourishment in one part of the system, there would be the least likelihood of a redundancy to supply another part. The advanced pregnancy of the female has no intelligible tendency to fill the breasts with milk. The lacteal system is a constant wonder: and it adds to other causes of our admiration, that the number of the teats or paps in each species is found to bear a proportion to the number

of the young. In the sow, the bitch, the rab-exists; this great organ, with the whole appabit, the cat, the rat, which have numerous lit-ratus belonging to it, lies collapsed in the fœters, the paps are numerous, and are disposed tal thorax; yet in order, and in readiness for along the whole length of the belly; in the action, the first moment that the occasion recow and mare, they are few. The most sim-quires its service. This is having a machine ple account of this, is to refer it to a design- locked up in store for future use; which ining Creator. contestably proves, that the case was expected to occur, in which this use might be experienBut in the argument before us, we are en-ced; but expectation is the proper act of intitled to consider not only animal bodies when framed, but the circumstances under which they are framed and in this view of the sub. ject, the constitution of many of their parts is most strictly prospective.

telligence. Considering the state in which an animal exists before its birth, I should look for nothing less in its body than a system of lungs. It is like finding a pair of bellows in the bottom of the sea; of no sort of use in the situation in which they are found; formed for an action which was impossible to be exerted; holding no relation or fitness to the element which surrounds them, but both to another

III. The eye is of no use, at the time when it is formed. It is an optical instrument made in a dungeon; constructed for the refraction of light to a focus, and perfect for its purpose, before a ray of light has had access to it; geo-element in another place. metrically adapted to the properties and action As part and parcel of the same plan, ought of an element, with which it has no communi- to be mentioned, in speaking of the lungs, the cation. It is about indeed to enter into that provisionary contrivances of the foramen ovale communication: and this is precisely the thing and ductus arteriosus. In the fœtus, pipes are which evidences intention. It is providing for laid for the passage of the blood through the the future in the closest sense which can be lungs; but, until the lungs be inflated by the given to these terms; for it is providing for a inspiration of air, that passage is impervious, future change; not for the then subsisting or in a great degree obstructed. What then condition of the animal; not for any gradual is to be done? What would an artist, what progress or advance in that same condition; would a master, do upon the occasion? He but for a new state, the consequence of a great would endeavour, most probably, to provide a and sudden alteration, which the animal is to temporary passage, which might carry on the undergo at its birth. Is it to be believed that communication required, until the other was the eye was formed, or, which is the same open. Now this is the thing which is actualthing, that the series of causes was fixed by ly done in the heart :-Instead of the circuiwhich the eye is formed, without a view to tous route through the lungs, which the blood this change; without a prospect of that con-afterwards takes, before it get from one auridition, in which its fabric, of no use at pre-cle of the heart to the other; a portion of the sent, is about to be of the greatest; without a consideration of the qualities of that element, hitherto entirely excluded, but with which it was hereafter to hold so intimate a relation ? A young man makes a pair of spectacles for himself against he grows old; for which spectacles he has no want or use whatever at the time he makes them. Could this be done without knowing and considering the defect of vision to which advanced age is subject? Would not the precise suitableness of the instrument to its purpose, of the remedy to the defect, of the convex lens to the flattened eye, establish the certainty of the conclusion, that the case, afterwards to arise, had been considered beforehand, speculated upon, provided for? all which are exclusively the acts of a reasoning mind. The eye formed in one state, for use only in another state, and in a different state, affords a proof no less clear of destination to a future purpose; and a proof proportionably stronger, as the machinery is more complicated, and the adaptation more exact.

IV. What has been said of the eye, holds equally true of the lungs. Composed of airvessels, where there is no air; elaborately constructed for the alternate admission and expulsion of an elastic fluid, where no such fluid

blood passes immediately from the right auricle to the left, through a hole, placed in the partition which separate these cavities. This hole anatomists call the foramen ovale. There is likewise another cross cut, answering the same purpose, by what is called the ductus ar teriosus, lying between the pulmonary artery and the aörta. But both expedients are so strictly temporary, that, after birth, the one passage is closed, and the tube which forms the other shrivelled up into a ligament. If this be not contrivance, what is?

But, forasmuch as the action of the air upon the blood in the lungs appears to be necessary to the perfect concoction of that fluid, i. e. to the life and health of the animal (otherwise the shortest route might still be the best,) how comes it to pass that the fœtus lives, and grows, and thrives without it? The answer is, that the blood of the fœtus is the mother's; that it has undergone that action in her habit; that one pair of lungs serves for both. When the animals are separated, a new necessity arises; and to meet this necessity as soon as it occurs, an organization is prepared. It is ready for its purpose: it only waits for the atmosphere: it begins to play the moment the air is ad mitted to it.

CHAPTER XV.

RELATIONS.

ductions. To apply the reasoning here describ ed to the works of nature.

The animal economy is full, is made up, of these relations.

I. There are, first, what, in one form or other, belong to all animals, the parts and powers which successively act upon their food. Compare this action with the process of a manufactory. In men and quadrupeds, the aliment is, first, broken and bruised by mecha

WHEN several different parts contribute to one effect, or, which is the same thing, when an effect is produced by the joint action of dif-nical instruments of mastication, viz. sharp ferent instruments; the fitness of such parts spikes or hard knobs, pressing against or rubor instruments to one another, for the purpose bing upon one another; thus ground and comof producing, by their united action, the ef- minuted, it is carried by a pipe into the stofect, is what I call relation; and wherever this mach, where it waits to undergo a great cheis observed in the works of nature or of man, mical action, which we call digestion: when it appears to me to carry along with it deci- digested, it is delivered through an orifice, sive evidence of understanding, intention, art. which opens and shuts, as there is occasion, In examining, for instance, the several parts into the first intestine; there, after being mixof a watch, the spring, the barrel, the chain, ed with certain proper ingredients, poured the fusee, the balance, the wheels of various through a hole in the side of the vessel, it is sizes, forms, and positions, what is it which farther dissolved: in this state, the milk, chyle, would take an observer's attention, as most or part which is wanted, and which is suited plainly evincing a construction, directed by for animal nourishment, is strained off by the thought, deliberation, and contrivance? It is mouths of very small tubes, opening into the the suitableness of these parts to one another; cavity of the intestines; thus freed from its first, in the succession and order in which they grosser parts, the percolated fluid is carried by act; and, secondly, with a view to the effect a long, winding, but traceable course, into the finally produced. Thus, referring the spring to main stream of the old circulation; which conthe wheels, our observer sees in it, that which veys it, in its progress, to every part of the originates and upholds their motion; in the body. Now I say again, compare this with chain, that which transmits the motion to the the process of a manufactory; with the makfusee; in the fusee, that which communicates ing of cider, for example; with the bruising it to the wheels; in the conical figure of the of the apples in the mill, the squeezing of them fusee, if he refer to the spring, he sees that when so bruised in the press, the fermentation which corrects the inequality of its force. Re- in the vat, the bestowing of the liquor thus ferferring the wheels to one another, he notices, mented in the hogsheads, the drawing off infirst, their teeth, which would have been with- to bottles, the pouring out for use into the out use or meaning, if there had been only one glass. Let any one show me any difference wheel, or if the wheels had had no connexion between these two cases, as to the point of conbetween themselves, or common bearing upon trivance. That which is at present under our some joint effect; secondly, the corresponden- consideration, the "relation" of the parts succy of their position, so that the teeth of one cessively employed, is not more clear in the wheel catch into the teeth of another; third- last case, than in the first. The aptness of ly, the proportion observed in the number of the jaws and teeth to prepare the food for the teeth in each wheel, which determines the rate stomach, is, at least, as manifest, as that of of going. Referring the balance to the rest of the cider-mill to crush the apples for the press. the works, he saw, when he came to under- The concoction of the food in the stomach is stand its action, that which rendered their as necessary for its future use, as the fermenmotions equable. Lastly, in looking upon the tation of the stum in the vat is to the perfecindex and face of the watch, he saw the use tion of the liquor. The disposal of the aliand conclusion of the mechanism, viz. mark-nent afterwards; the action and change which ing the succession of minutes and hours; but it undergoes; the route which it is made to all depending upon the motions within, all take, in order that, and until that, it arrive at upon the system of intermediate actions be- its destination, is more complex indeed and tween the spring and the pointer. What thus intricate, but, in the midst of complication struck his attention in the several parts of the and intricacy, as evident and certain, as is the watch, he might probably designate by one apparatus of cocks, pipes, tunnels, for transgeneral name of "relation ;" and observing ferring the cider from one vessel to another; with respect to all cases whatever, in which of barrels and bottles, for preserving it till fit the origin and formation of a thing could be for use; or of cups and glasses, for bringing it, ascertained by evidence, that these relations when wanted, to the lip of the consumer. The were found in things produced by art and de- character of the machinery is in both cases sign, and in no other things, he would right- this; that one part answers to another part. ly deem of them as characteristic of such pro-and every part to the final result.

This parallel between the alimentary opera- animal structure, in this case, being simple, tion and some of the processes of art, might and the parts easily separated, it forms an inbe carried farther into detail. Spallanzani has stance of correlation which may be presented remarked a circumstantial resemblance be- by dissection to every eye, or which, indeed, tween the stomachs of gallinaceous fowls and without dissection, is capable of being appre the structure of corn-mills. Whilst the two sides of the gizzard perform the office of the mill-stones, the craw or crop supplies the place of the hopper.

hended by every understanding. This correlation of instruments to one another fixes intention somewhere, especially when every other solution is negatived by the conformation. If the bladder had been merely an expansion of the ureter, produced by retention of the fluid, there ought to have been a bladder for each ureter. One receptacle, fed by two pipes, issuing from different sides of the body, yet from

When our fowls are abundantly supplied with meat, they soon fill their craw: but it does not immediately pass thence into the gizzard; it always enters in very small quantities, in proportion to the progress of trituration; in like manner as, in a mill, a receiver is fix-both conveying the same fluid, is not to be aced above the two large stones which serve for grinding the corn; which receiver, although the corn be put into it by bushels, allows the grain to dribble only in small quantities, into the central hole in the upper mill-stone.

counted for by any such supposition as this.

III. Relation of parts to one another accompanies us throughout the whole animal economy. Can any relation be more simple, yet more convincing, than this, that the eyes are so But we have not done with the alimentary placed as to look in the direction in which the history. There subsists a general relation be- legs move and the hands work? It might have tween the external organs of an animal by happened very differently, if it had been left which it procures its food, and the internal pow-to chance. There were, at least, three quarers by which it digests it. Birds of prey, by their ters of the compass out of four to have erred talons and beaks, are qualified to seize and de- in. Any considerable alteration in the posivour many species, both of other birds and tion of the eye, or the figure of the joints, of quadrupeds. The constitution of the sto- would have disturbed the line, and destroyed mach agrees exactly with the form of the mem-the alliance between the sense and the limbs. bers. The gastric juice of a bird of prey, of IV. But relation perhaps is never so strikan owl, a falcon, or a kite, acts upon the ani- ing as when it subsists, not between different mal fibre ione; it will not act upon seeds or parts of the same thing, but between different grasses at all On the other hand, the con- things. The relation between a lock and a key formation of the mouth of the sheep or the is more obvious than it is between different ox is suited for browsing upon herbage. No- parts of the lock. A bow was designed for an thing about these animals is fitted for the pur-arrow, and an arrow for a bow and the desuit of living prey. Accordingly it has been sign is more evident for their being separate found by experiments, tried not many years implements. ago, with perforated balls, that the gastric juice of ruminating animals, such as the sheep and the ox, speedily dissolves vegetables, but makes no impression upon animal bodies. This accordancy is still more particular. The gastric juice, even of granivorous birds, will not act upon the grain, whilst whole and entire. In performing the experiment of digestion with the gastric juice in vessels, the grain must be crushed and bruised, before it be submitted to the menstruum, that is to say, must undergo by art without the body, the preparatory action which the gizzard exerts upon it within the body; or no digestion will take place. So strict, in this case, is the relation between the offices assigned to the digestive organ, between the mechanical operation and the chemical

process.

Nor do the works of the Deity want this clearest species of relation. The sexes are ma nifestly made for each other. They form the grand relation of animated nature; universal, organic, mechanical; subsisting like the clearest relations of art, in different individuals; unequivocal, inexplicable without design.

So much so, that, were every other proof of contrivance in nature dubious or obscure, this alone would be sufficient. The example is complete. Nothing is wanting to the argument I see no way whatever of getting over it.

V. The teats of animals which give suck, bear a relation to the mouth of the suckling progeny, particularly to the lips and tongue. Here also, as before, is a correspondency of parts, which parts subsist in different indivi

duals.

II. The relation of the kidneys to the bladder, and of the ureters to both, i. e. of the se- THESE are general relations, or the relacreting organ to the vessel receiving the se- tions of parts, which are found either in all creted liquor, and the pipe laid from one to animals, or in large classes and descriptions of the other for the purpose of conveying it from animals. Particular relations, or the relations one to the other, is as manifest as it is amongst which subsist between the particular configuthe different vessels employed in a distillery, ration of one or more parts of certain species or in the communications between them. The of animals, and the particular configuration of one or more other parts of the same animal.

Dis. 1. scct liv.