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Galen then thus sums up this part of the argument. "The contrivances of nature are so various, and so consummately skilful, that the "wisest of mankind, in endeavouring to search "them out, have not yet been able to discover "them all m." And nearly in the same words, expressive of the same sentiment, does Solomon say-" Then I beheld all the work of God, that "a man cannot find out the work that is done "under the sun: because though a man labour "to seek it out, yet he shall not find it; yea farther; though a wise man think to know it, yet "shall he not be able to find it "."

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I may be permitted, perhaps, to subjoin a passage from another part of the same work of Galen, though not confined to the same subject; in which, after having noticed many evidences of design in the construction of the human body, particularly the adaptation, in the number and

"at the same time it behoves us to proceed in the instruction of "those happier individuals, who are not only possessed of a "sound intellect, but of a love of truth."

On another occasion, in reprobating such cavillers, he says: (lib. iii. cap. 10.) "But if I waste more time on such profligates, "virtuous men might justly accuse me of polluting this sacred

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argument, which I have composed as a sincere hymn to the praise and honour of the Creator; being persuaded that true piety to him consists, not in the sacrifice of whole hecatombs of oxen, nor in the offer of a thousand varieties of incense; but "in believing within ourselves, and in declaring to others, how "great he is in wisdom, power, and goodness."

m Lib. x. cap. 10.

n Eccles. viii. 17.

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size of the parts, to the effect to be produced, he breaks out into this remarkable apostrophe: "How can a man of any intelligence refer all "this to chance, as its cause: or, if he deny this "to be the effect of foresight and skill, I would ask, what is there that foresight and skill do "effect? For surely where chance or fortune "act, we see not this correspondence and regularity of parts. I am not very solicitous about “terms; but if you choose to call that chance "which has so nicely constructed and so justly “distributed all the parts of an animal body, do so; only remember and allow, that in so doing you do not fairly exercise the privilege of framing new terms: for in this way you may "call the meridian splendour of the sun by the name of night; and the sun itself, darkness. "What! was it chance that made the skin give way so as to produce a mouth? or, if this happened by chance, did chance also place teeth "and a tongue within that mouth? For, if so,

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why should there not be teeth and a tongue in "the nostrils, or in the ear?" Or, to carry on a similar appeal, “did chance dispose the teeth "themselves in their present order; which if it "were any other than it is, what would be the consequence? If, for instance, the incisors and "canine teeth had occupied the back part of the "mouth, and the molar or grinding teeth had o Lib. xi. cap. 7. and 8.

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"occupied the front, what use could we have "made of either? Shall we then admire the skill "of him who disposes a chorus of thirty-two "men in just order; and can we deny the skill "of the Creator, in disposing the same number "of teeth in an order so convenient, so necessary even for our existence?"

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He then extends the argument to the teeth of other animals, as corresponding with the nature of their food; and also to the form of their feet, as having a relation to the character of their teeth.

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Never," says Cuvier, one of the most experienced physiologists of the present age, “never "do you see in nature the cloven hoof of the ox "joined with the pointed fang of the lion; nor "the sharp talons of the eagle accompanying the flattened beak of the swan.”

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In corresponding expressions Galen exclaims, ❝p How does it happen that the teeth and talons "of the leopard and lion should be similar; as "also the teeth and hoofs of the sheep and goat; "that in animals which are by nature courageous, there should be found sharp and strong weapons, which are never found in "those animals that are by nature timid: or,

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lastly, that in no animal do we meet with a "combination of powerful talons with inoffen

P Lib. xi. cap. 8. ed. Kühn. vol. iii. p. 875. lin. 3-17. and p. 892. lin 12-17.

"sive teeth? How should this happen, but that

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they are all the work of a Creator, who ever

kept in mind the use and mutual relation of "different organs, and the final purpose of all "his works?"

CHAP. IV.

On the Brain, considered as the Organ of the Intellectual Faculties.

IT can no more be doubted that many of the phenomena of nature, and the important practical and philosophical conclusions deduced from them, would have been hitherto concealed from human knowledge, had man failed to exercise those intellectual faculties with which the Creator has endued him; than that political communities would have failed to exist, and social life to be adorned with the arts of civilization, had all mankind determined to pursue the mode of life adopted by savage tribes: nor can it be doubted that the Creator, in imparting to man intellectual faculties superior to those of brutes, intended that he should exercise them, not solely with a view to the higher and future destination of his nature, but also with a view to the purposes of this present life.

Since however the senses of hearing, sight, and touch, which are the great inlets of knowledge, are possessed by many of the inferior

classes of animals in common with ourselves, by some indeed in a more exquisite degree; since also those animals are capable of remembering past, and conjecturing future events, although incapable of the more abstract functions of the understanding; it becomes highly interesting to inquire whether there is any thing in the physical structure of man which renders him more capable of being acted on by external agents, with respect to the developement of his intellectual faculties, than brutes are: in other words, whether there is a material instrument in animal organization, the general composition of which is in obvious correspondence with the degree of intellect evinced by different species of animals, including man as one of those species.

Now if any one in the least degree conversant with the laws of optics and of sound, were to doubt the adaptation of the structure of the eye and of the ear to those laws respectively, he would fairly be ranked among the individuals of that class of speculatists whose minds are too weak to apprehend any truth. And though there is not so obvious a relation between the structure of the brain and the exercise of the mental faculties, as in the case of the eye and light, and of the ear and sound; yet the indications of a natural connexion between the two are both clear and numerous. And hence not only have philosophical inquirers in all ages acknowledged