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to man and the larger animals.*—The same relations, not productive of habits, nor attributable to chance, might be traced among the larger animals and quadrupeds. On the one hand, the rein-deer, so evidently destined in other respects for the cold and shows of the north, finds his most grateful food in the luxuriant mosses which alone can live and flourish under these snows. The camel, so evidently fitted, on the other hand, for traversing the burning deserts of the south, and transporting the merchandize to which, in these regions, other modes of conveyance would be confessedly inadequate, is formed for relishing the scanty fare and enduring the thirst of the climatė. He seems to prefer the coarsest plants, wormwood, nettles, thistles, and other prickly vegetables. So long as he can find herbage to browse on, he can easily do without drinking. This faculty is not simply a habit acquired, it is the effect of his conformation. He has a stomach more than other ruminating animals, evidently intended as a reservoir to contain the water, which he drinks copiously when he finds it. Under the pressure of thirst, he can cause a part of this water to rise again, as far as the gullet.

The human taste, unlike that of all other animals, is capable of relishing, and the human stomach of receiving and digesting so great a variety of vegetable and animal substances, that man finds himself blessed with a sufficiency of food in every country, and can remove without inconvenience from one climate to another.—Nor ought we to omit here the wonderful fecundity of those vegetables on which the life of man and of the larger animals chiefly depends,—wheat, for example, and the various species of nutritive grain. These too are capable of being ex

• « Many animals are provided with a long and pliant proboscis for acquiring the grateful food afforded by the nectaries of plants, as a variety of bees, moths, and butterflies ; but the Sphinx Convolvuli

, or Unicorn moth, is furnished with the most remarkable proboscis in this climate. It carries it rolled up in ooncentric circles under its chin, and occasionally extends it above three inches in length. This trunk consists of joints and muscles, and seems to have more versatile movements than the trunk of the elephant, and near its termination is split into two capillary tubes. The excellence of this contrivance for robbing the flowers of their honey, keeps this beautiful insect fat and bulky, though it flies only in the evening when the flowers have closed their petals and are thence more difficult of access.” Darwin, Bot. Gar. vol. ii. p. 33. He might have added, enables it to drain some of the longtubed flowers of the superfluous nectar from which other insects are excluded. We might ask the sceptic, could the circumstance of its flying in the night, when the powers are difficult of access, produce this length of proboscis ? or, did its having such a length of proboscis determine its being a moth of the night, and give it the other characteristics of that genus ? Was there not an original adaptation of the instrument to its nature and habits?

ported without damage to almost every part of the world, and will keep long without spoiling." " The great solicitude of nature," (says a scientific writer,) “ for the preservation of the grasses, is evident from this circumstance, that the more the leaves are consumed the more the roots increase. It was evidently designed, that the delightful verdure of these plants should cover the surface of the earth, and that they should afford nourishment to an almost infinite number of animals. But what increases our astonishment most is, that although the grasses constitute the principal food of herbivorous animals, yet whilst these are left at liberty in the pasture, they leave untouched the straws which support the flowers, that the seeds may ripen and sow themselves. Add to this, that many of the seemingly dry and dead leaves of grasses revive and renew their verdure in the spring. And on lofty mountains, where the summer heats are hardly sufficient to ripen the seeds, the most common grasses are the festuca ovina, the poa alpina and the aria cæspitosa, all which are viviparous and propagate themselves without seeds." +

Among the evidences of design demonstrative of an Intelligent First Cause, must be ranked the means of Defence with which both plants and animals are furnished. These are very various, accommodated to the necessities of the subject, prickles, thorns, acrid juices, odours, a peculiar sensibility which shrinks from danger, or entangles and crushes the foe,stings, horns, talons, claws, fluids capable of being ejected on the pursuer, a bag or pouch for receiving the young, &c. It were easy to shew that none of all these could be the result of habits of resistance, or of local circumstances, far less of chance, to which neither foresight nor precaution can ever be ascribed. I -It is of more consequence to remark, in conclusion, that for the evident preservation of all animated beings, none of the vital motions are dependant on volition, or left wholly to the care of the individual. The heart beats, the lungs play, the vermicular motion of the bowels, and the whole

process

of secre

Nature Delin. vol. i. dial. 15. “ In the year 1707 a magazine of com was opened in the castle of Mentz which had been lodged there in 1578, and the bread which was made of it proved exceeding good," &c. + WITHERING's British Plants, vol. i. p. 130.

Exceptions from the law of uniformity on this head, curious enough, may be found specified by Darwin and other naturalists ; but these, so far from invalidating, rather confirm greatly our general proposition; e. g. The hollies in Needwood forest have their lower leaves edged with prickles, but higher up, where they rise above being injured by the browsing of animals, the leaves have no such defence.

tion and digestion, go on whether we think of them or not, when we are asleep as well as when awake. On a similar principle, the eyelids nictate involuntarily, to cleanse or defend the organ of vision ; and the wax is generated in the ear, to protect it from the intrusion of insects and small animals with which the atmosphere abounds, and to preserve the proper tone of the parts. Much too, that afterwards depends on volition, though connected with safety or growth, is in infancy and early life the dictate of instinct, ever true to its purpose.

III.-MECHANICAL CONTRIVANCE.

.

Although design may be obvious to reason and common sense where the means employed are not strictly mechanical, yet when the laws of physics are so evidently made subservient to an end, as to give indication of nice and skilful contrivance, the evidence of design is still more convincing:

This argument is chosen by Dr. Paley, who confines himself to it in his Natural Theology-an admirable work, which ought to be read by all who would study with care the question at issue. He has given the argument in its best form, and fortified it by a long detail of instances well selected, naturally arranged, and described with great perspicuity.-The substance of the argument, as assumed by another eminent author, may be given in the following extract :

• When we examine a watch, or any other piece of machinery, we instantly perceive marks of design. The arrangement of its several parts, and the adaptation of its movements to one result, shew it to be a contrivance ; nor do we ever imagine the faculty of contriving to be in the watch itself, but in a separate agent. If we turn from art to nature, we behold a vast magazine of contrivances; we see innumerable objects replete with the most exquisite design. [This is the minor of the argument which Dr. Paley remarks is cumulative, and on which he has led a proof of facts entirely satisfactory to every candid mind.] The human eye, for example, is formed with admirable skill for the purpose of sight; the ear for the function of hearing. As in the productions of art we never think of ascribing the power of contrivance to the machine itself, so we are certain the skill displayed in the human structure is not a property of man, since he is very imperfectly acquainted with his own formation. If there be an inseparable relation between the ideas of a contrivance and a contriver; and it be evident in

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regard to the human structure, that the designing agent is not man himself, there must undeniably be some separate invisible being, who is his former. This great Being we indicate by the appellation of Deity.

If every indication of contrivance that exists in a watch, or any other piece of mechanism, shall be found in nature, and with a difference on the side of nature greatly to its advantage, reason demands that the same allowances be made and the same principles recognised in judging of the one and the other.

Now in regard to the watch, it would not invalidate the coriclusion to be drawn from the marks of contrivance,-first, that we had never seen a watch made, nor known an artist capable of making one, or that we were incapable of producing such a piece of mechanism ourselves ;-second, that it might be put out of order or sometimes went wrong ;-third, that there were a few parts of it concerning which we either could not discover, or had not yet discovered, in what manner they contributed to the effect.

Again, no man in his senses could think that the mechanism was sufficiently accounted for by saying,—first, that it was one of the many possible combinations of material forms ;-or second, that there existed in things a principle of order, which had spontaneously disposed the parts of the watch into their present form and situation ; amor third, that the whole was the result of the laws of metallic nature:-much less would he be driven out of his conclusion, by being told that he knew nothing at all of the matter.

In fine, since there is succession in nature, in order to accommodate the simile from art, that the estimate of right reason may be fully ascertained, let us suppose that the watch had the power of producing another like itself, then, first, this would greatly increase our admiration of the skill of the contriver ;second, although he might be only indirectly the maker of those produced in succession, the argument for an original contriver would still remain good ;-third, although it might be no longer probable that the watch we possessed proceeded immediately from the hand of the artificer, the artificer must still be supposed, the marks of contrivance not being otherwise accounted for ;-nor, fourth, is any thing gained by running the difficulty farther back, for it is not thereby lessened, so as to afford a prospect of its being exhausted, since the question will ever

• Hall's Ser. on Infidelity,—which in regard to the moral consequences of Atheism, deserie; to be deeply pondered.

occur, who produced the first, and formed with it the apparatus for producing others?-fifth, the maker of the first would be acknowledged as in truth the maker of every other produced by

it.

The argument thus fenced is made out by induction of particulars. To preserve entire the interest of Dr. PALEY's very able work on this subject, it shall be our endeavour to avoid, as far as can be done with propriety, merely retailing the facts he has adduced, and rather to show how easily the proofs might be increased.

I. The structure of the eye, however, cannot well be omitted. We only remark that the defect of the best formed telescopes is well known. In consequence of the spherical figure of the glasses, the focus of those rays which fall near to the limb of the glass, and of such as pass near to its centre do not coincide. This defect, after various attempts to obviate it, has been judged irremediable. But although men have in this instance found that there are bounds placed to their utmost skill and ingenuity, the error is entirely prevented in the human eye, by the curious construction of the crystalline humour, the principal refracting lens of the organ of vision, which gradually increasing in density from the limb to the centre, counteracts, by the wonderful variation of refractive power, the disadvantage that would otherwise have been felt. Must the instrument be the result of contrivance, and the perfection of contrivance be denied in the structure of the eye? Or shall we not admit the existence of a cause, who is neither the eye itself nor any part of its mechanism, to whom nothing is impossible and whose skill nothing can surmount ?—The hands may be hardened by labour, but will any man in the right exercise of reason pretend that the habit of seeing has produced the very means of sight? Could the habits of insects, and of birds produce that diversity in the organ of vision which is so admirably adapted to their respective destinies, and the mechanism of which has equally attracted the attention of the curious?

PALEY, Nat. Theol.-This is the substance of the argument. For caution it must be observed, that no concession of the immediate agency of the contriver of Nature in the succession of plants and animals, is intended; but though the simile fails in this point the argument is strengthened. If a first intelligent cause must be admitted, though he were not directly the author of what is produced in succession, much more if the things thus produced be such as to require and evince his immediate agency as truly as the parent creature first made, perhaps as astonishingly were we not so familiar with the mode of succession.

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