and to the joints of the fingers, which they are severally to move. In like manner, the muscles which move the toes, and many of the joints of the foot, how gracefully are they disposed in the calf of the leg, instead of forming an unwieldy tumefaction in the foot itself! The observation may be repeated of the muscle which draws the nictitating membrane over the eye. Its office is in the front of the eye; but its body is lodged in the back part of the globe, where it lies safe, and where it incumbers nothing.

V. The great mechanical variety in the figure of the muscles may be thus stated. It appears to be a fixed law, that the contraction of a muscle shall be towards its centre. Therefore the subject for mechanism on each occasion is, so to modify the figure, and adjust the position of the muscle, as to produce the motion required, agreeably with this law. This can only be done by giving to different muscles, a diversity of configuration, suited to their several offices, and to their situation with respect to the work which they have to perform. On which account we find them under a multiplicity of forms and attitudes; sometimes with double, sometimes with treble, tendons, sometimes with none: sometimes one tendon to several muscles, at other

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times one muscle. to several tendons. The shape of the organ is susceptible of an incalculable variety, whilst the original property of the muscle, the law and line of its contraction, remains the same, and is simple. Herein the muscular system may be said to bear a perfect resemblance to our works of art. An artist does not alter the native quality of his materials, or their laws of action. He takes these as he finds them. His skill and ingenuity are employed in turning them, such as they are, to his account, by giving to the parts of his machine a form and relation, in which these unalterable properties may operate to the production of the effects intended.

VI. The ejaculations can never too often be repeated;-How many things must go right for us to be an hour at ease! how many more for us to be vigorous and active! Yet vigour and activity are, in a vast plurality of instances, preserved in human bodies, notwithstanding that they depend upon so great a number of instruments of motion, and notwithstanding that the defect or disorder sometimes of a very small instrument, of a single pair, for instance, out of the four hundred-andforty-six muscles which are employed, may be attended with grievous inconveniency.

There is piety and good sense in the following observation, taken out of the Religious Philosopher: "With much compassion," says this writer, "as well as astonishment at the goodness of our loving Creator, have I considered the sad state of a certain gentleman, who, as to the rest, was in pretty good health, but only wanted the use of these two little muscles that serve to lift up the eyelids, and so had almost lost the use of his sight, being forced, as long as this defect lasted, to shove up his eyelids every moment with his own hands!"-In general we may remark in how small a degree those, who enjoy the perfect use of their organs, know the comprehensiveness of the blessing, the variety of their obligation. They perceive a result, but they think little of the multitude of concurrences and recti- . tudes which go to form it.

Beside these observations, which belong to the muscular organ as such, we may notice some advantages of structure which are more conspicuous in muscles of a certain class or description than in others. Thus :

I. The variety, quickness, and precision, of which muscular motion is capable, are seen, I think, in no part so remarkably as in the tongue. It is worth It is worth any man's while to

watch the agility of his tongue; the wonder

ful promptitude with which it executes changes of position, and the perfect exactness. Each syllable of articulated sound requires for its utterance a specific action of the tongue, and of the parts adjacent to it. The disposition and configuration of the mouth, appertaining to every letter and word, is not only peculiar, but, if nicely and accurately attended to, perceptible to the sight; insomuch, that curious persons have availed themselves of this circumstance to teach the deaf to speak, and to understand what is said by others. In the same person, and after his habit of speaking is formed, one, and only one, position of the parts, will produce a given articulate sound correctly. How instantaneously are these positions assumed and dismissed; how numerous are the permutations, how various, yet how infallible! Arbitrary and antic variety is not the thing we admire; but variety obeying a rule, conducing to an effect, and commensurate with exigencies infinitely diversified. I believe also that the anatomy of the tongue corresponds with these observations upon its activity. The muscles of the tongue are so numerous, and so implicated with one another, that they cannot be traced by the nicest dissection; nevertheless (which is a great perfection of the organ),

neither the number, nor the complexity, nor what might seem to be the entanglement of its fibres, in any wise impede its motion, or render the determination or success of its efforts uncertain.

I here entreat the reader's permission, to step a little out of my way to consider the parts of the mouth, in some of their other properties. It has been said, and that by an eminent physiologist, that, whenever nature attempts to work two or more purposes by one instrument, she does both or all imperfectly. Is this true of the tongue, regarded as an instrument of speech, and of taste; or regarded as an instrument of speech, of taste, and of deglutition? So much otherwise, that many persons, that is to say, nine hundred and ninety-nine persons out of a thousand, by the instrumentality of this one' organ, talk, and taste, and swallow, very well. In fact, the constant warmth and moisture of the tongue, the thinness of the skin, the papillæ upon its surface, qualify this organ for its office of tasting, as much as its inextricable multiplicity of fibres do for the rapid movements which are necessary to speech. Animals which feed upon grass, have their tongues covered with a perforated