contrary order is neceffary, a contrary or der prevails. In the worm of the beetle, as hatched from the egg, the teeth are the first things which arrive at perfection. The infect begins to gnaw as foon as it escapes from the fhell, though its other parts be only gradually advancing to their maturity..

What has been obferved of the teeth, is true of the borns of animals; and for the fame reafon. The horn of a calf or lamb does not bud, or at leaft does not sprout to any confiderable length, until the animal be capable of browfing upon its pasture; becaufe fuch a fubftance upon the forehead of the young animal, would very much incommode the teat of the dam in the office of giving fuck.

But in the cafe of the teeth, of the human teeth at leaft, the profpective contrivance looks ftill further. A fucceffion of crops is provided, and provided from the beginning; a fecond tier being originally formed beneath the firft, which do not come into use till fe veral years afterwards. And this double or fuppletory provifion meets a difficulty in the mechanifm of the mouth, which would have

appeared

The ex

appeared almost unfurmountable. panfion of the jaw (the confequence of the proportionable growth of the animal, and of its skull,) neceffarily feparates the teeth of the firft fet, however compactly difpofed, to a diftance from one another, which would be very inconvenient. In due time therefore, i. e. when the jaw has attained a great part of its dimenfions, a new fet of teeth fprings up, (loofening and pushing out the old ones before them) more exaâly fitted to the space 'which they are to occupy, and rising also in fuch clofe ranks, as to allow for any extenfion of line which the fubfequent enlargement of the head may occafion.

II. It is not very eafy to conceive a more evidently profpective contrivance, than that which, in all viviparous animals, is found in -the milk of the female parent. At the moment the young animal enters the world, there is its maintenance ready for it. The particulars to be remarked in this economy are neither few nor flight. We have, firft, the nutritious quality of the fluid, unlike, in this respect, every other excretion of the body; and in which nature hitherto remains unimitated, neither cookery

T 2

cookery nor chymiftry 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 it and we have, laftly, the determination of the milk to the breaft, at the particular juncture when it is about to be wanted. We have all these properties in the fubje&t before us; and they are all indications of defign. The laft circumstance is the ftrongest of any. If I had been to guess beforehand, I should have conjectured, that, at the time when there was an extraordinary demand of nourishment in one part of the fyftem, there would be the leaft likelihood of a redundancy to supply another part. The advanced pregnancy of the female has no intelligible tendency to fill the breafts with milk. The lacteal system is a conftant wonder: and it adds to other caufes of our admiration, that the number of the teats or paps in each fpecies is found to bear a proportion to the number of the young. In the fow, the bitch, the rabbit, the cat, the rat, which have numerous litters, the paps are numerous and are difpofed along the whole length of the belly:

in the cow and mare they are few.

The

moft fimple account of this, is to refer it to a defigning Creator.

But, in the argument before us, we are entitled to confider not only animal bodies when framed, but the circumstances under which they are framed. And, in this view of the fubject, the conftitution of many of their parts, is, moft ftrictly, profpective.

III. The eye is of no use, at the time when it is formed. It is an optical inftrument made in a dungeon; conftructed for the refraction of light to a focus, and perfect for its purpose, before a ray of light has had access to it; geometrically adapted to the properties and action of an element, with which it has no communication. It is about indeed to enter into that communication; and this is precisely the thing which evidences intention. It is providing for the future in the closest fenfe which can be given to these terms; for it is providing for a future change: not for the then fubfifting condition of the animal; not for any gradual progrefs or advance in that fame condition; but for a new flate, the confequence of a great and fudden alteration, which the animal is to undergo at its birth.

Is

Is it to be believed that the eye was formed, or, which is the fame thing, that the series of caufes was fixed by which the eye is formed, without a view to this change; without a profpect of that condition, in which its fabric, of no ufe at prefent, is about to be, of the greatest; without a confideration of the qualities of that element, hitherto entirely excluded, but with which it was hereafter to hold fo 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 confidering the defect of vision to which advanced age is fubject? Would not the precife fuitablenefs of the inftrument to its purpose, of the remedy to the defect, of the convex lenfe to the flattened eye, establish the certainty of the conclufion, that the cafe, afterwards to arife, had been confidered beforehand, fpeculated upon, provided for? all which are exclufively the acts of a reasoning mind. The eye formed in one ftate, for ufe only in another state, and in a different ftate, affords a proof no lefs clear of deftination to a future purpose; and a proof pro

The

portionably