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a falcon, or a kite, acts upon the animal fibre alone; it wil not act upon seeds or grasses at all. On the other hand the conformation of the mouth of the sheep or of the ox is suited for browsing upon herbage. Nothing about these animals is fitted for the pursuit of living prey. Accordingly it has been found by experiments, tried not many years 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 ex

animal implies the absence of a collar-bone and a restrained motion in the shoulder-joint; and thus the naturalist, from the specimen in his hand, has got a perfect notion of all the bones of the anterior extremity! The motions of the extremities imply a condition of the spine which unites them. Each bone of the spine will have that form which permits the bounding of the stag, or the galloping of the horse, but it will not have that form of joining which admits the turning or writhing of the spine, as in the leopard or the tiger.

"And now he comes to the head:—the teeth of a carnivorous animal, he says, would be useless to rend prey, unless there were claws to hold it, and a mobility of the extremities like the hand, to grasp it. He considers, therefore, that the teeth must have been for bruising herbs, and the back teeth for grinding. The socketing of these teeth in the jaw gives a peculiar form to these bones, and the muscles which move them are also peculiar; in short, he forms a conception of the shape of the skull. From this point he may set out anew, for by the form of the teeth, he ascertains the nature of the stomach, the length of the intestines, and all the peculiarities which mark a vegetable feeder.

"Thus the whole parts of the animal system are so connected with one another, that from one single bone or fragment of bone, be it of the jaw, or of the spine, or of the extremity, a really accurate conception of the shape, motions, and habits of the animal, may be formed.

"It will readily be understood that the same process of reasoning will ascertain, from a small portion of a skeleton, the existence of a carnivorous animal, or of a fowl, or of a bat, or of a lizard, or of a fish ; and what a conviction is here brought home to us, of the extent of that plan which adapts the members of every creature to its proper office, and yet exhibits a system extending through the whole range of animated beings, whose motions are conducted by the operation of muscles and bones!

"After all, this is but a part of the wonders disclosed through the knowledge of a thing so despised as a fragment of bone. It carries us into another science; since the knowledge of the skeleton not only teaches us the classification of creatures, now alive, but affords proofs of the former existence of animated beings which are not now to be found on the surface of the earth. We are thus led to an unexpected conclusion from such premises; not merely the existence of an individual animal, or race of animals; but even the changes which the globe itself has undergone in times before all existing records, and before the creation of human beings to inhabit the earth, are opened to our contemplation."

periment 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 betweeen the offices assigned to the digestive organ, between the mechanical operation, and the chemical process.

II. The relation of the kidneys to the bladder, and of the ureters to both, i. e. of the secreting organ to the vessel receiving the secreted liquor, and the pipe laid from one to the other, for the purpose of conveying it from one to the other, is as manifest as it is amongst the different vessels employed in a distillery, or in the communications between them. The animal structure in this case being simple, and the parts easily separated, it forms an instance of correlation which may be presented by dissection to every eye, or which indeed, without dissection, is capable of being apprehended by every understanding. This correla

tion 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, here ought to have been a bladder for each ureter. One receptacle, fed by two pipes, issuing from different sides of the body, yet from both conveying the same fluid, is not to be accounted 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 placed as to look in the direction in which the legs move and the hands work? It might have happened very differently if it had been left to chance. There were at least three-quarters of the compass out of four to have erred in. Any considerable alteration in the position of the eye, or the figure of the joints, would have disturbed the line, and destroyed the alliance between the sense and the limbs.

IV. But relation perhaps is never so striking, as when it subsists, not between different parts of the same thing, but between different things. The relation between a lock and a key is more obvious than it is between different parts of the lock. A bow was designed for an arrow, and an arrow for a bow: and the design is more evident for their being separate implements.

Nor do the works of the Deity want this clearest spe

cies of relation. The sexes are manifestly 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 individuals.

These are general relations, or the relations of parts which are found, either in all animals, or in large classes and descriptions of animals. Particular relations, or the relations which subsist between the particular configuration of one or more parts of certain species of animals, and the particular configuration of one or more other parts of the same animal, (which is the sort of relation that is perhaps most striking,) are such as the following:

I. In the swan; the web foot, the spoon bill, the long neck, the thick down, the graminivorous stomach, bear all a relation to one another, inasmuch as they all concur in one design, that of supplying the occasions of an aquatic fowl, floating upon the surface of shallow pools of water, and seeking its food at the bottom. Begin with any one of these particularities of structure, and observe how the rest follow it. The web foot qualifies the bird for swimming; the spoon bill enables it to graze. But how is an animal, floating upon the surface of pools of water, to graze at the bottom, except by the mediation of a long neck? A long neck accordingly is given to it. Again, a warm-blooded animal, which was to pass its life upon water, required a defence against the coldness of that element. Such a defence is furnished to the swan, in the muff in which its body is wrapped. But all this outward apparatus would have been in vain, if the intestinal system had not been suited to the digestion of vegetable substances. I say, suited to the digestion of vegetable substances: for it is well known, that there are two intestinal systems found in birds, one with a membranous stomach and a gastric juice, capable of dissolving animal substances alone; the other with a crop and gizzard, calculated for the moistening, bruising and afterwards digesting, of vegetable aliment.

Or set off with any other distinctive part in the body of the swan; for instance, with the long neck. The long neck, without the web foot, would have been an encumbrance to the bird; yet there is no necessary connexion between a long neck and a web foot. In fact they do not usually go together. How happens it, therefore, that they meet only when a particular design demands the aid of both?

II. This mutual relation, arising from a subserviency to a common purpose, is very observable also in the parts of a mole. The strong short legs of that animal, the palmated feet armed with sharp nails, the pig-like nose, the teeth, the velvet coat, the small external ear, the sagacious smell, the sunk protected eye, all conduce to the utilities or to the safety of its under-ground life. It is a special purpose, specially consulted throughout. The form of the feet fixes the character of the animal. They are so many shovels; they determine its action to that of rooting in the ground; and everything about its body agrees with this destination. The cylindrical figure of the mole, as well as the compactness of its form, arising from the terseness of its limbs, proportionably lessens its labor; because, according to its bulk, it thereby requires the least possible quantity of earth to be removed for its progress. It has nearly the same structure of the face and jaws as a swine, and the same office for them. The nose is sharp, slender, tendinous, strong; with a pair of nerves going down to the end of it. The plush covering, which, by the smoothness, closeness, and polish of the short piles that compose it, rejects the adhesion of almost every species of earth, defends the animal from cold and wet, and from the impediment which it would experience by the mould sticking to its body. From soils of all kinds the little pioneer comes forth bright and clean. Inhabiting dirt, it is, of all animals, the neatest.

But what I have always most admired in the mole is its eyes. This animal occasionally visiting the surface, and wanting, for its safety and direction, to be informed when it does so, or when it approaches it, a perception of light was necessary. I do not know that the clearness of sight depends at all upon the size of the organ. What is gained by the largeness or prominence of the globe of the eye is width in the field of vision. Such a capacity would be of no use to an animal which was to seek its food in the dark. The mole did not want to look about it; nor would a large advanced eye have been easily defended from the annoy

ance to which the life of the animal must constantly expose it. How indeed was the mole, working its way under ground, to guard its eyes at all? In order to meet this difficulty, the eyes are made scarcely larger than the head of a corking-pin; and these minute globules are sunk so deep in the skull, and lie so sheltered within the velvet of its covering, as that any contraction of what may be called the eye brows, not only closes up the apertures which lead to the eyes, but presents a cushion, as it were, to any sharp or protruding substance, which might push against them. This aperture, even in its ordinary state, is like a pin-hole in a piece of velvet, scarcely pervious to loose particles of earth.

Observe then, in this structure, that which we call relation. There is no natural connexion between a small sunk eye and a shovel palmated foot. Palmated feet might have been joined with goggle eyes; or small eyes might have been joined with feet of any other form. What was

it therefore which brought them together in the mole? That which brought together the barrel, the chain, and the fusee, in a watch; design: and design, in both cases, inferred from the relation which the parts bear to one another in the prosecution of a common purpose. As hath already been observed, there are different ways of stating the relation, according as we set out from a different part. In the instance before us, we may either consider the shape of the feet, as qualifying the animal for that mode. of life and inhabitation to which the structure of its eyes confines it; or we may consider the structure of the eye, as the only one which would have suited with the action to which the feet are adapted. The relation is manifest, whichever of the parts related we place first in the order of our consideration. In a word; the feet of the mole are made for digging; the neck, nose, eyes, ears, and skin, are peculiarly adapted to an under-ground life; and this is what I call relation. [Pl. XXX. fig. 1.]

CHAPTER XVI.

COMPENSATION.

COMPENSATION is a species of relation. It is relation when the defects of one part, or of one organ, are supplied

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