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 sense which can be given to these terms; for it is providing for a future change; not for the then subsisting condition of the animal; not for any gradual progress or advance in that same condition; but for a new state, the consequence of a great and sudden alteration, which the animal is to undergo at its birth. Is it to be believed that the eye was formed, or, which is the same thing, that the series of causes was fixed by which the eye is formed, without a view to this change; without a prospect of that condition, in which its fabric, of no use at present, is about to be of the greatest; without a consideration of the qualities of that element, hitherto entirely excluded, but with which it was hereafter to hold so 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 considering the defect of vision to which advanced age is subject? Would not the precise suitableness of the instrument to its purpose, of the remedy to the defect, of the convex lens to the flattened eye, establish the certainty of the conclusion, that the case, afterwards to arise, had been considered beforehand, speculated upon, provided for? all which are exclusively the acts of a reasoning mind. The eye formed in one state, for use only in another state, and in a different state, affords a proof no less clear of destination to a future purpose; and a proof proportionably stronger, as the machinery is more complicated, and the adaptation more exact.

IV. What has been said of the eye, holds equally true of the lungs. Composed of air-vessels, where there is no air; elaborately constructed for the alternate admission and expulsion of an elastic fluid, where no such fluid exists; this great organ, with the whole apparatus belonging to it, lies collapsed in the fœtal thorax; yet in order, and in readiness for action, the first moment that the occasion requires its service. This is having a machine locked up in store for future use; which incontestably proves, that the case was expected to occur, in which this use might be experienced; but expectation is the proper act of intelligence. Considering the state in which an animal exists

before its birth, I should look for nothing less in its body than a system of lungs. It is like finding a pair of bellows in the bottom of the sea; of no sort of use in the situation in which they are found; formed for an action which was impossible to be exerted; holding no relation or fitness to the element which surrounds them, but both to another element in another place.

As part and parcel of the same plan, ought to be mentioned, in speaking of the lungs, the provisionary contrivances of the foramen ovale and ductus arteriosus. In the fœtus, pipes are laid for the passage of the blood through the lungs; but, until the lungs be inflated by the inspiration of air, that passage is impervious, or in a great degree obstructed. What then is to be done? What would an artist, what would a master, do upon the occasion? He would endeavour, most probably, to provide a temporary passage, which might carry on the communication required, until the other was open. Now this is the thing which is actually done in the heart :-Instead of the circuitous route through the lungs, which the blood afterwards takes, before it get from one auricle of the heart to the other; a portion of the blood passes immediately from the right auricle to the left, through a hole, placed in the partition, which separates these cavities. This hole, anatomists call the foramen ovale. There is likewise another cross cut, answering the same purpose, by what is called the ductus arteriosus, lying between the pulmonary artery and the aörta. But both expedients are so strictly temporary, that, after birth, the one passage is closed, and the tube which forms the other shrivelled up into a ligament. If this be not contrivance, what is?

But, forasmuch as the action of the air upon the blood in the lungs appears to be necessary to the perfect concoction of that fluid, i. e. to the life and health of the animal, (otherwise the shortest route might still be the best,) how comes it to pass that the foetus lives, and grows, and thrives without it? The answer is, that the blood of the fœtus is the mother's; that it has undergone that action in her habit; that one pair of lungs serves for both. When the animals are separated, a new necessity arises; and to meet this necessity as soon as it occurs, an organization is prepared. It is ready for its purpose: it only waits for the atmosphere: it begins to play the moment the air is admitted to it.

CHAPTER XV.

RELATIONS.

WHEN several different parts contribute to one effect, or, which is the same thing, when an effect is produced by the joint action of different instruments; the fitness of such parts or instruments to one another, for the purpose of producing, by their united action, the effect, is what I call relation; and wherever this is observed in the works of nature or of man, it appears to me to carry along with it decisive evidence of understanding, intention, art. In examining, for instance, the several parts of a watch, the spring, the barrel, the chain, the fusee, the balance, the wheels of various sizes, forms and positions, what is it which would take an observer's attention, as most plainly evincing a construction, directed by thought, deliberation, and contrivance? It is the suitableness of these parts to one another; first, in the succession and order in which they act; and, secondly, with a view to the effect finally produced. Thus, referring the spring to the wheels, our observer sees in it that which originates and upholds their motion; in the chain, that which transmits the motion to the fusee; in the fusee, that which communicates it to the wheels; in the conical figure of the fusee, if he refer to the spring, he sees that which corrects the inequality of its force. Referring the wheels to one another, he notices, first, their teeth, which would have been without use or meaning, if there had been only one wheel, or if the wheels had had no connexion between themselves, or common bearing upon some joint effect; secondly, the correspondency of their position, so that the teeth of one wheel catch into the teeth of another; thirdly, the proportion observed in the number of teeth in each wheel, which determines the rate of going. Referring the balance to the rest of the works, he saw, when he came to understand its action, that which rendered their motions equable. Lastly, in looking upon the index and face of the watch, he saw the use and conclusion of the mechanism, viz. marking the succession of minutes and hours; but all depending upon the motions within, all upon the system of intermediate actions between the spring and the pointer. What thus struck his attention in the several parts

VOL. I.

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of the watch, he might probably designate by one general name of "relation;" and observing with respect to all cases whatever, in which the origin and formation of a thing could be ascertained by evidence, that these relations were found in things produced by art and design, and in no other things, he would rightly deem of them as characteristic of such productions. To apply the reasoning here described to the works of

nature.

The animal œconomy is full, is made up, of these relations.

I. There are, first, what, in one form or other, belong to all animals, the parts and powers which successively act upon their food. Compare this action with the process of a manufactory. In men and quadrupeds, the aliment is, first, broken and bruised by mechanical instruments of mastication, viz. sharp spikes or hard knobs, pressing against or rubbing upon one another: thus ground and comminuted, it is carried by a pipe into the stomach, where it waits to undergo a great chymical action, which we call digestion: when digested, it is delivered through an orifice, which opens and shuts, as there is occasion, into the first intestine; there, after being mixed with certain proper ingredients, poured through a hole in the side of the vessel, it is farther dissolved: in this state, the milk, chyle, or part which is wanted, and which is suited for animal nourishment, is strained off by the mouths of very small tubes, opening into the cavity of the intestines; thus freed from its grosser parts, the percolated fluid is carried by a long, winding, but traceable course, into the main stream of the old circulation; which conveys it, in its progress, to every part of the body. Now I say again, compare this with the process of a manufactory; with the making of cider, for example; with the bruising of the apples in the mill, the squeezing of them when so bruised in the press, the fermentation in the vat, the bestowing of the liquor thus fermented in the hogsheads, the drawing off into bottles, the pouring out for use into the glass. Let any one show me any difference between these two cases, as to the point of contrivance. That which is at present under our consideration, the "relation "of the parts successively employed, is not more clear in the last case, than in the first. The aptness of the jaws and teeth to prepare the food for the stomach, is, at least, as manifest, as that of the cider-mill to crush the apples for the press. The concoction of the food in the stomach is as necessary for its future use, as the fermentation of the stum in

the vat is to the perfection of the liquor. The disposal of the aliment afterwards; the action and change which it undergoes; the route which it is made to take, in order that, and until that, it arrive at its destination, is more complex indeed and intricate, but, in the midst of complication and intricacy, as evident and certain, as is the apparatus of cocks, pipes, tunnels, for transferring the cider from one vessel to another; of barrels and bottles, for preserving it till fit for use; or of cups and glasses, for bringing it, when wanted, to the lip of the consumer. The character of the machinery is in both cases this; that one part answers to another part, and every part to the final result.

This parallel between the alimentary operation and some of the processes of art, might be carried farther into detail. Spallanzani has remarked a circumstantial resemblance between the stomachs of gallinaceous fowls and the structure of corn-mills. Whilst the two sides of the gizzard perform the office of the mill-stones, the craw or crop supplies the place of the hopper.

When our fowls are abundantly supplied with meat, they soon fill their craw: but it does not immediately pass thence into the gizzard; it always enters in very small quantities, in proportion to the progress of trituration; in like manner as, in a mill, a receiver is fixed above the two large stones which serve for grinding the corn; which receiver, although the corn be put into it by bushels, allows the grain to dribble only in small quantities, into the central hole in the upper mill-stone.

But we have not done with the alimentary history. There subsists a general relation between the external organs of an animal by which it procures its food, and the internal powers by which it digests it. Birds of prey, by their talons and beaks, are qualified to seize and devour many species, both of other birds, and of quadrupeds. The constitution of the stomach agrees exactly with the form of the members. The gastric juice of a bird of prey, of an owl, a falcon, or a kite, acts upon the animal fibre alone; it will not act upon seeds or grasses at all. On the other hand, the conformation of the mouth of the sheep or 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

* Disc I. sec. liv.