of the Peruvian Lama. 481 



led to guess at the functions or the uses of the organs and parts 

 successively displayed by mere handling, or by the more intricate 

 process of dissection. The first, the great object, is a discovery 

 of the use of the parts, there being no inference so natural to 

 the human mind, than that every part of the animal economy 

 must have its use ; but of all inquiries, this is one of the most 

 difficult, it being impossible to argue the uses of new parts, 

 which so obviously serve no immediate purpose, and imprac- 

 ticable to apply the laws which regulate the construction of ma- 

 chinery, united and fashioned by human hands, to those regu- 

 lated by the mysterious principle of life. 



If the animal he is examining be altogether foreign to him, 

 if its natural history be unknown, the inquirer can then only 

 guess at the functions of the parts which present themselves to 

 him ; and the vagueness of such conjectures will be best under- 

 stood by remembering that neither ARISTOTLE, nor even per- 

 haps HIPPOCRATES, knew the uses of the common muscular 

 masses composing the greater part of animals highly organized ; 

 that they were ignorant of the nature and functions of nerves, 

 tendons, and of all the white fibrous textures of the body ; of 

 the brain, of the heart, arteries, veins, lymphatic vessels; and 

 of all those parts which are now known to every tyro in ana- 

 tomy, and even to the better educated amongst non-profes- 

 sional persons. It is not now as with the anatomists of former 

 times ; inquiries so extensive, as to determine the exact nature 

 of almost every natural family of the animal kingdom, enable 

 the anatomist to proceed to the dissection of an unknown ani- 

 mal with an extent of previous knowledge, of which he is not 

 himself at all times conscious. He determines, by what he has 

 already seen and read, the names and nature of all the great 

 and leading organs of the body of the animal ; he even goes 

 further, trusting to analogy, he ventures to predict the pro- 

 bable use of a part he may not have seen before in any animal. 



