OF TrfE MUSCLES. 8T 



There is also a further use to be made of the present 

 example, and that is, as it precisely contradicts the opin- 

 ion, that the parts of animals may have been all formed 

 by what is called appetency, i. e. endeavour, perpetuated, 

 and imperceptibly working its effect, through an incalcu- 

 lable series of generations. We have here no endeavour, 

 but the reverse of it ; a constant renitency and reluctance 

 The endeavour is all the other way. The pressure of the 

 ligament constrains the tendons ; the tendons re-act upon 

 the pressure of the ligament. It is impossible that the lig- 

 ament should ever have been generated by the exercise of 

 the tendon, or in the course of that exercise, forasmuch as 

 the force of the tendon perpendicularly resists the fibre 

 which confines it, and is constantly endeavouring, not to 

 form, but to rupture and displace, the threads of which the 

 ligament is composed. 



Keill has reckoned up, in the human body, four hundred 

 and forty-six muscles, [See note, p. 77,] dissectible and de- 

 scriable ; and hathassigned an use to every one of the num- 

 ber. This cannot be all imagination. 



Bishop Wilkins hath observed from Galen that there are, 

 at least, ten several qualifications to be attended to in each 

 particular muscle, viz. its proper figure, its just magni- 

 tude, its fulcrum, its point of action supposing the figure to 

 be fixed, its collocation with respect to its two ends, the 

 upper and the lower, the place, the position of the whole 

 muscle, the introduction into it of nerves, arteries, veins. 

 How are things, including so many adjustments, to be made, 

 or when made, how are they to be put together, without 

 intelligence? 



I have sometimes wondered, why we are not struck 

 with mechanism in animal bodies, as readily and as strong- 

 ly as we are struck with it, at first sight, in a watch or a 

 mill. One reason of the difference may be that animal 

 bodies are, in a great measure, made up of soft, flabby, 

 substances, such as muscles and membranes; whereas we 

 have been accustomed to trace mechanism in sharp lines, 

 in the configuration of hard materials, in the moulding, 

 chiseling, and filing into shapes, such articles as metals or 

 wood. There is something, therefore, of habit in the case; 

 but it is sufficiently evident, that there can be no proper 

 reason for any distinction of the sort. Mechanism may be 

 displayed in the one kind of substance, as well as in the 

 other. 



