PROSPECTIVE CONTRIVANCES. 149 



But, in the argument before us, we are entitled to con* 

 sider not only animal bodies when framed, but the circum- 

 stances under which they are framed. And, in this view 

 of the subject, the constitution of many of their parts, is 

 most strictly prospective. 



III. The eye is of no use at the time when it is formed. 

 It is an optical instrument made in a dungeon ; construct- 

 ed for the refraction of light to a focus, and perfect for its 

 purpose, before a ray of light has had access to it; geo- 

 metrically adapted to the properties and action of an ele- 

 ment, with which it has no communication. It is about, 

 indeed, to enter into that communication ; and this is pre- 

 cisely the thing which evidences intention. It is provide 

 ing 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 con* 

 sideration of the qualities of that element; hitherto entire- 

 ly excluded, but with which it was hereafter to hold so in- 

 timate a relation 1 A young man makes a pair of specta- 

 cles 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 conclu- 

 sion, that the case, afterwards to arise, had been consider- 

 ed 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 

 O 



