WS THE RELATION OF ANIMATED BODIES 



list ; or might have been exhibited in an automaton, by the 

 combination of springs, spiral wires, and ringlets: but to 

 the solution of the problem would not be denied, surely, 

 the praise of invention and of successful thought ; least of 

 all could it ever be questioned, whether intelligence had 

 been employed about it, or not. 



CHAP. XVII. 



THE RELATION OF ANIMATED BODIES TO INANIMATE 

 NATURE. 



We have already considered relation, and under differ- 

 ent views ; but it was the relation of parts to parts, of the 

 parts of an animal to other parts of the same animal, or of 

 another individual of the same species. 



But the bodies of animals, hold, in their constitution and 

 properties, a close and important relation to natures alto- 

 gether external to their own ; to inanimate substances, and 

 to the specific qualities of these, e. g. they hold a strict re- 

 lation to the elements by which they are surrounded. 



I. Can it be doubted, whether the loings of birds bear a 

 relation to air, and the Jins of Jish to water? They are 

 instruments of motion, severally suited to the properties of 

 the medium in which the motion is to be performed : 

 which properties are different. Was not this difference 

 contemplated, when the instruments were differently con- 

 stituted ? 



II. The structure of the animal ear depends for its use 

 not simply upon being surrounded by a fluid, but upon the 

 specific nature of that fluid. Every fluid would not serve ; 

 its particles must repel one another; it must form an elastic 

 medium ; for it is by the successive pulses of such a medi- 

 um, that the undulations excited by the sounding body are 

 carried to the organ ; that a communication is formed be- 

 tween the object and the sense ; which must be done be- 

 fore the internal machinery of the ear, subtile as it is, can 

 act at all. 



III. The organs of voice, and respiration, are, no 

 less than the ear, indebted for the success of their opera- 

 tion, to the peculiar qualities of the fluid in w'hich the 

 animal is immersed. They, therefore, as well as the ear, 



