TO INANIMATE NATURE. 169 



are constituted upon the supposition of such fluid, i. e. of 

 a fluid with such particular properties, being always pres- 

 ent. Change the properties of the fluid, and the organ 

 cannot act ; change the organ, and the properties of the 

 fluid would be lost. The structure, therefore, of our or- 

 gans, and the properties of our atmosphere, are made for 

 one another. Nor does it alter the relation, whether you 

 allege the organ to be made for the element, (which seems 

 the most natural way of considering it,) or the element as 

 prepared for the organ. 



IV. But there is another fluid with which we have to do; 

 with properties of its own ; with laws of acting, and of be- 

 ing acted upon, totally different from those of air and water: 

 and that is light. To this new, this singular element ; to 

 qualities perfectly peculiar, perfectly distinct and remote 

 from the qualities of any other substance with which we 

 are acquainted, an organ is adapted, an instrument is cor- 

 rectly adjusted, not less peculiar amongst the parts of the 

 body, not less singular in its form, and, in the substance of 

 which it is composed, not less remote from the materials, 

 the model, and the analogy of any other part of the animal 

 frame, than the element to which it relates, is specific 

 amidst the substances with which we converse. If this 

 does not prove appropriation, I desire to know what would 

 prove it. 



Yet the element of light and the organ of vision, how* 

 ever related in their office and use, have no connexion 

 whatever in their original. The action of rays of light 

 upon the surfaces of animals has no tendency to breed eyes 

 in their heads. The sun might shine for ever upon living 

 bodies without the smallest approach towards producing the 

 sense of sight. On the other hand also, the animal eye 

 does not generate or emit light. 



V. Throughout the universe there is a wonderful pro- 

 portioning of one thing to another. The size of animals, 

 of the human animal especially, when considered with re- 

 spect to other animals, or to the plants which grow around 

 him, is such, as a regard to his conveniency would have 

 pointed out. A giant or a pigmy could not have milked goats, 

 reaped corn, or mowed grass ; we may add, could not have 

 rode a horse, trained a vine, shorn a sheep, with the same 

 bodily ease as we do, if at all. A pifijmy would have been 

 lost among rushes, or carried oflT by birds of prey. 



It may be mentioned, likewise, that the model and the 

 materials of the human body being what they are, a much 



