248 OF THE PERSONALITY OF THE DEITY. 



whicli is here given. In the second example : Why should 

 the application of water, which appears to promote and 

 thicken the growth of feathers upon the bodies and breasts 

 of geese and swans and other water fowls, have divested 

 of this covering the thighs of cranes ? The third instance, 

 which appears to me as plausible as any that can be produc- 

 ed, has this against it, that it is a singularity restricted to 

 the species ; whereas, if it had its commencement in the 

 cause and manner which have been assigned, the like eon- 

 formation might be expected to take place in other birds, 

 which feed upon fish How comes it to pass, that the pel- 

 ican alone was the inventress, and her descendants the only 

 inheritors, of this curious resource ? 



But it is the less necessary to controvert the instances 

 themselves, as it is a straining of analogy beyond all limits 

 of reason and credibility, to assert that birds, and beasts, 

 and fish, with all their variety and complexity of organiza- 

 tion, have been brought into their forms, and distinguished 

 into their several kinds and natures, by the same process 

 (even if that process could be demonstrated, or had it ever 

 been actually noticed) as m.ight seem to serve for the grad- 

 ual generation of a camel's bunch, or a pelican's pouch. 



The solution, when applied to the works of nature gen- 

 erally, is contradicted by many of the phenomena, and to- 

 tally inadequate to others. The ligaments or strictures, by 

 which the tendons are tied down at the angles of the joints, 

 could, by no possibility, be formed by the motion or exer- 

 cise of the tendons themselves ; by any appetency exciting^ 

 these parts into action ; or by any tendency arising there-^ 

 from. The tendency is all the other way : the conatus in 

 constant opposition to them. Length of time does not help 

 the case at all, but the reverse. The valves also in the 

 blood-vessels, could never be formed in the manner, which 

 our theorist proposes. The blood, in its right and natural 

 course, has no tendency to form them. When obstructed 

 or refluent, it has the contrary. These parts could not 

 grow out of their use, though they had eternity to grow in. 



The senses of animals appear to me altogether incapable 

 of receiving the explanation of their origin which this theo- 

 ry affords. Including under the word '• sense" the organ 

 and the perception, we have no account of either. How 

 will our philosopher get at vision, or make an eye ? How 

 should the blind animal effect sight, of which blind animals, 

 we know, have neither conception nor desire 1 Affecting 

 it, by what operation of its will, by what endeavour to see^ 



