2(96 CONCLUSION. 



ism I should be apt to draw out from the copious catalogue 

 which it supplies, are the pivot upon which the head turns, 

 the ligament within the socket of the hip joint, the pulley 

 or trochlear muscles of the eye, the epiglottis, the bandages 

 which tie down the tendons of the wrist and instep, the slit 

 or perforated muscles at the hands and feet, the knitting of 

 the intestines to the mesentery, the course of the chyle into 

 the blood, and the constitution of the sexes as extended 

 throughout the whole of the animal creation. To these 

 instances, the reader's mernory will go back, as they are 

 severally set forth in their places ; there is not one of the 

 number which I do not think decisive ; not one which is 

 not strictly mechanical : nor have I read or heard of any 

 solution of these appearances, which, in the smallest degree, 

 shakes the conclusion that we build upon them. 



But, of the greatest part of those, who, either in this book 

 or any other, read arguments to prove the existence of a 

 God, It will be said, that they leave off only where they be- 

 gan ; that they uere never ignorant of this great truth, nev- 

 er doubted of it ; that it does not therefore appear, what is 

 gained by researches from which no new opinion is learnt, 

 and upon the subject of which no proofs were wanted. 

 Now I answer, that, by investigation, the following points 

 are always gained, in favour of doctrines even the most gen- 

 erally acknowledged, (supposhig them to be true,) viz. sta- 

 bility and impression. Occasions will arise to try the firm- 

 ness of our most habitual opinions. And, upon these occa- 

 sions, it is a matter of incalculable use to feel our founda- 

 tion ; to find a support in argument for what we had taken 

 up upon autliority. In the present case, the arguments 

 upon which the conclusion rests, are exactly such, as a 

 truth of universal concern ought to rest upon. " They are 

 sufficiently open to the views and capacities of the unlearn- 

 ed, at the same time that they acquire new strength and 

 lustre from the discoveries of the learned." If they had 

 been altogether abstruse and recondite, they would not have 

 found their way to the understandings of the mass of man- 

 kind ; if they had been merely popular, they might have 

 wanted solidity. 



But, secondly, what is gained by research in the stability 

 of our conclusion, is also gained from it in impression. 

 Physicians tell us, that there is a great deal of difference 

 between taking a medicine, and the medicine getting into 

 the constitution. A difference not unlike which, ob- 



