316 THE SENSOR1AL FUNCTIONS. 



and which kindle in us the most ardent desire of supplying 

 the wide chasms perpetually intervening in the mysterious 

 and inspiring narrative. But in the subject which now claims 

 our attention we have been permitted to trace, for a consi- 

 derable extent, the continuity of the design, and the length- 

 ened series of means employed for carrying that design into 

 execution; and the view which is thus unfolded of the mag- 

 nificent scheme of creation is calculated to give us the most 

 sublime ideas of THE WISDOM, THE POWER, AND THE BENE- 

 VOLENCE OF GOD. 



On none of the works of the Creator, which we are per- 

 mitted to behold, have the characters of intention been more 

 deeply and legibly engraved than in the organ of vision, where 

 the relation of every part to the effect intended to be produced 

 is too evident to be mistaken, and the mode in which they 

 operate is at once placed within the range of our comprehen- 

 sion. Of all the animal structures, this is, perhaps, the one 

 which most admits of being brought into close comparison 

 with the works of human art; for the eye is, in truth, a re- 

 fined optical instrument, the perfection of which can never be 

 fully appreciated until we have instituted such a comparison; 

 and the most profound scientific investigations of the anato- 

 my and physiology of the eye concur in showing that the 

 whole of its structure is most accurately and skilfully adapt- 

 ed to the physical laws of light, and that all its parts are 

 finished with that mathematical exactness which the preci- 

 sion of the effect requires, and which no human effort can 

 ever hope to approach, far less to attain. 



To the prosecution of this inquiry we are farther invited by 

 the consciousness of the incalculable advantages we derive 

 from the sense of sight, the choicest and most enchanting of 

 our corporeal endowments. The value of this sense must, 

 indeed, appear inestimable, when we consider of how large 

 a portion of our sensitive and intellectual existence it is the 

 intermediate source. Not only has it given us extensive 

 command over the objects which surround us, and enabled 

 us to traverse and explore the most distant regions of the 



