I02 PRESENT-DAY RATIONALISM 



In describing anatomical structures illustrating Di- 

 rectivity (I will not now say Design) Paley notices cases 

 where mechanical principles are brought into play ; thus 

 there is a pulley in the muscles of the eye, levers in the 

 feet and arms, etc. 



We have seen how a skew bridge is imitated in a 

 bird's wing and a man's leg, and the thigh bone has, 

 internally, the structure of an arch. 



In the vegetable kingdom we find the principle of 

 springs to be frequent in flowers and mechanical traps 

 in insectivorous plants, as the Venus' fly-trap, which 

 resembles a rat-trap ; while a lever is seen in the stamens 

 of Salvias. 



Where engineers and architects construct machines or 

 erect buildings, arches, bridges, etc., they do so on precisely 

 similar principles. They do but imitate, consciously or 

 unconsciously, what Nature has done before them. 



Man, therefore, is much more a reveahr than an 

 original inventor; for his inventions are all based on 

 principles discovered to exist in Nature's works. In- 

 deed, the primary meaning of "Invention" is "Dis- 

 covery," 1 and is a better description of man's work than 

 the ordinary meaning. 



If a man "invents" the telescope, it is because he 

 has " discovered " the action of lenses in combination. 

 Similarly he may invent mathematical formulae, using 

 letters of alphabets, but they only represent illustrations 

 of the natural laws of Numbers, of Geometry, etc. They 

 were all there from the beginning, but no creature before 

 man arrived could reveal them. 



When we turn to Astronomy we find the forms and 

 motions of the heavenly bodies to be strictly bound by 



^ For example, "The Invention of the Cross" signified its discovery. 



