90 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



can more strongly indicate design and attention to an end, 

 than their being thus stationed, than this collocation The 

 nature of the muscular fibre being what it is, the purposes 

 of the animal could be answered by no other And not only 

 the capacity for motion, but the aspect and symmetry of the 

 body is preserved by the muscles being marshalled accord- 

 ing to this order ; for example, the mouth is holder, in the 

 middle of the face, and its angles kept in a state of exact 

 correspondency, by two muscles draw';/g against and balan- 

 cing each ether. In a hemiplegia, when the muscle on one 

 side is weakened, the muscle on the other side draws the 

 mouth awry. 



III. Another property of the muscles, which could only 

 be the result of care, is their being almost universally so dis- 

 posed as not to obstruct or interfere w^ith one another's ac- 

 tion. I know but one instance in which this impediment is 

 perceived. We cannot easily swallow while we gape. Tliis, 

 I understand, is owing to the muscles employed in the act 

 of deglutition being so implicated with the muscles of the 

 lower jaw, that while these last are contracted, the former 

 cannot act wdth freedom. The obstruction is, in this in- 

 stance, attended with little inconvenience ; but it shows what 

 the effect is where it does exist, and wdiat loss of faculty 

 there would be if it were more frequent. Now, when we 

 reflect upon the number of muscles, not fewer than four hun- 

 dred and forty-six in the human body, known and named, =^ 

 how contiguous they lie to each other, in layers as it werC; 

 over one another, crossing one another, sometimes embedded 

 in one another, sometimes perforating one another — an ar- 

 rangement which leaves to each its liberty and its full play, 

 must necessarily require meditation and counsel. 



IV. The following is oftentimes the case with the muscles. 

 Their action is wanted where their situation would be incon- 

 venient. In which case the body of the muscle is placed in 

 f^ome commodious pos.tion at a distance, and made to com- 



^ Keill's Anatomy, p. 205, ed. 3. 



