138 NATUilAL THEOLOGY. 



parts of the body beneath it, which is of still greater im- 

 portance ; and that purpose is concealment. Were it pos- 

 sible to view through the skin the mechanism of our bodies, 

 the sight would frighten us out of our wits. " D.irst we 

 make a single movement," asks a lively French writer, " or 

 stir a step from the place we were in, if we &aw our blood 

 circulating, the tendons pulling, the -lungs blowing, the 

 humors filtrating, and all the incomprehensible assemblage 

 of fibres, tubes, pumps, valves, currents, pivots, which sus- 

 tain an existence at once so frail and so presumptuous ?" 



V. Of animal bodies, considered as masses, there is an- 

 other property more curious than it is generally thought to 

 be, which is the faculty of standing ; and it is more re- 

 markable in two-legged animals than in quadrupeds, and 

 most of all, as being the tallest and resting upon the smallest 

 base, in man. There is more, I think, in the matter than 

 we are aware of. The statue of a man placed loosely upon 

 a pedestal, would not be secure of standing half an hour. 

 You are obliged to fix its feet to th^ block by bolts and sol- 

 der, or the first shake, the first gust of wind, is sure to 

 throw it down. Yet this statue shall express all the mechan- 

 ical proportions of a living model. It is not therefore the 

 mere figure, or merely placing the centre of gravity within 

 the base, that is sufficient. Either the law of gravitation is 

 suspended in favor of living substances, or something more 

 is done for them, in order to enable them to uphold their 

 posture. There is no reason whatever to doubt, but that 

 their parts descend by gravitation in the same manner as 

 those of dead matter. The gift therefore appears to me to 

 consist in a faculty of perpetually shifting the centre of grav- 

 ity, by a set of obscure, indeed, but of quick-balancing ac- 

 tions, so as to keep the line of direction, which is a line 

 Jra\\Ti from that centre to the ground, within its prescribed 

 imits. 



Of these actions it may be observed, first, that they in 

 part constitute what we call strength. The dead body drop? 



