PERSONALITY OF DEIT jT. 283 



hero given. In the second example, wliy should the appli- 

 cation of water, which appears to promote and thicken the 

 growth of feathers upon the bodies and breasts of geese and 

 swans, and other water-fowls, have divested of this covering 

 the thighs of cranes ? The third instance, which appears 

 lo me as plausible as any that can be produced, has this 

 against it, that it is a singularity restricted to the species ; 

 whereas, if it had its commencement in the cause and man- 

 ner which have been assigned, the like conformation might 

 be expected to take place in other birds which feed upon 

 fish. How comes it to pass, that the pelican alone was the 

 inventress, and her descendants the only inheritors of this 

 curious resource ? 



But it is the less necessary to controvert the instances 

 themselves, as it is a straining of analogy beyond all limits 

 of reason and credibility, to assert that birds and beasts 

 and fish, with all their variety and complexity of organ 

 ization, have been brought into their forms, and distin 

 guished into their several kinds and natures, by the same 

 process — even if that process could be demonstrated, or 

 had it ever been actually noticed — as might seem to serve 

 for the gradual generation of a camel's bunch or a pelican's 

 pouch. 



The solution, when applied to the works of nature gen- 

 erally, is contradicted by many of the phenomena, and to- 

 tally inadequate to others. The ligaments or strictures by 

 which the tendons are tied down at the angles of the joints, 

 could by no possibility be formed by the motion or exercise 

 of the tendons themselves, by an appetency exciting these 

 parts into action, or by any tendency arising therefrom. 

 The tendency is all the other way — the conatiis in constant 

 opposition to them. Length of time does not help the case 

 at all, but the reverse. The valves also in the bloodvessels 

 could never be formed in the manner Vvdiich our theorist 

 proposes. The blood, in its right and natural course, hag 

 no tendency to form them. "When obstructed or refluent, il 



