2S4 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



has the contrary. These parts could not grow out of theii 

 use, though they had eternity to grow m. 



The senses of animals appear to me altogether incapable 

 of receiving the explanation of their origin which this theory 

 affords. Including under the word "sense" the organ and 

 the perception, we have no account of either. How will 

 our philosopher get at vision, or make an eye ? How should 

 the blind animal affect sight, of which blind animals we 

 know have neither conception nor desire ? Affecting it, by 

 what operation of its will, by what endeavor to see, could it 

 so determine the fluids of its body as to inchoate the fo-rma 

 tion of an eye ? Or suppose the eye formed, would the per 

 ception follow ? The same of the other senses. And this 

 objection holds its force, ascribe what you will to the hand 

 of time, to the power of habit, to changes too slow to be 

 observed by man, or brought within any comparison which 

 he is able to make of past things with the present : concede 

 what you please to these arbitrary and unattested supposi- 

 tions, how wdll they help you ? Here is no inception. No 

 laws, no course, no powers of nature which prevail at pres- 

 ent, nor any analogous to these, would give commencement 

 to a new sense. And it is in vain to inquire how that might 

 proceed which could never begin. 



I think the senses to be the most inconsistent with the 

 hypothesis before us, of any part of the animal frame. But 

 other parts are sufficiently so. The solution does not apply 

 to the parts of animals which have little in them of motion. 

 If we could suppose joints and muscles to be gradually form- 

 ed by action and exercise, w^hat action or exercise could 

 form a skull, and fill it with brains ? No effort of the ani- 

 mal could determine the clothing of its skin. What conatuh 

 could give prickles to the porcupine or hedgehog, or to the 

 sheep its fleece ? 



In the last place, what do these appetencies mean when 

 applied to plants ? I am not able to give a signification to 

 the terra which can be transferred from animals to plants ; 



