xxvi On Comparatwe Anatomij, and the 



through the great labyrinth of living creation ; and if we 

 can say of any method, that through it our understanding 

 ventures to scrutinize the profound and comprehensive mind 

 of God, it must he this/'^r From a very slight knowledge 

 of the structure of the human frame, the royal psalmist was 

 enabled to exclaim, " man is fearfully and wonderfully 

 made," and had he been acquainted with the structure of 

 the inferior order of animals, he would have found in them 

 additional sources of wonder and of praise, from contempla- 

 ting the infinite variety of modes in which the same func- 

 tions are performed in different animals, and in tracing the 

 contrivances and structure of the organs and general me- 

 chanism of their frames, which are so nicely adapted to theii' 

 different economies and necessities, whether their residence 

 be in air, in water, or on land. 



2. In the early stages of society, this study materially 

 promoted the knowledge of the structure of the human body: 

 for owing to the invincible prejudices against human dis- 

 sections, and the prevalence of the opinion that the handling 

 of a dead body communicated a degree of moral pollution to 

 the living, it was extremely difficult to procure human bo- 

 dies for the purpose of examination, and injurious to the re- 

 putation of medical men to dissect them even if procured. 

 The ancient physicians therefore were under the necessity 

 of drawing their inferences with respect to the anatomy of 

 the human body, and the uses of its various organs, from 

 brute animals ; and apes, probably from their external form 

 more nearly than any other animal, resembling that of man, 

 were the chief sul)jects of investigation; and we know from 

 the disagreement of Galen's account of the structure of va- 

 rious parts of the body, with what has been ascertained by 

 anatomists in later times, and from recent dissections of those 

 animals, that it was from them his descriptions were chiefly 

 taken.28 



3. Upon various questions of physiology, which from their 

 nature could not be ascertained in tiie human subject, this 



