370 THE MECHANICAL FUNCTIONS. 



rate order, where disclaiming any close alliance with inferior 

 creatures, he proudly stands alone, towering far above them 

 all. 



It is not, however, on a pre-eminence in any single phy- 

 sical quality or function that this title to superiority can be 

 founded; for in each of these endowments man is excelled 

 in turn by particular races of the lower animals; but the 

 chief perfection of his frame consists in its general adapta- 

 tion to an incomparably greater variety of objects, and an infi- 

 nitely more expanded sphere of action. As the beauty of an 

 edifice depends not on the elaborate finishing of any one por- 

 tion, but results from the general suitableness of the whole 

 to the purposes for which it was constructed, so the excellence 

 of the human fabric is to be estimated by the exquisite pro- 

 portion and harmony subsisting among all its parts, and per- 

 vading the whole system of its functions. The design of 

 its structure and economy embraces widely different, and far 

 higher aims than those contemplated in the organization of 

 any of the inferior animals. Destined to an intellectual, a 

 social, and a moral existence, Man has had every part of his 

 organization modified with an express relation to these great 

 objects of his formation. This will best appear when we 

 come to examine the organs which are subservient to the 

 sensitive and active faculties; but even here, where our views 

 must, for the present, be limited to the mechanical circum- 

 stances of his structure, the proofs are sufficiently numerous 

 to warrant this general conclusion. 



Man presents the only instance among the mammalia of 

 a conformation by which the erect posture can be perma- 

 nently maintained, and in which the office of supporting the 

 trunk of the body is consigned exclusively to the lower ex- 

 tremities. To this intention the form and arrangement of 

 all the parts of the osseous fabric, and the position and ad- 

 justments of the organs of sense have a well marked refer- 

 ence.* The lower limbs are qualified to be the efficient 



* In most quadrupeds, as we have seen, the thorax is deep in the direc- 

 tion fi-om the sternum to the spine, but is compressed latemlly, for the evi- 



