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PART III. 



THE SENSORIAL FUNCTIONS. 



CHAPTER I. 



SEiVSATION. 



The system of mechanical and chemical functions which 

 we have been occupied in reviewing, has been established 

 only as a foundation for the endowment of those higher fa- 

 culties which constitute tlie great objects of animal exist- 

 ence. It is in the study of these final purposes that the 

 scheme of nature, in the formation of the animal world, 

 opens and displays itself in all its grandeur. The whole of 

 the phenomena we have hitherto considered concur in one 

 essential object, the maintenance of a simply vital existence. 

 Endowed with these properties alone, the organized system 

 would possess all that is absolutely necessary for the conti- 

 nuance and support of mere vegetative life. The machine- 

 ry provided for this purpose is perfect and complete in all 

 its parts. To raise it to this perfection, not only has the 

 Divine Architect employed all the properties and powers of 

 matter, which science has yet revealed to man, but has also 

 brought into play the higher and more mysterious energies of 

 nature, and has made them to concur in the great work that 

 was to be performed. On the organized fabric there has been 

 conferred a vital force; with the powers of mechanism have 

 been conjoined those of chemistry; and to these have been 



