128 TERRESTRIAL ADAPTATIONS. 



intelligent Being, able and willing to diffuse 

 organization, life, health, and enjoyment through 

 all parts of the visible world ; possessing a fer- 

 tility of means which no multiplicity of objects 

 could exhaust, and a discrimination of conse- 

 quences which no complication of conditions 

 could embarrass. 



CHAPTER XVI. 



Light. 



BESIDES the hearing and sound there is another 

 mode by which we become sensible of the im- 

 pressions of external objects, namely, sight and 

 light. This subject also offers some observations 

 bearing on our present purpose. 



It has been declared by writers on Natural 

 Theology, that the human eye exhibits such 

 evidence of design and skill in its construction, 

 that no one, who considers it attentively, can resist 

 this impression : nor does this appear to be 

 saying too much. It must, at the same time, be 

 obvious that this construction of the eye could 

 not answer its purposes, except the constitution 

 of light corresponded to it. Light is an element 

 of the most peculiar kind and properties, and such 

 an element can hardly be conceived to have been 

 placed in the universe without a regard to its 

 operation and functions. As the eye is made for 



