NATURAL THEOLOGY. 41 



One question may possibly have dwelt in the 

 reader's mind during the perusal of these observa- 

 tions, namely, why should not the Deity have given 

 to the animal the faculty of vision at once ? Why 

 this circuitous perception ; the ministry of so many 

 means ; an element provided for the purpose ; re- 

 fleeted from opaque substances, refracted through 

 transparent ones ; and both according to precise 

 laws ; then, a complex organ, an intricate and 

 artificial apparatus, in order, by the operation of 

 this element, and in conformity with the restric- 

 tions of these laws, to produce an image upon a 

 membrane communicating with the brain? Where- 

 fore all this ? Why make the difficulty in order 

 to surmount it ? If to perceive objects by some 

 other mode than that of touch, or objects which 

 lay out of the reach of that sense, were the thing 

 proposed, could not a simple volition of the Cre- 

 ator have communicated the capacity? Why 

 resort to contrivance, where power is omnipotent ? 

 Contrivance, by its very definition and nature, is 

 the refuge of imperfection. To have recourse to 



being there obtained by a very different mechanism. The haio is 

 a thin cartilage, which, lying between the eye-ball and the inner 

 part of the orbit, flies rapidly out, and sweeps the surface of the 

 eye in a manner much more perfect than can be performed by the 

 outer eyelids. Every one who has ridden a horse in a dusty road, 

 must have been struck with the superior provision in the horse's 

 eye : he never suffers from the dust, because, this cartilage, being 

 bedewed by the secretion of a peculiar gland, not tears, but a mat- 

 ter more glutinous, sweeps across the eye, and collects and re- 

 moves every particle of dust, 



4* 



