142 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



perfect exactness. Each syllable of articulated 

 sound requires for its utterance a specific action 

 of the tongue, and of the parts adjacent to it. 

 The disposition and configuration of the mouth 

 appertaining to every letter and word, is not only 

 pecuhar, but, if nicely and accurately attended to, 

 perceptible to the sight; insomuch, that curious 

 persons have availed themselves of this circum- 

 stance to teach the deaf to speak, and to under- 

 stand what is said by others. In the same per- 

 son, and after his habit of speaking is formed, one, 

 and only one, position of the parts w^ill produce a 

 given articulate sound correctly. How instanta- 

 neously are these positions assumed and dismissed ! 

 how numerous are the permutations, how various, 

 yet how infallible ! Arbitrary and antic variety 

 is not the thing we admire; but variety obeying 

 a rule, conducing to an effect, and commensurate 

 with exigencies infinitely diversified. I believe 

 also that the anatomy of the tongue corresponds 

 with these observations upon its activity. The 

 muscles of the tongue are so numerous, and so 

 impHcated with one another, that they cannot 

 be traced by the nicest dissection; nevertheless 

 (which is a great perfection of the organ,) neither 

 the number, nor the complexity, nor what might 

 seem to be the entanglement of its fibres, in any- 

 wise impede its motion, or render the determina- 

 tion or success of its efforts uncertain. 



