NATURAL THEOLOGY. 205 



many inner partition walls, and thereby confine 

 each hemisphere and lobe of the brain to the 

 chamber which is assigned to it, without its being 

 liable to rest upon or intermix with the neighbour- 

 ing parts. The great art and caution of packing 

 is to prevent one thing hurting another. This, in 

 the head, the chest, and the abdomen, of an ani- 

 mal body, is, amongst other methods, provided for 

 by membranous partitions and wrappings, which 

 keep the parts separate. 



The above may serve as a short account of the 

 manner in which the principal viscera are sus- 

 tained in their places. But of the provisions for 

 this purpose, by far, in my opinion, the most 

 curious, and where also such a provision was most 

 wanted, is in the guts. It is pretty evident, that 

 a long narrow tube (in man, about five times the 

 length of the body,) laid from side to side in folds 

 upon one another, winding in oblique and circuit- 

 ous directions, composed also of a soft and yield- 

 ing substance, must, without some extraordinary 

 precaution for its safety, be continually displaced 

 by the various, sudden, and abrupt motions of the 

 body which contains it. I should expect that, if 

 not bruised or wounded by every fall, or leap, or 

 twist, it would be entangled, or be involved with 

 itself; or, at the least, slipped and shaken out of 

 the order in which it is disposed, and which order 

 is necessary to be preserved for the carrying on 

 of the important functions which it has to execute 

 in the animal economy. Let us see, therefore, 



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