NATURAL THEOLOGY. 215 



We have said that this property is the most 

 worthy of observation in the human body ; but a 

 bird, resting upon its perch, or hopping upon a 

 spray, affords no mean specimen of the same fa- 

 culty. A chicken runs off as soon as it is hatched 

 from the egg ; yet a chicken, considered geome- 

 trically, and with relation to its centre of gravity, 

 its line of direction, and its equilibrium, is a very 

 irregular solid. Is this gift, therefore, or instruc- 

 tion ? May it not be said to be with great atten- 

 tion that nature hath balanced the body upon its 

 pivots ? 



I observe also in the same bird a piece of use- 

 ful mechanism of this kind. In the trussing of a 

 fowl, upon bending the legs and thighs up towards 

 the body, the cook finds that the claws close of 



centre of gravity, by a set of obscure, indeed, but of quick balanc- 

 ing actions," he states a fact, but omits the most surprising cir- 

 cumstance of all. No doubt such efforts are made ; but what 

 directs them ? If a man should balance a staff, resting it on the 

 point of the finger, he shifts the finger continually, in doing which 

 he is directed by the eye — he sees the staff inclining. How does 

 a man judge of the inclination of his body in the very first degree 

 of deviation from the perpendicular ? He does not see himself, 

 nor is he directed by the objects around him, since a blind man 

 will stand as securely as one who sees. The fact is, that he has 

 a knowledge of muscular action — a sensibility to the finest ad- 

 justment of the muscles, by which he directs their efforts. This 

 sense is of all the most marvellous : a sensibility to an internal 

 motion, more minute and curious than are the sensibilities to ex- 

 ternal impression ; and which, as may be easily proved, ministers 

 to a variety of proparties in the living body, and especially to the 

 organs of sense themselves. 



