270 NATURAL THEOLOGY, 



11. It is not very easy to conceive a more evi- 

 dently prospective contrivance than that which, in 

 all viviparous animals, is found in the milk of the 

 female parent. At the moment the young animal 

 enters the world there is its maintenance ready for 

 it. The particulars to be remarked in this econ- 

 omy are neither few nor slight. We have, first, 

 the nutritious quality of the fluid, unlike, in this 

 respect, every other excretion of the body : and in 

 which nature hitherto remains unimitated, neither 

 cookery nor chemistry having been able to make 

 milk out of grass : we have, secondly, the organ 

 for its reception and retention : we have, thirdly, 

 the excretory duct annexed to that organ : and we 

 have, lastly, the determination of the milk to the 

 breast at the particular juncture when it is about 

 to be wanted. We have all these properties in 

 the subject before us ; and they are all indications 

 of design. The last circumstance is the strongest 

 of any. If I had been to guess beforehand, I 

 should have conjectured, that at the time when 

 there was an extraordinary demand for nourish- 

 ment in one part of the system, there w^ould be the 

 least likelihood of a redundancy to supply another 

 part. The advanced pregnancy of the female has 

 no intelligible tendency to fill the breasts with 

 milk. The lacteal system is a constant w:onder ; 



wasting of the old alveolar process, and the growth of the new ; 

 the new alveolar process or socket of the permanent tooth is form- 

 ing at the time that the portion of the jaw which held the first tooth 

 firm is yielding by absorption. 



