NATURAL THEOLOGY. 319 



tion, either in quality or material, to any thing ob- 

 served in it. From the white of an egg, would 

 any one look for the feather of a goldfinch ? or ex- 

 pect from a simple uniform mucilage the most 

 complicated of all machines, the most diversified 

 of all collections of substances ? Nor would the 

 process of incubation, for some time at least, lead 

 us to suspect the event. Who that saw red 

 streaks shooting in the fine membrane which di- 

 vides the white from the yolk, would suppose that 

 these w^ere about to become bones and limbs ? 

 Who that espied two discoloured points first mak- 

 ing their appearance in the cicatrix, would have 

 had the courage to predict that these points were 

 to grow into the heart and head of a bird? It is 

 diflicult to strip the mind of its experience. It is 

 difficult to resuscitate surprise when familiarity 

 has once laid the sentiment asleep. But could we 

 forget all that we know, and which our sparrows 

 never knew, about oviparous generation — could 

 we divest ourselves of every information but what 

 we derived from reasoning upon the appearances 

 or quality discovered in the objects presented to 

 us — I am convinced that Harlequin coming out 

 of an egg upon the stage is not more astonishing 

 to a child than the hatching of a chicken both 

 would be, and ought to be, to a philosopher."'* 



'''* The manner in which the chicken breaks the egg is one of 

 the most wonderful operations of instinct, and is a process marked 

 by the uniformity of instincts. For as all bees build alike with 

 respect to the size of the cell and the angles at which its planes 



