78 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



we have no account of either. How will our phi- 

 losopher get at vision^ or make an eye ? How 

 should the blind animal affect sight, of which blind 

 animals we know, have neither conception nor de- 

 sire ? Affecting it, by what operation of its will, by 

 what endeavour to see, could it so determine the 

 fluids of its body, as to inchoate the formation of 

 an eye ? or suppose the eye formed, would the 

 perception follow ? The same of the other senses. 

 And this objection holds its force, ascribe what 

 you will to the hand of time, to the power of hab- 

 it, to changes too slow to be observed by man, or 

 brought within any comparison which he is able 

 to make of past things with the present ; concede 

 what you please to these arbitrary and unattested 

 suppositions, how will they help you ? Here is no 

 inception. No laws, no course, no powers of na- 

 ture which prevail at present, nor any analogous 

 to these, would give commencement to a new sense. 

 And it is in vain to inquire how that might pro- 

 ceed, which could never begin. 



I think the senses to be the most inconsistent 

 with the hypothesis before us, of any part of the ani- 

 mal frame. But other parts are sufficiently so. 

 The solution does not apply to the parts of animals, 

 which have little in them of motion. If we could 

 suppose joints and muscles to be gradually formed 

 by action and exercise, what action or exercise 

 could form a skull, and fill it with brains ? No ef- 

 fort of the animal could determine the clothing of 

 its skin. What conatus could give prickles to the 

 porcupine or hedgehog, or to the sheep its fleece ? 



