170 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



or perforated muscles at the hands and feet, the 

 knitting of the intestines to the mesentery, the 

 course of the chyle into the blood, and the consti- 

 tution of the sexes as extended throughout the 

 whole of the animal creation. To these instances, 

 the reader's memory will go back, as they are se- 

 verally set forth in their places : there is not one 

 of the number which I do not think decisive ; not 

 one which is not strictly mechanical : nor have I 

 read or heard of any solution of these appear- 

 ances, which, in the smallest degree, shakes the 

 conclusion that we build upon them. 



But, of the greatest part of those, who, either 

 in this book or any other, read arguments to 

 prove the existence of a God, it w ill be said, that 

 they leave off only where they began ; that they 

 were never ignorant of this great truth, never 

 doubted of it ; that it does not therefore appear, 

 what is gained by researches from which no new 

 opinion is learned, and upon the subject of which 

 no proofs were wanted. Now I answer that, 

 by investigation, the following points are always 

 gained, in favour of doctrines even the most 

 generally acknowledged, (supposing them to be 

 true,) viz, stability and impression. Occasions 

 will arise to try the firmness of our most habitual 

 opinions. And u])on these occasions, it is a mat- 

 ter of incalculable use to feel our foundation : to 

 find a support in argument for what we had taken 

 up upon authority. In the present case, the argu- 

 ments upon which the conclusion rests are exactly 



