210' NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



that are found in digging the earth, and which^ in\ 



ignorant ages, have given rise to strange fancies,, 

 are the bones of animals inhabiting the water — 

 whales or reptiles, whose bulk was extended in 

 the water, or that crawled on their bellies, and 

 they could never have given- support sufficient to 

 have raised their enormous weight on extremities. 

 With regard to the position, that " a chicken roost- 

 ing on its perch is related to the spheres revolving 

 in the firmament," I have elsewhere illustrated the 

 necessity of a fixed point from which the muscles 

 can act, and that the necessity of resistance im- 

 plies that of weight, and that that weight must be 

 proportioned to the mas& of the globe we inhabit, 

 as well as to the power of the muscular frame.* 



* See the introduction to the Bridgewater Treatise, on "The 

 Hand." 



