DESIGN OP THE HEAD. 217 



nothing ever contrived so perfect as the joining 

 of the bones of the head to resist both pressure 

 above, and straining at the sides. And if, on this 

 subject, we solicit the reader's attention more par- 

 ticularly to these joinings, it is because, in books 

 merely anatomical, they are apt to be treated like 

 things of accident, and described as the running 

 of the fibres of one bone into another, the neces- 

 sary consequence of their mode of growth ; or 

 the accidental effect of the pressure of the muscle : 

 whereas, on the contrary, the finest tools of the 

 carpenter could make nothing so perfect or so 

 demonstrative of design.* 



These provisions would surely have met with 

 earlier attention had men contemplated in a true 

 view the object of the animal frame-work ; which 

 is not to give absolute safety against inordinate 

 violence, but to balance the chances of life, — leav- 

 ing us still under the conviction, that pain and 

 injury follow violence : so that our experience of 

 the injury, and our fear of pain, whilst they are 

 the principal protection to life, lay the foundation 

 of important moral qualities in our nature. 



* This subject is pursued in more detail in an Essay published 

 by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, under the 

 title of " Animal Mechanics." It is there shown that the bony 

 substance of the skull separates, in the maturity of man, into tMo 

 plates or tables, and of different degrees of hardness, with an in- 

 termediate soft substance; and that by this arrangement of sub- 

 stances of different densities, a shell or covering is given for the 

 protection of the brain, opposing sufficient resistance to pressure, 

 and at the same time calculated to stifle vibration from a blow. 

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