314 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



fishes is rapid. I must confess that I have not 

 seen tliis, but we are entitled to conclude that 

 they possess the motion, as fishes have other 

 muscles besides those necessary to direct the eye ; 

 muscles which, by the oblique direction of their 

 fibres, are calculated to give extraordinary ra- 

 pidity of motion, and resemble that apparatus 

 which gives the rapid instinctive motions to our 

 own eye. 



The first time that we observe any remarkable 

 phenomena, they excite more emotion^ and we 

 describe them with more interest. I shall there- 

 fore extract here a portion of a paper given to 

 the Royal Society on the nerves of the eye, which 

 it was necessary to preface by observations on 

 the actions of the muscles, a subject which I con- 

 ceived had not been fully understood. 



