NATURAL THEOLOGY. 77 



joints, to be used for the ordinary purposes of such 

 an instrument, and yet to inclose a most tender sub- 

 stance, exceedingly precious, to which it would be 

 fatal if a wrinkle should be produced in it at any one 

 of the flexures. No mechanic could probably be in- 

 duced to undertake so difficult a task. 



T. And how is it done in the spine ? 



A. The first contrivance is a firm bandage from 

 ring to ring. Besides this, there is a further secu- 

 rity ; and a more studied security, — one more care- 

 fully contrived, or more evidently evincing care, it 

 is impossible to imagine. The bones are not smooth 

 and regular : on each of them there are what anato- 

 mists term processes — projections or spurs, which 

 give them, at first view, quite a deformed appear- 

 ance, and such as we see in no other bone in the 

 body. Every one of these protuberances, or pro- 

 cesses upon the bone, is found, upon examination, 

 to be a check to some improper motion. What- 

 ever slip attempts to take place, it is supported by 

 the form of the bone. It is past the ingenuity of man 

 to dislocate the spine : that is to say, to find a mode 

 by which he can elude the wisdom of the construc- 

 tion ; in which, by any pressure short of breaking the 

 parts, he can thrust one of the bones from between 

 its neighbors. " Let him take, for example, into his 

 hands, a piece of the clean picked bone of a hare's 

 back ; consisting, we will suppose, of three vertebrae. 

 He will find the middle bone of the three so implica- 

 ted, by means of its projections, or processes, with 

 the bone on each side of it, that no pressure which 

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