246 SALMONIA. [NINTH DAY. 



What were they? said my friend. "Why, he did 

 not believe in the mermaid." Pray still consider me 

 as the baronet did Sir Joseph prejudiced on this 

 subject. 



ORN. But give us some reasons for the impos- 

 sibility of the existence of this animal. 



HAL. Nay, I did not say impossibility ; I am too 

 much of the school of Izaac Walton to talk of 

 impossibility. It doubtless might please God to 

 make a mermaid ; but I do not believe God ever did 

 make one. 



ORN. And why ? 



HAL. Because wisdom and order are found in all 

 his works, and the parts of animals are always in 

 harmony with each other, and always adapted to 

 certain ends consistent with the analogy of nature ; 

 and a human head, human hands, and human 

 mammae, are wholly inconsistent with a fish's tail. 

 The human head is adapted for an erect posture, and 

 in such a posture an animal with a fish's tail could 

 not swim ; and a creature with lungs must be on the 

 surface several times in a day and the sea is an 

 inconvenient breathing place ; and hands are instru- 

 ments of manufacture and the depths of the ocean 

 are little fitted for fabricating that mirror which our 

 old prints gave to the mermaid. Such an animal, if 

 created, could not long exist ; and, with scarcely 



