CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS. 151 



its preservation. The contemplative mind must be struck with 

 astonishment in reflecting on the correctness of the picture 

 formed at the bottom of the retina. In viewing a distant land 

 scape, with its whole assemblage of constituent objects, hills 

 dales, forests, groves, rivers, fields, and buildings, variously inter- 

 mixed, which compose the scenery, we should consider, that 

 all this multitudinous group, covering tracts of country to the 

 extent often, fifteen, or perhaps twenty square miles, is brought 

 within the compass of a sixpence in our eye, and yet all exactly 

 delineated. In reflecting on this wonderful circumstance, we 

 find the fact incontestible, and the means by which it is produced, 

 calculated equally to excite our admiration of the wisdom of the 

 Creator, and our gratitude for his ineffable goodness. 



The subject now under consideration would require a ponder- 

 ous folio, rather than a short chapter; for every animal body is 

 a complicated machine, composed of a number scarcely less com- 

 plex. Every organ of sensation, and every instrument of action, 

 exhibits an all-wise contrivance ; the smallest appendages dis- 

 play the most exquisite workmanship : every feather of a bird, 

 every quill of its wing, is a mechanical wonder. From these 

 considerations, we cannot but perceive the absurdity of the doc- 

 trine of blind chance, when every part of creation evidently ap- 

 pears the effect of intelligence and design, and irresistibly leads 

 us to the contemplation of that Being, from whose infinite wis- 

 dom alone such harmony could result. 



