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HITCHCOCK'S ANATOMY 



of arrangement, should on reflection be found wisely adapted 

 to our wants and comfort. The mode in which the muscles 

 act by mere contraction, is the simplest possible ; yet when we 

 inquire how this is effected, we find ourselves in contact with 

 some of the profoundest and most difficult of all subjects : 

 there is not only design, but unfathomable wisdom here. 



739. Harmony of Chemical and Vital Agencies —The 

 conjoint operation of chemical and vital agencies in building 

 up and perfecting the system, and freeing it from impurities, 

 is another marked example of design. These agencies, the 

 chemical especially, are blind, and we might expect that they 

 would as often destroy as they would preserve. But though 

 they are incessantly at work all over the system, as if it were 

 a busy laboratory, in building up the tissues, in converting 

 elements into immediate principles, and in separating and 

 casting out of the body the superfluous and deleterious mate- 

 rials, all goes right till Providence permits disease or accident 

 to disturb the harmony between vitality and chemistry, and 

 from the disastrous effects of their morbid action, we learn 

 how wisely ordered was their healthy operation. 



790. Special Arrangement exhibiting Design. — There 

 are some special contrivances and arrangements in the animal 

 frame, which strikingly show design, because it looks as if 

 the Author of Nature had made a modification of his plan 

 to meet exigencies. Take a few examples. 



791. Looped Muscles. — Look at the looped muscles. 

 There the tendon • is fastened by a loop, in order that the 

 direction of the force, applied in contracting the muscle, may 

 be more or less changed, made in some instances, as in the 

 oblique muscle of the eye, to pull in an opposite direction ; 

 or at right angles, as when the digastric muscle draws down 

 the chin. 



792. Anastomosis of Blood-Vessels.— Then there is the 

 inosculation of the blood-vessels. How obviously this is in- 



