AND PHYSIOLOGY. 



423 



tended as a security, when some of the blood-vessels are 

 wounded and can not transmit the blood. It then seeks those 

 side channels, and soon they so enlarge as to give free passage 

 to all the blood that is needed, even though a large vessel has 

 been closed. If man had constructed a machine with such an 

 arrangement we should have been sure what was the design. 

 Why doubt the same in respect to God s work ? 



793. Protection of Large V e s s e Is —Again, the large 

 blood-vessels and nerves are placed deep in the system, and 

 where they pass by prominent joints, grooves, or tubes, are 

 made for them ; or where one side of a joint is exposed to 

 injury and the other comparatively secure, the important ves- 

 sels are grouped together on the less exposed side, as in the 

 groin and arm-pit. 



794. Annular Ligaments —Take, for another example, 

 the annular ligaments around the wrist and ankle. Who can 

 doubt that they were placed there to prevent the tendons of 

 the muscles from starting out of their places, when the mus- 

 cles are strongly contracted and the feet and hands bent ? If 

 so, who can doubt that a Being of infinite wisdom devised and 

 executed this arrangement ? 



795. Nervous Power .— But all this wise disposition of the 

 parts of the body might have been made and yet the whole 

 have been useless, had not some vivifying force been added. 

 Therefore the nervous system was contrived and incorporated 

 with every part of the body, commencing with the brain and 

 ramifying to all the extremities. It needed, too, a central 

 power to direct and control the nervous energy, and therefore 

 the mind, an immaterial and immortal principle, was enthroned 

 in the brain. From thence, as along so many conducting 

 wires, and doubtless by means of galvanic agency, it sends out 

 its orders to originate and control every muscular movement 

 and keep in play every function of the body. The nervous 

 system, then, is the mysterious connecting link between mind 

 and matter, and the admirable manner in which it performs its 



