120 
OF THE ANIMAL STRUCTURE 
their bases, than what is just sufficient to break the shock 
which any violent motion may occasion to the body. A 
certain degree also of tension of the sinews appears to be 
essential to an erect posture; for it is by the loss of this, 
that the dead or paralytic body drops down. The whole 
is a wonderful result of combined powers, and of very 
complicated operations. Indeed, that standing is not so 
simple a business as we imagine it to be, is evident from 
the strange gesticulations of a drunken man, who has lost 
the government of the centre of gravity. 
We have said that this property is the most worthy of 
observation in the human body: but a bird, resting upon 
its perch, or hopping upon a spray, affords no mean speci¬ 
men of the same faculty. A chicken runs off as soon as it 
is hatched from the egg; yet a chicken, considered geo¬ 
metrically, and with relation to its centre of gravity, its 
line of direction, and its equilibrium, is a very irregular 
solid. Is this gift, therefore, or instruction? May it not 
be said to be with great attention, that nature hath balanc¬ 
ed the body upon its pivots? 
I observe also in the same bird a piece of useful me¬ 
chanism of this kind. In the trussing of a fowl, upon bend¬ 
ing the legs and thighs up towards the body, the cook finds 
that the claws close of their own accord. Now let it be 
remembered, that this is the position of the limbs, in which 
the bird rests upon its perch. And in this position it sleeps 
in safety; for the claws do their office in keeping hold of 
the support, not by any exertion of voluntary power, which 
sleep might suspend, but by the traction of the tendons in 
consequence of the attitude which the legs and thighs take 
by the bird sitting down, and to which the mere weight of 
the body gives the force that is necessary. 
VI. Regarding the human body as a mass; regarding 
the general conformations which obtain in it; regarding 
also particular parts in respect to those conformations; we 
shall be led to observe what I call “ interrupted analogies.” 
The following are examples of what I mean by these terms; 
and I do not know how such critical deviations can, by 
any possible hypothesis, be accounted for without design. 
1. All the bones of the body are covered with a peri¬ 
osteum, except the teeth; where it ceases, and an enamel 
of ivory, which saws and files will hardly touch, comes into 
its place. No one can doubt of the use and propriety of 
this difference; of the “analogy” being thus “interrupted;” 
of the rule, which belongs to the conformation of the bones, 
stopping where it does stop; for, had so exquisitely sensi- 
