148 
PROSPECTIVE CONTRIVANCES. 
sideration of the qualities of that element, hitherto entire¬ 
ly excluded, but with which it was hereafter to hold so in¬ 
timate a relation? A young man makes a pair of specta¬ 
cles for himself against he grows old; for which spectacles 
he has no want or use whatever at the time he makes them. 
Could this be done without knowing and considering 
the defect of vision to which advanced age is subject? 
Would not the precise suitableness of the instrument to its 
purpose, of the remedy to the defect, of the convex lens 
to the flattened eye, establish the certainty of the conclu¬ 
sion, that the case, afterwards to arise, had been consider¬ 
ed beforehand, speculated upon, provided for? all which 
are exclusively the acts of a reasoning mind. The eye 
formed in one state, for use only in another state, and in a 
different state, affords a proof no less clear of destination to 
a future purpose, and a proof proportionably stionger, as 
the machinery is more complicated, and the adaptation more 
exact. 
IV. What has been said of the eye, holds equally true 
of the lungs. Composed of air-vessels, where there is no 
air; elaborately constructed for the alternate admission and 
expulsion of an elastic fluid, where no such fluid exists; 
this great organ, with the whole apparatus belonging to it, 
lies collapsed in the foetal thorax, yet in order, and in read¬ 
iness for action, the first moment that the occasion requires 
its service. This is having a machine locked up in store 
for a future use; which incontestably proves, that the case 
was expected to occur, in which this use might be experi¬ 
enced: but expectation is the proper act of intelligence. 
Considering the state in which an animal exists before its 
birth, I should look for nothing less in its body than a sys¬ 
tem of lungs. It is like finding a pair of bellows in the 
bottom of the sea; of no sort of use in the situation in 
which they are found; formed for an action which was im¬ 
possible to be exerted; holding no relation or fitness to the 
element which surrounds them, but both to another ele¬ 
ment in another place. 
As part and parcel of the same plan, ought to be men¬ 
tioned, in speaking of the lungs, the provisionary contri¬ 
vances of the foramen ovale and ductus arteriosus. [PI. 
XXIX.] In the foetus, pipes are laid for the passage of the 
blood through the lungs; but, until the lungs be inflated 
by the inspiration of air, that passage is impervious, or in a 
great degree obstructed. What then is to be done? What 
would an artist, what would a master do upon the occasion? 
He would endeavour, most probably, to provide a temporary 
