244 
OF THE PERSONALITY OF THE DEITY. 
ness produced by this attempt, of course stretched the 
skin which lies between the under chaps, as being the 
most yielding part of the mouth. Every distension in¬ 
creased the cavity. The original bird, and many genera¬ 
tions which succeeded him, might find difficulty enough in 
making the pouch answer this purpose: but future pelicans, 
entering upon life with a pouch derived from their progen¬ 
itors, of considerable capacity, would more readily accel¬ 
erate its advance to perfection, by frequently pressing 
down the sack with the weight of fish which it might now 
be made to contain. 
These, or of this kind, are the analogies relied upon. 
Now, in the first place, the instances themselves are unau¬ 
thenticated by testimony; and, in theory, to say the least 
of them, open to great objections. Who ever read of ca¬ 
mels without bunches, or with bunches less than those with 
which they are at present usually formed? A bunch, not 
unlike the camel’s, is found between the shoulders of the 
buffalo; of the origin of which it is impossible to give the 
account which is here given. In the second example; Why 
should the application of water, which appears to promote 
and thicken the growth of feathers upon the bodies and 
breasts of geese and swans, and other water-fowls, have 
divested of this covering the thighs of cranes? The third 
instance, which appears to me as plausible as any that can 
be produced, has this against it, that it is a singularity re¬ 
stricted to the species; whereas, if it had its commence¬ 
ment in the cause and manner which have been assigned, 
the like conformation might be expected to take place in 
other birds which feed upon fish. How comes it to pass, 
that the pelican alone was the inventress, and her descen¬ 
dants the only inheritors, of this curious resource? 
But it is the less necessary to controvert the instances 
themselves, as it is a straining of analogy beyond all lim¬ 
its of reason and credibility, to assert that birds, and beasts, 
and fish, with all their variety and complexity of organiza¬ 
tion, have been brought into their forms, and distinguished 
into their several kinds and natures, by the same process 
(even if that process could be demonstrated, or had it ever 
been actually noticed) as might seem to serve for the grad¬ 
ual generation of a camel’s bunch, or a pelican’s pouch. 
The solution, when applied to the works of nature gen¬ 
erally, is contradicted by many of the phenomena, and to¬ 
tally inadequate to others. The ligaments or strictures, by 
which the tendons are tied down at the angles of the joints, 
could by no possibility, be formed by the motion or exer 
