OF THE PERSONALITY OF THE PEITY. 245 
cise of the tendons themselves; by any appetency exciting 
these parts into action; or by any tendency arising there¬ 
from. The tendency is all the other way; the conatus in 
constant opposition to them. Length of time does not help 
the case at all, but the reverse. The valves also in the 
blood-vessels, could never be formed in the manner which 
our theorist proposes. The blood, in its right and natural 
course, has no tendency to form them. When obstruct¬ 
ed or refluent, it has the contrary. These parts could 
not grow out of their use, though they had eternity to 
grow in. 
The senses of animals appear to me altogether incapable 
of receiving the explanation of their origin which this theo¬ 
ry affords. Including under the word “ sense” the organ 
and the perception, we have no account of either. How 
will our philosopher get at vision, or make an eye? How 
should the blind animal effect sight, of which blind animals, 
we know, have neither conception nor desire? Affecting 
it, by wffiat operation of its will, by what endeavour to see, 
could it so determine the fluids of its body, as to inchoate 
the formation of an eye; or suppose the eye formed, would 
the perception follow? The same of the other senses. 
And this objection holds its force, ascribe what you will to 
the hand of time, to the power of habit, to changes too slow 
to be observed by man, or brought within any comparison 
which he is able to make of past things with the present: 
concede what you please to these arbitrary and unattested 
suppositions, how will they help you? Here is no incep¬ 
tion. No laws, no course, no powers of nature which pre¬ 
vail at present, nor any analogous to these, could give com¬ 
mencement to a new sense. And it is in vain to inquire 
how that might proceed, which could never begin. 
I think the senses to be the most inconsistent with the 
hypothesis before us, of any part of the animal frame. But 
other parts are sufficiently so. The solution does not 
apply to the parts of animals which have little in them of 
motion. If we could suppose joints and muscles to be grad¬ 
ually formed by action and exercise, what action or exercise 
could form a skull, or fill it with brains? No effort of the 
animal could determine the clothing of its skin. What co- 
natus could give prickles to the porcupine or hedgehog, or 
to the sheep its fleece? 
In the last place: What do these appetencies mean when 
applied to plants ? I am not able to give a signification to 
the term, which can be transferred from animals to plants; 
or which is common to both. Yet a no less successful or- 
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