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CONCLUSION. 
CHAPTER XXVII. 
CONCLUSION. 
In all cases, wherein the mind feels itself in danger of 
being confounded by variety, it is sure to rest upon a fe\> 
strong points, or perhaps upon a single instance. Amongst 
a multitude of proofs, it is one that does the business. If 
we observe in any argument, that hardly two minds fix 
upon the same instance, the diversity of choice shows the 
strength of the argument, because it shows the number and 
competition of the examples. There is no subject in which 
the tendency to dwell upon select or single topics is so usu¬ 
al, because there is no subject, of which, in its full extent, 
the latitude is so great-, as that of natural history applied to 
the proof of an intelligent Creator. For my part, I take 
my stand in human anatomy; and the examples of mechan¬ 
ism I should be apt to draw out from the copious catalogue 
which it supplies, are the pivot upon which the head turns, 
the ligament within the socket of the hip-joint, the pulley 
or trochlear muscles of the eye, the epiglottis, the bandages 
which tie down the tendons of the wrist and instep, the slit 
or perforated muscles at the hands and feet, the knitting of 
the intestines to the mesentery, the course of the chyle into 
the blood, and the constitution of the sexes as extended 
throughout the whole of the animal creation. To these 
instances the reader’s memory will go back, as they are 
severally set forth in their places; there is not one of the 
number which I do not think decisive; not one which is 
not strictly mechanical; nor have I read or heard of any 
solution of these appearances, which, in the smallest de¬ 
gree, shakes the conclusion that we build upon them. 
But, of the greatest part of those, who, either in this book 
or any other, read arguments to prove the existence of a 
God, it will be said, that they leave off only where they be¬ 
gan; that they were never ignorant of this great truth, nev¬ 
er doubted of it; that it does not, therefore, appear what is 
gained by researches from which no new opinion is learned, 
and upon the subject of which no proofs were wanted. 
Now I answer, that, by investigation, the following points 
are always gained, in favor of doctrines even the most gen¬ 
erally acknowledged, (supposing them to be true,) viz. 
stability and impression. Occasions will arise to try the 
firmness of our most habitual opinions. And upon these oc- 
