408 REVIEW- -BRIDGEWATER TREATISES, No. 4. 
will laugh at it as heartily as we did. 
noying consequences of anonymous 
never experience worse ! 
It is one of the least an- 
contributions,—may he 
Y. 
Quid sit pulchrum, quid turpe, quid utile, quid non. —Hor. 
Bridgewater Treatises, No. 4. 2'he Hand—its Mechanism and 
Vital Bndowments, as emncing Design. 
By Sir C. Bell, K.G.H., 8cc. 8cc. 
If we select any object from the whole extent of animated 
nature, and contemplate it fully and in all its bearings, we‘shall 
certainly come to this conclusion, that there is design in the 
mechanical construction, benevolence in the endowments of the 
living properties, and that good, on the whole, is the result. We 
shall perceive that the sensibilities of the body have a relation 
to the qualities of things external, and that delicacy of texture 
is, therefore, a necessary part of its constitution. Wonderful, 
and exquisitely constructed, as the mechanical appliances are 
for the protection of this delicate structure, they are altogether 
insufficient; and a protection of a very different kind, which 
shall animate the body to the utmost exertion, is requisite for 
safety. Pain, whilst it is a necessary contrast to its opposite, 
pleasure, is the great safeguard of the frame; and finally, as to 
man, we are led to infer that the pains and pleasures of mere 
bodily sense (with yet more benevolent intention) carry us 
onward, through the development and improvement of the mind, 
to higher aspirations. 
Such is the course of reasoning which the talented author has 
followed, in contrasting the hand and arm with the corresponding 
parts of living creatures through all the divisions of the chain 
of vertebrated animals. He has considered the subject compara¬ 
tively, and exhibits, in the first place, a view of the bones of the 
arm, descending from the human hand to the fin of the fish. 
In the next place, he reviews the actions of the muscles of the 
arm and hand ; then, proceeding to the vital properties, he ad¬ 
vances to the subject sensibility, leading to that of touch: 
after which he shews the necessity of combinins^ the muscular 
