is having a machine locked up in store for future use; which incontestably proves, that the case was expected to occur, in which this use might be experienced: 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 system 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 impossible to be exerted; holding no relation or fitness to the element which surrounds them, but both to another element in another place.

re

'As part and parcel of the same plan, ought to be mentioned, in speaking of the lungs, the provisionary contrivances of the foramen ovale and ductus arteriosus. In the fœtus, 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 a master do upon the occasion ? He would endeavour, most probably, to provide a temporary passage, which might carry on the communication quired, until the other was open. Now this is the thing which is actually done in the heart: instead of the circuitous route through the lungs, which the blood afterwards takes before it gets from one auricle of the heart to the other, a portion of the blood passes immediately from the right auricle to the left, through a hole placed in the partition which separates these cavities. This hole the anatomists call the foramen ovale. There is likewise another cross-cut, answering the same purpose, by what is called the ductus arteriosus, lying between the pulmonary artery and the aorta; but both expedients are so strictly temporary, that after birth, the one passage is closed, and the tube which forms the other shrivelled up into a ligament. If this be not contrivance, what is?

"But, forasmuch as the action

of the air upon the blood in the lungs appears to be necessary to the perfect concoction of that fluid; that is, to the life and health of the animal, (otherwise the shortest route might still be the best,) how comes it to pass that the foetus lives, and grows, and thrives, without it? The answer is, that the blood of the fœtus is the mother's; that it has undergone that action in her habit; that one pair of lungs serves for both. When the animals are separated, a new necessity arises; and, to meet this necessity as soon as it occurs, an organization is prepared. It is ready for its purpose; it only waits for the atmosphere; it begins to play the moment the air is admitted to it."

The construction of the organs of respiration, and their adaptation to the most important purposes of the varied orders of the animate creation, are replete with striking evidences of design. In the elas ticity of the lungs, and the means for their protection; in the shape of the chest, and its motive powers; in the beautiful mechanism of the wind-pipe; in the extent of surface presented by the air-cells, and the manner in which large quantities of blood are brought in contact with the air; in the chemical composition of the atmospheric air, its elasticity, and its density and pressure in accordance with the force of gravity of the earth; in the mode of ridding the animal system of carbonic acid gas; in the involuntary action of the lungs in common with the other vital organs; in the generation of animal heat; in the beautiful contrivances of the respiratory organs of birds, fishes, &c., so suitable to the different medium of their existence; and, lastly, in the reciprocal interchange of services between the vegetable and animal kingdoms; surely there is sufficient to convince all who have not resolutely determined to reject every evidence, that an omnipotent and beneficent Designer has created this harmonious whole.

In the subject we have been considering, may be observed numerous circumstances conspiring to

one end. The structure and elasticity of the lungs, the shape and movements of the chest, and the chemical composition and physical properties of the atmospheric air, are all subservient to the purification of successive and large quantities of blood for the ultimate growth of the body. Correspondence and harmony are indelibly stamped upon the whole process. It was considered by Paley that the phenomena of order and fitness are infallible indications of design; and, surely, no more unequivocal instance of order and mutual fitness is required than is displayed in the processes of the circulation of the blood and respiration, to assure us that they have proceeded from a Sovereign Intellect. Something more, however, is required, since the atheists and infidels of the present day fully admit the aptitude and order, yet they deny that these proceed from an Omniscient Power.

It is not sufficient that correspondence, and order, and harmony, should be particularly illustrated; for the atheist admits these, but, denying the great Originator and Preserver, blindly attributes them to his own laws of nature. We are indebted to the Rev. George Crabbe for the completion of that proof of an intelligent cause which is derived from order and fitness. The ingenious argument which this author has very lately brought forward in a more prominent light,

is founded on a clause in the argument for design, which must always have been implied even by Paley himself, and which has been distinctly recognised by Crombie,* Macculloch, Chalmers, and Whewell; namely, that the several parts constituting any system of order and adaptation, were originally independent of each other." It is only by premising this original independence, that the inference from

• Natural Theology, chap. ii., lec. ii. 4.

+ Attributes of the Deity, vol. ii., chap. xlvii., p. 240.

+ Bridgewater Treatises.

choice can have any basis. If there were not a previous absence of all necessary connexion between the parts of any harmonious whole, there could be no evidence of choice, nor consequently of design in the union of those parts."§ The independence, instead of correspondence, of the different parts of the whole is made the leading principle of the argument by Crabbe, and has been very ably illustrated from the various departments of the creation.

In writing of the cosmical or astronomical relations between organized and unorganized nature, after adducing the independent circumstances connected with the central body, the sun, the grand source at the same time of light and of heat, he proceeds :-" 2dly. That our earth has an atmosphere. I adduce this most complex phenomenon, at present, merely as the means of breathing. This is a very similar correspondence to the last. The atmosphere is necessary to the existence of all organic life; indeed, we cannot conceive that such animals as inhabit this globe could have existed a moment without an atmosphere; or, if they had any physical causes, that those causes could have acted without such a medium; but this is a very different thing from ascribing to the atmosphere the origin of that existence. That a certain agent is necessary to our existence, is a different position from the assertion, that it is the cause of existence. The very point in which the correspondence between the atmosphere and organic life is principally seen, contains, in itself, a proof that the former did not cause or make the latter; for the lungs are a machine which not only resists, but decomposes the air; and it is utterly inconceivable that the air should cause an organization constructed on a principle of resistance and decomposition of itself. Yet is this atmosphere entirely necessary to organic existence."

§ See an Outline of a System of Natural Theology. By the Rev. George Crabbe, M. A., Bredfield. Introduction.

In his first example,-the independent concurrence of light, the atmosphere, and the eye to one end, namely, the sense of sight,-of the atmosphere he writes: "We have considered the atmosphere as a medium of vitality, but not of vision. In the latter capacity, it is a very important agent. As the sun is the principal source of light; so the atmosphere is the cause of that beautiful modification of the sun's light, called day-light and twilight; for without this medium we should only see by the direct rays proceeding from a luminous object. The rest of nature would be in darkness. The instant the sun sunk beneath our horizon, the blackness of midnight would ensue. The atmosphere, by its power of reflecting and refracting the sun's rays, multiplies and prolongs them. Were it not' (says Sir J. Herschel) for the reflecting and scattering power of the atmosphere, no objects would be visible to us out of direct sunshine; every shadow of a passing cloud would be pitchy darkness; the stars would be visible all day; and every apartment into which the sun had not direct admission, would be involved in nocturnal obscurity.' (Treatise on Astronomy, page 33.) Now, to produce this effect, there must be, as has been observed, a reflecting and refracting capability in the rays of light, and a corresponding power in the atmosphere. But with what exquisite nicety must this fluid be adjusted! transparent to admit the rays of light, and yet opaque enough to reflect and refract them. As Dr. Macculloch observes, these seem irreconcilable qualities and actions. Yet, thus exquisitely adapted, the atmosphere could not have been caused by light, or the moon would not be without this appendage: nor could they have had a common physical cause; for the one is an imponderable substance, or action of such substance; the other is composed of two ponderable gases in a peculiar propor

Attributes of the Deity, chap.

Xxxiii.

tion, which light, so far from combining, tends to decompose. Thus there is a complete independence of origin between these two phenomena, thus admirably co-operating to one end, the sense of sight.”

Again in the second example,— the independent concurrence of the sonorous body, the atmosphere, and the ear, in the sense of hearing," There is no question but that the capability of conveying the vibrations of sonorous bodies de. pends on the peculiar properties of the atmosphere, and that just such gases, so uniting, would, in their very nature, be subject to these undulations; but how is it that just such was the composition of the atmosphere? Sounds would be very differently and imperfectly conveyed by other gases; for instance, by hydrogen, and not at all in vacuo. Why was not the space above our globe full of hydrogen gas, or in countless ways otherwise compounded; or why was there not an absence of all gaseous substance? But, granting some physical causes for the existing atmosphere, and that it was the necessary result of those causes, the question is, how those causes were so adjusted as to produce just such undulations from such bodies as convey the various sounds to the animal ear? No common physical cause between these different natures can be assigned, or conceived, by the most excursive fancy. As Dr. Maccul loch observes, it is an extraordinary circumstance, that the air, or atmosphere, should have the power of conducting sound in such a manner, that the great movements and transference to which it is itself subject by what we call wind,' should interfere little or nothing with the most delicate of its vibrations causing sound: their velocity is not retarded, nor their subtile distinctions altered :—and that crossing sounds, that is, crossing vi brations or undulations of this atmosphere, do not destroy each other. As he observes, the atmo sphere does certainly move when it produces sound, for it shakes solid bodies; yet are all the nice

distinctions of timbre, and all the modulations of music, preserved: even through a war of the elements, and amidst the thousand different sounds in a tumultuous assembly, in a fair or a battle; all that is heard at all is heard distinctly. This is, as the Doctor observes, a singular constitution of things, and we ought to deem it a great effort of contriving power; for we find it impossible to explain, or even conceive, by what exquisite subtilty it is effected."

Lastly in the third illustration,the relation of animal forms to the element in which they live,-he observes: "Whatever physical agents were in co-operation when the lungs were first formed, the air was doubt less necessary to the formation of this machine in all its varieties. But it is impossible that the air, an homogeneous fluid, should have been, directly or indirectly, the cause of their wonderful adaptation to itself: so far from this, as has been observed, the whole apparatus is a mechanical resistance to its perforation, and a chemical opponent or disorganizing power to itself. The supposition is entirely absurd. And the same argument applies to water, and the various gills of fishes, and with this additional objection to the wild conjecture; namely, that in these cases the water, not the air, must have constructed the machine. For what? For the service of the fish, administered by the air: a bright example of disinterestedness certainly, if it were so. In the airbladder of fishes is found a similar conformity of independent things. On the important use of this appendage, it would be idle to dwell. Paley says of this adaptation: (which, be it remembered, is of no use to the general economy of the fish :) It would be worthy of inquiry, if it were possible to discover by what method an animal, which lives constantly in water, is able to supply a repository of air. The expedient, whatever it be, forms part, and perhaps the most curious part, of the provision.'.... 'Nothing similar to the air-bladder is found in landanimals; and a life in the water has

no natural tendency to produce a bag of air. Nothing can be farther from an acquired organization than this.' (Nat. Theol., chap. xiii.)

"There is this additional proof of independence on the water in this supernumerary organ, that the air is with great physical difficulty, and only by art, and this mysterious process of nature, extracted from water; but it is received at once at every inspiration from the atmosphere, and yet there is no such receptacle for it as an air-bladder in those animals which live in the air. Is there any reason to be assigned why blind matter, or nature, should provide for the difficult process, and neglect that which would have been simple and easy? There is, on the contrary, a very natural explanation of the case; namely, that where the process was difficult, the effect was wanted; where it was easy, it was not wanted: but such an interpretation, of course, involves design. If it be said, 'Few fishes could exist without the aid of a bladder of air to raise them to the surface, in order to inspire through the gills;' the necessity of a complex structure to an animal's preservation, does not account for its construction. If that construction cannot be traced to their peculiar connexion with water, it is truly an adaptation of independent things one to another; and one which, considering its general prevalence, would alone evince intelligence."

Thus, it has been observed, that a mixture of the two principal gases of the atmospheric air is the one most suitable to the respiration of animals, and that either of these gases separately will not suffice for the process; nor will any one gas, or mixture of any other gases, (with the exception of the explosive one,) support that function for a lengthened period. It has been observed, that the atmospheric air is preserved in its gaseous form by its elasticity, and kept to the surface of the earth by its gravity. It has been seen, too, that it is the best medium of vision, and the one the best capable Op. cit., p. 160, et seq.