evidently most convenient that it should be divided into many parts, as it is and it seems to be better constituted for this purpose than any similar instrument; for it not only can apply itself to substances of a spherical form, so as to touch them with every part of itself; but it also can securely hold substances of a plane or of a concave surface; and, consequently, it can hold substances of any form.

"And, because many bodies are of too great a size to be held by one hand alone, nature has therefore made each hand an assistant to its fellow; so that the two, when together laying hold of bodies of unusual bulk, on opposite sides, are fully equivalent to a single hand of the very largest dimensions: and, on this account, the hands are inclined towards, and in every point are made equal to, each other; which is at least desirable, if not necessary, in instruments intended to have a combined action.

"Take then any one of those unwieldly bodies, which a man can only lay hold of by means of both his hands, as a millstone or a rafter; or take one of the smallest objects, as a millet-seed or a hair, or a minute thorn; or, lastly, reflect on that vast multitude of objects of every possible size, intermediate to the greatest and the least of those above-mentioned; and you will find the hands so exactly capable of grasping each particular one, as if they had been expressly made for grasping that alone. Thus the smallest things of all we take up with the tips of the fingers; those which are a little larger we take up with the same fingers, but not with the tips of them; substances still larger we take up with three fingers, and so on with four, or with all five fingers, or even with the whole hand: all which we could not do, were not the hand divided, and divided precisely as it is. For suppose the thumb were not placed as it is, in opposition to the other four fingers, but that all the five were ranged in the same line; is it not evident that in this case their number would be useless? For in order to have a firm hold of anything, it is necessary either to grasp it all round, or at least to grasp it in two opposite points; neither of which would have been possible, if all the five fingers had been placed in the same plane: but the end is now fully attainable, simply in consequence of the position of the thumb; which is so placed, and has exactly such a degree of motion, as, by a slight inclination, to be easily made to co-operate with any one of the four fingers. And no one can doubt that nature purposely gave to the hands a form adapted to that mode of action, which they are observed to have; while in the feet, where extent of surface is wanted for support, all the toes are arranged in the same plane. But, to return to a point which we were just now considering, it is not merely necessary in laying hold of minute objects to employ the extremities of the fingers opposed to each other, but that those extremeties should be exactly of the character they are, namely soft, and round, and furnished with † Lib. i. cap. 6.

* Lib. ii cap. 9.

nails for if the tips of the fingers were of bone, and not of flesh, we could not then lay hold of such minute bodies as thorns or hairs; or if they were of a softer and moister substance than flesh, neither then could such small bodies have been secured. For, in order that a body may be firmly held, it is necessary that it be in some degree infolded in the substance holding it; which condition could not have been fulfilled by a hard or bony material; and on the other hand, a material too soft would easily yield to substances of which it attempted to lay hold, and would continually let them escape: whereas the extremities of the fingers are just of that intermediate degree of consistence, which is calculated for their intended use.

"But, since tangible substances vary much in their degree of hardness, nature has adapted the structure of the extremities of the fingers to that circumstance: for they are not formed either entirely of flesh, or of the substance called nail; but of a most convenient combination of the two: thus those parts which are capable of being mutually brought in apposition, and which are employed in feeling for minute objects, are fleshy; while the nails are placed externally, as a support to the former. For the fingers are capable of holding soft substances, simply by the fleshy or soft part of their extremity; but they could not hold hard substances without the assistance of nails; deprived of the support of which the flesh would be forced out of its position. And on the other hand, we could not lay hold of hard substances by means of the nails alone; for these being themselves hard, would easily slip from the contact of hard bodies.

"Thus then the soft flesh at the tips of the fingers compensating for the unyielding nature of the nails, and the nails giving support to the yielding softness of the flesh, the fingers are hereby rendered capable of holding substances that are both small and hard. And this will be more evident, if you consider the effect of an unusual length of the nails; for where the nails are immoderately long, and consequently come in contact with each other, they cannot lay hold of any minute object, as a small thorn or a hair: while on the other hand, if, from being unusually short, they do not reach to the extremities of the fingers, minute bodies are incapable of being held through defect of the requisite support: but if they reach exactly to the extremities of the fingers, they then, and then only, fulfil the intention for which they were made. The nails, however, are applicable to many other purposes besides those which have been mentioned; as in polishing and scraping, and in tearing and pealing off the skin of vegetables, or animals: and in short, in almost every art where nicety of execution is required, the nails are called into action."

In alluding to the sceptics of his time, the language of Galen is as follows. "Whoever admires not the skill and contrivance of

• Lib. i. cap. 7.

† Lib. iii.

cap. 10.

nature, must either be deficient in intellect, or must have some private motive, which withholds him from expressing his admiration. He must be deficient in intellect, if he do not perceive that the human hand possesses all those qualification swhich it is desirable it should possess; or if he think that it might have had a form and construction preferable to that which it has: or he must be prejudiced, by having imbibed some wretched opinions, consistently with which he could not allow that contrivance is observable in the works of nature."*

Galen then sums up this part of the argument. "The contrivances of nature are so various, and so consummately skilful, that the wisest of mankind, in endeavouring to search them out, have not yet been able to discover them all."+ And nearly in the same words, expressive of the same sentiment, does Solomon say-" Then I beheld all the work of God, that a man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun because though a man labour to seek it out, yet he shall not find it; yea farther; though a wise man think to know it, yet shall he not be able to find it."

I may be permitted, perhaps, to subjoin a passage from another part of the same work of Galen, though not confined to the same subject; in which, after having noticed many evidences of design in the construction of the human body, particularly the adaptation, in the number and size of the parts, to the effect to be produced, he breaks out into this remarkable apostrophe: "How can a man of any intelligence refer all this to chance, as its cause: or, if he deny this to be the effect of foresight and skill, I would ask, what is there that foresight and skill do effect? For surely where chance or fortune act, we see not this correspondence and regularity of parts. I am not very solicitous about terms; but if you choose to call that chance which has so nicely constructed and so justly distributed all the parts of an animal body, do so; only remember and allow, that in so doing you do not fairly exercise the privilege of framing new terms: for in this way you may call the meridian splendour of the sun by the name of night; and the sun itself, darkness. What! was it chance that made the skin give way so as to produce a mouth? or, if this happened by chance, did chance also place teeth and a tongue within that mouth? For, if so, why should there not be teeth and a

Galen adds: "Such persons we are bound to pity, as being originally infatuated with respect to so main a point; while at the same time, it behoves us to proceed in the instruction of those happier individuals, who are not only possessed of a sound intellect, but of a love of truth."

On another occasion, in reprobating such cavillers, he says: (lib. iii. cap. 10.) "But if I waste more time on such profligates, virtuous men might justly accuse me of polluting this sacred argument, which I have composed as a sincere hymn to the praise and honour of the Creator; being persuaded that true piety to him consists, not in the sacrifice of whole hecatombs of oxen, nor in the offer of a thousand varieties of incense; but in believing within ourselves, and in declaring to others, how great he is in wisdom, power, and goodness."

+ Lib. x. cap. 10.

Eccles. viii. 17.

Lib. xi. cap. 7. and 8.

tongue in the nostrils, or in the ear?" Or, to carry on a similar appeal," did chance dispose the teeth themselves in their present order; which if it were any other than it is, what would be the consequence? If, for instance, the incisors and canine teeth had occupied the back part of the mouth, and the molar or grinding teeth had occupied the front, what use could we have made of either? Shall we then admire the skill of him who disposes a chorus of thirty-two men in just order; and can we deny the skill of the Creator, in disposing the same number of teeth in an order so convenient, so necessary even for our existence?"

He then extends the argument to the teeth of other animals, as corresponding with the nature of their food; and also to the form of their feet, as having a relation to the character of their teeth.

"Never," says Cuvier, one of the most experienced physiologists of the present age, never do you see in nature the cloven hoof of the ox joined with the pointed fang of the lion; nor the sharp talons of the eagle accompanying the flattened beak of the swan."

In corresponding expressions Galen exclaims, "* How does it happen that the teeth and talons of the leopard and lion should be similar; as also the teeth and hoofs of the sheep and goat; that in animals which are by nature courageous, there should be found sharp and strong weapons, which are never found in those animals that are by nature timid: or, lastly, that in no animal do we meet with a combination of powerful talons with inoffensive teeth? How should this happen, but that they are all the work of a Creator, who ever kept in mind the use and mutual relation of different organs, and the final purpose of all his works?"

CHAPTER IV.

On the Brain, considered as the Organ of the Intellectual Faculties.

Ir can no more be doubted that many of the phenomena of nature, and the important practical and philosophical conclusions deduced from them, would have been hitherto concealed from human knowledge, had man failed to exercise those intellectual faculties with which the Creator has endued him; than that political communities would have failed to exist, and social life to be adorned with the arts of civilization, had all mankind determined to pursue the mode of life adopted by savage tribes: nor can it be doubted that the Creator, in mparting to man intellectual faculties superior to those of brutes, in

Lib. xi, cap. 8. ed. Kühn. vol. iii. p. 875 lin. 3—17. and p, 892. lin. 12.-17.

tended that he should exercise them, not solely with a view to the higher and future destination of his nature, but also with a view to the purposes of this present life.

Since however the senses of hearing, sight, and touch, which are the great inlets of knowledge, are possessed by many of the inferior classes of animals in common with ourselves, by some indeed in a more exquisite degree; since also those animals are capable of remembering past, and conjecturing future events, although incapable of the more abstract functions of the understanding; it becomes highly interesting to inquire whether there is anything in the physical structure of man which renders him more capable of being acted on by external agents, with respect to the developement of his intellectual faculties, than brutes are: in other words, whether there is a material instrument in animal organization, the general composition of which is in obvious correspondence with the degree of intellect evinced by different species of animals, including man as one of those species.

Now, if any one in the least degree conversant with the laws of optics and of sound, were to doubt the adaptation of the structure of the eye and of the ear to those laws respectively, he would fairly be ranked among the individuals of that class of speculatists whose minds are too weak to apprehend any truth. And though there is not so obvious a relation between the structure of the brain and the exercise of the mental faculties, as in the case of the eye and light, and of the ear and sound; yet the indications of a mutual connexion between the two are both clear and numerous. And hence not only have philosophical inquirers in all ages acknowledged such a connexion; but the most common observers have ever felt an intuitive conviction of its existence, and have considered the brain as the instrument of thought and reason:* the truth of which assertion is evident from various metaphorical terms expressive both of intellectual defect and of intellectual excellence.

It may be presumed that, without the aid afforded by the study of anatomy or natural history, the most cursory observer might discover that the indications of intelligence manifested by the various classes of animals generally correspond in degree with their approximation in physical structure to man; and that, if we confine our view to the four highest classes, namely fish, reptiles, birds, and quadrupeds, and consider them with reference to their respective degree of docility; fish and reptiles, which are the lowest in the scale, will readily be allowed to be inferior to birds, which are a degree