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The body of an animal is an object adequate to our fenfes. It is a particular fyftem of Providence, that lies in a narrow compafs. The eye is able to command it, and by fucceffive enquiries can fearch into all its parts. Could the body of the whole earth, or, indeed, the whole univerfe, be thus fubmitted to the examination of our fenfes, were it not too big and difproportioned for our enquiries, too unwieldly for the management of the eye and hand, there is no queftion but it would appear to us as curious and well-contrived a frame as that of an human body. We fhould fee the fame concatenation and fubferviency, the fame neceffity and ufefulness, the fame beauty and harmony in all and every of its parts, as what we difcover in the body of every fingle animal.

The more extended our reafon is, and the more able to grapple with immenfe objects, the greater ftill are those difcoveries which it makes of wisdom and providence in the work of the creation. A Sir Ifaac Newton, who ftands up as the miracle of the prefent age, can look through a whole planetary fyftem; confider it in its weight, number and measure: and draw from it as many demonftrations of infinite power and wifdom, as a more confined understanding is able to deduce from the system of an human body.

But to return to our fpeculations on anatomy. I fhall here confider the fabric and texture of the bodies of animals in one particular view; which, in my opinion, fhews the hand of a thinking and all-wife Being in their formation, with the evidence of a thousand demonstrations. I think we may lay this down as an incontested principle, that chance never acts in a perpetual uniformity and confiftence with itself. If one fhould always fling the fame number with ten thoufand dice, or fee every throw juft five times lefs, or five times more in number than the throw which immediately preceded it, who would not imagine there is fome invifible power which directs the caft? This is the proceeding which we find in the operations of nature. Every kind of animal is diverfified by different magnitudes, each of which gives life to a different fpecies.

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Let a man trace the dog or lion-kind, and he will observe how many of the works of nature are published, if I may ufe the expreffion, in a variety of editions. If we look into the reptile world, or into thofe different kinds of animals that fill the element of water, we meet with the fame repetitions among feveral fpecies, that differ very little from one another, but in fize and bulk. You find the fame creature that is drawn at large, copied out in feveral proportions, and ending in miniature. It would be tedious to produce inftances of this regular conduct in Providence, as it would be fuperfluous to thofe who are verfed in the natural hiftory of animals. The magnificent harmony of the universe is fuch, that we may obferve innumerable divifions running upon the fame ground. I might alfo extend this fpeculation to the dead parts of nature, in which we may find matter disposed into many fimilar fyftems, as well in our furvey of stars and planets, as of ftones, vegetables, and other fublunary parts of the creation. In a word, Providence has fhewn the richness of its goodnefs and wildom, not only in the production of many original fpecies, but in the multiplicity of defcants which it has made on every original species in particular.

But to pursue this thought ftill farther: every living creature confidered in itfelf, has many very complicated parts that are exact copies of fome other parts which it poffeffes, and which are complicated in the fame manner. One eye would have been fufficient for the fubfiftence and prefervation of an animal; but, in order to better his condition, we fee another placed with a nathematical exactness in the fame most advantageous fituation, and in every particular of the fame fize and tex ture. Is it poffible for chance to be thus delicate and uniform in her operations? Should a million of dice turn up twice together the fame number, the number would be nothing in comparifon with this. But when we fee this fimilitude and refemblance in the arm, the hand, the fingers; when we fee one half of the body entirely correfpond with the other in all these minute ftrokes, without which

a man

a man might have very well fubfifted; nay, when we often fee a fingle part repeated an hundred times in the fame hody, notwithstanding it consists of the most intricate weaving of numberless fibres, and thefe parts differing still in magnitude, as the convenience of their particular fituation requires; fure a man must have a firange caft of understanding, who does not difcover the finger of God in fo wonderful a work. The duplicates in those parts of the body, without which a man might have very well fubfifted, though not fo well as with them, are a plain demonstration of an all-wife Contriver; as thofe more numerous copyings, which are found among the veffels of the fame body, are evident demonstrations that they could not be the work of chance. This argument receives additional ftrength, if we apply it to every animal and infect within our knowledge, as well as to thofe numberless living creatures that are objects too minute for a human eye: and if we confider how the feveral fpecies in the whole world of life refemble one another, in very many particulars, fo far as is convenient for their respective states of existence; it is much more probable that an hundred million of dice fhould be cafually thrown an hundred million of times in the fame number, than that the body of any single animal should be produced by the fortuitous concourfe of matter. And that the like chance fhould arife in innumerable inftances, requires a degree of credulity that is not under the direction of common fenfe. We may carry this confideration yet further, if we reflect on the two fexes in every living fpecies, with their refemblances to each other, and thofe particular diftinctions that were neceffary for the keeping up of this great world of life.

There are many more demonftrations of a Supreme Being, and of his tranfcendent wifdom, power and goodness in the formation of the body of a living creature, for which I refer my reader to other writings, particularly to the fixth book of the Poem, entitled Creation, where the anatomy of the human body is defcribed with great perfpicuity and elegance. I have been particular on thre thought

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