The hand, its mechanism and vital endowments, as evincing design. / by Sir Charles Bell.

  • Bell, Charles, Sir, 1774-1842.
Date:
1860
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The hand, its mechanism and vital endowments, as evincing design. / by Sir Charles Bell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    succession of animals gradually increasing in the perfection of their structure : that the first impulse of nature was not suffi- cient to the production of the highest and most perfect, and that it was only in her mature efi^orts that mammaha were pro- duced. But we are led to this reflection: that the very formation of a living animal, the bestowing Life on a corporeal frame, however simple the structure, is of itself an act of Creative Power so inconceivably great, that we cannot regard any change in the organisation, such as providing bones and muscles, or producing new organs of sense, as evincing a higher effort of that Power. In exploring, therefore, the varieties of animated nature, at those distinct epochs, we have a better guide, when we acknowledge the manifest Design with which aU has been accomplished; and the adaptation of the animals, their size, their economy, then- organs, and mstruments, to their condition. Whether we make the most superficial or most profound ex- amination of animals in their natural state, we shall find that the varieties are so balanced as to insure the existence of all. This, we think, goes far to explain why the remains of certain animals are found in strata which indicate a pecidiar condition of the earth's surface; and why particular animals only are found grouped together. For, as we may express it, if there had been an error in the grouping, there must have been a destruc- tion of the whole ] because the balance necessary to their exist- ence must have been destroyed. We know very well that so minute a thing as a fly will pro- duce millions of the same kind, which, if not checked, will ere long darken the air and render whole regions desolate; so that if the breeze does not carry them in due time into the desert or into the ocean, the ravages committed by them vnLl be most fearful As in the present day every creature has its natural enemy, or is checked in production, sometimes by a limited supply of food, sometimes by disease, or by the influence of sea- sons, and as in the whole a balance is preserved, so we may reasonably apply the same principle to explain the condition of things existing in the earlier stages of tlie world's progress. Certainly, by what we have as yet discovered in the grouping of animals, in the different stratifications or deposits of the earth, this view is borne out.