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.

    69/306 (page 27)
    If the naturalist or geologist, exploring the rocks of secondary formation, should find inclosed within them animals of the class mollusca, it woidd agree wdth his preconceived notions, that animals of their simple structure alone existed during the sub- sidence of the material of which the rock consists. But if the spine of a fish, or a jawbone, or a tooth, were discovered, he would be much disturbed; because here was the indication of an animal having been at that time formed on a different tjrpe, —on that plan which belongs to animals of a superior class. Had he, on the contrary, supposed that animals were created with a relation to those circumstances to which we have just alluded, the discovery of such remains would only imply that certain animals, which had hitherto increased undisturbed, had arrived at a period when their numbers were to be limited; or that the condition of the elements, and the abundance of food, were now suited to the existence of a species of the vertebrata. The principle, then, in the application of which we shall be borne out, is, that there is an adaptation, an established and universal relation between the instincts, organisation, and in- struments of animals, on the one hand, and the elements in which they are to live, the position which they are to hold, and their means of obtaining food, on the other;—and this holds good vdth respect to the animals which have existed, as well as those which now exist.* In discussing the subject of the progressive improvement of organised beings, it is aflirmed that man, the last created of all, is not superior in organisation to the others; and that if de- prived of intellectual power, he is inferior to the brutes. I am not arguing to support the theory of the gradual development and improvement of animals; but, however indifferent to the tendency of the argument, I must not admit the statement Man is superior in organisation to the brutes—superior in strength—in that constitutional property which enables him to fulfil Ills destinies, by extending his race in every climate, and living on every variety of nutriment. On the other hand, gather together the most powerful brutes, from the arctic circle or torrid zone, to some central point—so ill suited is their constitution to the change, that diseases will be generated, and they will be * These questions have given rise to controversy among eminent geo- logists. See Sir Charles Lyell's An- niversary Addi-ess, 1851.—(S.)