WHEN we observe a number of separate forces acting in union and harmony, we must believe that there has been a designing mind bringing them together and causing them to cooperate. When we see these agencies working in happiest association to produce innumerable effects of a beneficent character; when we find them consenting and consorting throughout thousands or myriads of years or geological ages, -the evidence is felt to be overwhelming beyond the power of human calculation.
"How often," asks Tillotson, "might a man, after he had jumbled a set of letters in a bag, fling them out upon the ground before they would fall into an exact poem, yea, or so much as make a good discourse in prose ? And may not a little book be as easily made by chance as this great volume of the world? -How long might a man be sprinkling colours upon canvas, with a careless hand, before they would happen to make the exact picture of a man? And is a man easier made by chance than this picture ?
"How long might twenty thousand blind men, which should be sent out from the several remote parts of England, wander up and down before they would all meet upon Salisbury Plain, and fall into rank and file in the exact order of an army? And yet this is much more easy to be imagined than that the innumerable blind parts of matter should rendezvous themselves into a world."Every manual labourer may see something analogous to the art by which he earns his livelihood, operating among the natural objects by which he is surrounded.
The sailor may discover the peculiarities of his craft among marine animals. Thus, among the lower tribes, he has observeda jelly-fish-called by him the Portuguese man-of-war-setting up a sail which consists of a crest surmounting the bladder. He may notice, too, how the mussel and pinna② anchor themselves by means of threads of a horny material. The tail of the fish, it is well known, acts as a scuttle, enabling its possessor to plough its way through the deep.
The web-foot of the swimmers is an example of what is called "feathering the oar:"③ when pushed forward, the web and toes collapse. The leg (usually so called) of the guillemot④ and of divers is compressed laterally, presenting a knife- edge before and behind, and thus gives less resistance in the fore and back stroke. It is worthy of being mentioned, asillustrating the same point, that the whale"s tail collapses in the upward but expands in the downward stroke.
The shepherd knows how much care and watchfulness are necessary in order to protect his flocks from the wild beasts which attack them, and is thus led to admire the instincts of those animals, such as the deer, which set a watch to give a signal of danger. The hunter knows how much cunning he must exercise in order to come within reach of the wild animals pursued by him, and should not withhold a feeling of wonder when he observes how their instincts lead the brutes to show such dexterity in avoiding their natural enemies.
We find that those liable to be chased as prey, often take the colour of the ground on which they habitually feed. Riflemen are invariably dressed in the hue which is deemed least conspicuous, and which is best fitted for concealment; and is there not an equally clear proof of design furnished by the circumstance that fishes are often of the colour of the ground over which they swim, and that wild animals are not unfrequently of the colour of the covert in which they hide themselves? The red grouse and red deer are of the colour of the heath on which they feed; whereas the lapwing and curlew, themselves and their eggs, take the hue of the pasture among which they are usually found.
Speaking of the ptarmigan,⑤ the late Mr. Thompson says: "We hardly draw on the imagination by viewing its plumage as an exquisite miniature of the seasonal changes which the mountain summit undergoes; -a miniature drawn, too, by a Hand that never errs! In summer we look upon the beautiful mixture of gray, brown, and black, as resembling the three component parts of ordinary granite-feldspar, mica, and⑥horn-blende-among the masses of which the ptarmigan
usually resides. Late in autumn, when snows begin to fall about the lofty summits, and partially to cover the surface of the rocks, we find the bird pied⑦ with white; and in winter, when they present a perfect chrysolite."⑧ it is almost wholly of the same pure hue." Nor is it unworthy of being noted, that whitish or grayish colours, which are known to be the warmest, prevail in the covering of animals in the arctic regions.
The builder may easily perceive that the woody structure of plants and the bones of animals are constructed on architectural principles, being strengthened where weight has to be supported and pressure resisted, and becoming more slender where lightness is required. The form of the bole of a tree, and the manner in which it fixes itself into the ground, so as to be able to face the storms of a hundred winters, are said to have yielded some suggestions to the celebrated engineer,⑨Smeaton, in the construction of the Eddystone Light-house.
The architect of the Crystal Palace⑩ confessed that he derivedsome of the ideas embodied in that structure from observing the wonderful provision made for bearing up the very broad leaf of the beautiful lily, which has been brought within these few years from the marshes of Guiana to adorn our conservatories.
Every joint in the animal frame can be shown to be exactly suited to the function which it has to perform. In flesh-eating animals, where strength is the chief requisite in the lower jaw, there is a simple hinge-joint of great power; whereas in herbivorous species, which have to grind hard vegetablematter, the joint admits of free motion in all directions. Where motion in one direction is all that is required, we have a common joint, as in the fingers; where motion all round is necessary, we have, as at the shoulder and hip, the ball-and- socket joint, admitting of a rotatory motion round a ball.
