Natural Theology: Or, Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity, Collected from the Appearances of Nature |
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action adapted admissible laws aliment amongst animal arteries birds blood body bones called carried cartilage cause cavity centre chyle constitution contraction contrivance Creator degree Deity digestion direction distance distinct duodenum earth effect evident existence feathers fibres fish fluid force gastric juice gizzard gland head hinge joint insects instance instruments integument intelligence intestine joint lacteal larynx law of attraction legs less ligament light limbs lungs means mechanism membrane motion mouth mucilage muscles muscular nature necessary nictitating membrane object observed operation organ oviparous papillę perceive pipe plant principle proboscis produced properties purpose quadrupeds reason relation respect round seed sense shell side socket species spissitude stance stomach structure substance suppose surface teeth tendons terrestrial animals thing thread tion tube variety vertebrę vessels wanted watch whilst wings
Popular passages
Page 296 - A law presupposes an agent; for it is only the mode, according to which an agent proceeds: it implies a power; for it is the order, according to which that power acts. Without this agent, without this power, which are both distinct from itself, the law does nothing; is nothing. The expression, the law of metallic nature...
Page 10 - ... the inference, we think, is inevitable, that the watch must have had a maker; that there must have existed, at some time, and at some place or other, an artificer or artificers who formed it for the purpose which we find it actually to answer; who comprehended its construction, and designed its use.
Page 22 - As far as the examination of the instrument goes, there is precisely the same proof that the eye was made for vision, as there is that the telescope was made for assisting it. They are made upon the same principles ; both being adjusted to the laws by which the transmission and refraction of rays of light are regulated.
Page 22 - I mean, that the contrivances of nature surpass the contrivances of art, in the complexity, subtlety, and curiosity of the mechanism; and still more, if possible, do they go beyond them in number and variety: yet, in a multitude of cases, are not less evidently mechanical, not less evidently contrivances, not less evidently accommodated to their end, or suited to their office, than are the most perfect productions of human ingenuity.
Page 9 - I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place : I should hardly think of the answer which I had before given, — that, for anything I knew, the watch might have always been there.
Page 9 - I knew the watch might have always been there. Yet why should not this answer serve for the watch as well as for the stone; why is it not as admissible in the second case as in the first? For this reason, and for no other...
Page 120 - Dr. Hunter's account of the dissection of a whale : — " The aorta measured a foot diameter. Ten or fifteen gallons of blood are thrown out of the heart at a stroke, with an immense velocity, through a tube of a foot diameter. The whole idea fills the mind with wonder*.
Page 38 - It is only by the display of contrivance that the existence, the agency, the wisdom of the Deity, could be testified to his rational creatures. This is the scale by which we ascend to all the knowledge of our Creator which we possess, so far as it depends upon the phenomena, or the works of nature.
Page 23 - ... these laws require, in order to produce the same effect, that the rays of light, in passing from water into the eye, should be refracted by a more convex surface than when it passes out of air into the eye. Accordingly we find that the eye of a fish, in that part of it called the crystalline lens, is much rounder than the eye of terrestrial animals. What plainer manifestation of design can there be than this difference...
Page 104 - ... two little muscles that serve to lift up the eyelids, and so had almost lost the use of his sight, being forced, as long as this defect lasted, to shove up his eyelids every moment with his own hands!