instance, is provided in winter for that tribe of animals which are
covered with _fur_. Now, in these days, such an assertion would be
backed by an appeal to some learned Rabbi of a Zoological Society,
who had written a deep pamphlet, upon what he would probably call the
_Theory of Hair_. But to whom does Paley refer us? To any dealer in
rabbit skins. The curious contrivance in the bones of birds, to unite
strength with lightness, is noticed. The bore is larger, in proportion
to the weight of the bone, than in other animals; it is empty; the
substance of the bone itself is of a closer texture. For these facts,
any "operative" would quote Sir Everard Home, or Professor Cuvier,
by way of giving a sort of philosophical éclat to the affair, and
throwing a little learned dust in the eyes of the public. Paley,
however, advises you to make your own observations when you happen to
be engaged in the scientific operation of picking the leg or wing of a
chicken. The very singular correspondence between the two sides of any
animal, the right hand answering to the left, and so on, is touched
upon, as a proof of a contriving Creator, and a very striking one it
is. Well! we have a long and abstruse problem in chances worked out to
show that it was so many millions, and so many odd thousands to one,
that accident could not have produced the phenomenon; not a bit of it.
Paley, who was probably scratching his head at the moment, offers
no other confirmation of his assertion, than that it is the most
difficult thing in the world to get a _wig made even_, seldom as it is
that the _face_ is made awry. The circulation of the blood, and the
provision for its getting from the heart to the extremities, and back
again, affords a singular demonstration of the Maker of the body being
an admirable Master both of mechanics and hydrostatics. But what is
the language in which Paley talks of this process?--technical?--that
mystical nomenclature of Diaforius, which frightens country patients
out of their wits, thinking, as they very naturally do, that a disease