This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1833 edition. Excerpt: ... ADDITIONAL ILLUSTRATIONS TO THE CONCLUDING CHAPTER. I Have sometimes thought it possible, that a greatly extended survey of nature may humble too much our conceptions of ourselves; and that this requires to be corrected by the study of things more minute, and in which we are more directly concerned: by dwelling on the perfection of tire frame of the animal body and the marvellous endowments of the living properties. When we have formed some estimate of the immensity of the heavenly bodies, we are struck with admiration in following the successive advancement made in the science: --an improvement in the curves of the glasses of the telescope, a new mode of polishing the reflecting surfaces, a change in the chemical composition of the glasses, or a more perfect adjustment of their dispersive powers--is followed by the discovery of circle beyond circle of worlds interminably. We fan the imagination and labour to comprehend the immensity of the creation, and fall back with the impression of the littleness of all that belongs to us: our lives seem but a point of time, compared with the astronomical and geological periods, and we ourselves as atoms, driven about, amidst unceasing changes of the material world. But it has been shown, that whether we take the animal body as a single machine, or embrace in the survey the successive creation of animals, conforming always to the improving condition of the earth, there is nothing like chance or irregularity in the composition of the system. In proportion indeed as we comprehend the principles of mechanics, or of hydraulics, as applicable to the animal machinery, we shall be satisfied of the perfection of the design: and if any thing appear disjointed or thrown in by chance, let the student mark...