The hand : its mechanism and vital endowments, as evincing design.

  • Bell, Charles, Sir, 1774-1842.
Date:
1834
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The hand : its mechanism and vital endowments, as evincing design. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    30/376 (page 8)
    strength of our bones, and the power of our muscles; so must the depth of the atmosphere determine the condition of our fluids, and the resistance of our blood vessels; the common act of breathing, the transpiration from the surfaces, must bear relation to the weight, moisture, and temperature of the medium which surrounds us. A moment’s reflection on these facts proves to us that our body is formed with a just correspondence to all these external influences: and not the frame of the body only, but also the vital endow- ments and the properties of the organs of sense. It w^ere a perverseness to say that the outward senses, the organization, and vital properties could arise from the influence of the surrounding ele- ments, or out of matter spontaneously ; they are created in accordance with the condition of the globe, and are systematic parts of a great whole. These views lead us to another consideration, that the complexity of our structure belongs to external nature, and not of necessity to the mind. Whilst man is an agent in a material world, and sensible to the influence of things external, complexity of structure is a necessary part of his constitution. But we do not perceive a relation between this complexity and the mind. From aught that we learn by this mode of study, the mind may be as distinct from the bodily organs as are the exterior influences which give them exercise.