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.

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    tions are governed through means and by laws which are not dependant on his will, and to which the powers of his mind are altogether inadequate. For had they been under the influence of his will, a doubt, a moment’s pause of irresolution, a forgetfulness of a single action at its appointed time, would have terminated his existence. Now, when man sees that his vital operations could not be directed by reason — that they are constant, and far too important to be exposed to all the changes incident to his mind, and that they are given up to the direction of other sources of motion than the will, he acquires a full sense of his dependance. If man be fretful and wayward, and subject to inordinate passion, we perceive the benevolent design in withdrawing the vital motions from the influence of such capricious sources of action, so that they may neither be disturbed like his moral actions, nor lost in a moment of despair. Eay, in speaking of the first drawing of breath, delivers himself very naturally : “ Here, “ methinks, appears a necessity of bringing in “ the agency of some superintendent intelligent “ being, for what else should put the diaphragm “ and the muscles serving respiration in motion “ all of a sudden so soon as ever the foetus is “brought forth? Why could they not have “ rested as well as they did in the womb ? What