"The aorta of a whale is larger in the bore than the main-pipe of the water-works at London Bridge; and the roaring in the passage through that pipe is inferior, in impetus and velocity, to the blood gushing from the whale's heart." He cares not whence he fetches his illustrations, provided they are to the purpose. The laminae of the feathers of birds are kept together by teeth that hook into one another, "as a _latch_ enters into the catch, and fastens a door." The eyes of the mole are protected by being very small, and buried deep in a cushion of skin, so that the apertures leading to them are like _pin-holes in a piece of velvet_, scarcely pervious to loose particles of earth. The snail without wings, feet, or thread, adheres to a stalk by a provision of _sticking-plaster_. The lobster, as he grows, is furnished with a way of uncasing himself of his buckler, and drawing his legs out of _his boots_ when they become too small for him. In this unambitious manner does Paley prosecute his high theme, drawing, as it were, philosophy from the clouds. But it is not merely the fund of entertaining knowledge which the Natural Theology contains, or the admirable address displayed in the adaption of it, which fits it for working conviction; the "sunshine of the breast," the cheerful spirit with which its benevolent author goes on his way ([Greek: kudei gaion],) this it is that carries the coldest reader captive, and constrains him to confess within himself, and even in spite of himself, "it is good for me to be here." ...We mourn over the leaves of our peaches and plum-trees, as they wither under a blight. What does Paley see in this? A legion of animated beings (for such is a _blight_) claiming their portion of the bounty of Nature, and made happy by our comparatively trifling privation, We are tortured by bodily _pain_,--Paley himself was so, even at the moment that he was thus nobly vindicating God's wisdom and ways. What of that? Pain is not the object of contrivance--no anatomist ever dreamt of explaining any organ of the body on the principle of the thumb screw; it is itself productive of good; it is seldom both violent, and long continued; and then its pauses and intermissions become positive pleasures. "It has the power of shedding a satisfaction over intervals of ease, which I believe," says this true philosopher, "few enjoyments exceed." The returns of an hospital in his neighbourhood lie before him. Does he conjure up the images of Milton's lazar-house, and sicken at the spectacle of human suffering? No--he finds the admitted 6,420--the dead, 234--the _cured_, 5,476; his eye settles upon the last, and he is content.