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202 Natural Theology. No. XIII.-Of the Face, Complexion and Speech.

before they reach the tongue. "It speaks," says a good writer, "a language peculiar to itself, anticipating and outstripping all others in rapidity: which is general to all nations, and intelligible to every individualof the whole human race: by this language have our circum-navigators been able to hold converse with, and interchange civilities between themselves and the untutored inhabitants of remote regions. Even the brute animals, whom man has domesticated and made his occasional companions, are not ignorant of this kind of expression; when the dog wants to know the commands of his master, unable to understand them in the complicated sounds of his speech, he looks intently upon his face, and endeavours to collect from it his wishes, and the disposition with which he regards him. All the affections and passions of the mind are more or less pourtrayed in turn in this very limited but expressive field; love, pity, courage, fear, calmness, anger, and every other marked condition of the mind gives a peculiar disposition to either the whole or some features of the face; and when they are impressed by characters expressive of virtue and wretchedness, of injury and innocence, our feelings are awakened, and the noblest sympathies of our nature are called forth in favour of the sufferers." It may be observed, that to the size and proportion of the bones underneath, and which constitute the basis of the face, the difference of features is to be principally attributed; youth, age, sickness, health, and even the stronger affections of the mind, no doubt have an effect in changing the Countenance; but that diversity of feature consisting of the difference of length, breadth, or projection, depends chiefly upon the bony frame that lies below it. Hence arise the Aquiline, the Grecian and the African nose, &c. the high cheeks of the Tartars, and the more regular ones of the people inhabiting the West of Europe: the same may be said of the other features, and from this difference in them is that great diversity produced, which gives variety to the countenance, not only of nations but also of individuals; so that no two of the whole family of mankind could be found exactly alike, But notwithstanding this wonderful diversity, we are not to suppose that the individual features composing each

face are different from those of all other faces; the features may be confined and limited to a certain number of kinds; but each is, probably, capable of an indefinite number of combinations with other features; and, that as from twenty-four letters all the words composing a language are constituted, so are produced, from, perhaps, a very few kinds of features, by transposition and various composition, the astonishing and beautiful variety of faces we see around us.

We may observe here, that there are three things in connection with this subject which manifest the wisdom of the Creator; these are the great variety of men's faces, voices and hand-writing. Had not the human countenancé been the result of Divine wisdom, the wise variety, of which we have been speaking, would never have existed, but all faces would have been cast in the same, or at least not in a very different, mould: the organs of speech would have sounded the same, or nearly so, and the same structure of muscles and nerves would have given the hand the same direction in writing. In this case, what confusion, what disturbance, to what mischiefs would the world have been subject? No security could have been given to our persons; no certainty, no quiet enjoyment of our possessions. Our courts of justice can and do abundantly testify frequently the dreadful consequences of mistaking men's faces and of counterfeiting their hand-writing. But as the Creator has ordered the matter, every man's face has some character to mark it from others in the light, and his voice in the dark, and his handwriting can speak for him though absent, and be his witness, and secure his contracts to future generations. A manifest as well as admirable indication of the Divine superintendance and management!

Of the complexion. The colour of the skin has engaged the attention of naturalists, and it has sometimes given rise to opinions that were extremely injurious to the happiness of mankind; as directly asserting, that, in violation of the eternal principles of justice and the sacred rights of humanity, the people of one colour had a right to seize and enslave those of another. But now the seat of colour being discovered, and some of the circumstances which influence its changes being known,

Natural Theology. No. XIII-Of the Face, Complexion and Speech. 20

these erroneous opinions are exploded, and instead of seeing ground for the slavery and ill-treatment of our fellowcreatures, in the difference of their complexion from our own, the philo. sopher and the Christian contemplate the shades of the human countenance, as he does the variety of its features, and beholds alike in both the provident design and work of the Supreme Architect.

Dr. Hunter, who considered this subject more accurately than has commonly been done, determines absolutely against any specific difference among mankind. He introduces his subject by observing, that on the question whether all the human race constituted one or more species, much confusion has arisen from the sense in which the term species has been adopted. He accordingly defines the term, and includes under it all those animals which produce issue capable of propagating others resembling the original stock from whence they sprung; and in this sense of the term he concludes, that all of them are to be considered as belonging to the same species. And as in plants one species comprehends several varieties depending on climate, soil, culture, &c. so he considers the diversities of the human race to be merely varieties of the same species, produced by natural causes. Upon the whole, colour and figure may be styled habits of body. Like other habits they are created not by great and sudden impressions, but by continual and almost imperceptible touches. Of habits, both of mind and body, nations are susceptible as well as individuals. They are transmitted to their offspring and augmented by inheritance. Long in growing to maturity, national features, like natioual manners, become fixed only after a succession of ages. They become, however, fixed at last; and if we can ascertain any effect produced by a given state of climate, or other circumstances, it requires only a repetition during a sufficient length of time to augment and impress it with a permanent character.

It is ascertained that what we deno, minate the skin of the human body consists of three parts, separable from one another: viz. the scarf-skin, which is external, the thicker or true skin beneath it, and a coagulated substance which lies between both. This ca

agulated substance is the seat of colour in the skin, and that which causes the various shades of complexion in the different inhabitants of the globe, from the equator to the poles; being, in the highest latitudes of the temperate zone, generally fair, but becoming swarthy, olive, tawny and black, as we descend towards the south.

These different colours are with out doubt best adapted to their respective zones, although we are ignorant how they act in fitting us for situations that are so different; and the capability of the human countenance to accommodate itself to every climate, by contracting after a due time the shade proper to it, affords a fine illustration of the benevolence of the Almighty. This pliancy of nature is favourable to the increase and extension of mankind and to the cultivation and settlement of the earth: it tends to unite the most distant nations-to facilitate the ac quisition and improvement of science, which would otherwise be confined to a few objects and to a very limited range, and likewise by opening the way to an universal intercourse of men and things, to elevate the various nations of the earth to the feelings of a common nature and a common interest.

Of Speech. In addition to what has already been said on the human voice, we may observe, that the organs for effecting speech are the mouth, the windpipe and the lungs. The mouth needs no description. The windpipe is a passage commencing at the back pars of the mouth, and thence descending along the neck, it opens into the lungs; at the upper part it is constructed of five thin cartilages, connected by liga ments and put into motion by sinall muscles. These cartilages form a kind of chamber at the head of the tube, which is situated at the root of the tongue. The opening of this chamber into the throat is a very narrow chink, which is dilated and contracted to pro. duce every change in the modulation of the voice, by the muscles attached to the cartilages. To defend this opening there is a beautiful contrivance of an elastic valve which falls flat upon it whenever we swallow, like the key of a wind instrument, and which at other times rises up and leaves the aperture uncovered for the uninter rupted ingress and egress of the air into tire lungs. The windpipe, or tube,

204

S. W. on the Use of the word BUT.

leading to the lungs is so formed as to be always open, and to resist compression; at the same time it is quite flexible, and gives way to all the bendings of the neck; had it not been so we should have been in perpetual hazard of strangulation. The passage to the stomach, on the contrary, being in tended only for occasional use, has its sides always collapsed, unless when distended by the passing of food. The lungs are two cellular bags for containing air; they are situated in the chest, and both open into the bottom of the windpipe.

In the act of inspiration the air dilates the lungs, these, like bellows, force it back in expiration into the windpipe: here the air is straitened in its passage, and made to rush with force along the tube towards its upper end, where it is variously modulated, and the sound of the voice is produced. In articulation the voice is required to pass through the mouth, where it is differently modified by the action of the tongue, which is either pushed against the teeth or upward against the palate, detaining it in its passage or permitting it to flow freely by contracting or dilating the mouth. It has been remarked of the tongue, that it is the only muscle of the body under the controul of the will, which is not wearied by incessant use.

Speech is a high and distinguishing prerogative of man. By this noble faculty we are enabled to express all our feelings and inclinations; to communicate our thoughts, and blend our energies, our knowledge and discoveries, with those of others. In written language, form and permanence are given to evanescent sounds: the ideas and the improvements of one age are transmitted to a succeeding one: the superior acquirements of one country are scattered over distant regions, and knowledge, civilization and happiness diffused far and wide.

SIR,

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On reference to the " Diversions of Purley," Vol. i. p. 190, &c., I. W. and such other of your readers as are fond of language, inay find a clear and copious exposition of the word but. Lest, however, I. W. should not have that inestimable work at hand, which it is evident he has never read, I will endeavour to give him in a few words a sketch of the learned author's luminous view of the subject. He says, "it was the corrupt use of this one word (but) in modern English, for two words (bot and but), originally (in the Anglo-Saxon) very different in signi fication, which misled John Locke, and which puzzled Johnson in his Dictionary, where he has numbered up eighteen different significations of the word." The first mentioned but or bot is the imperative of botan, and answers to sed in Latin and mais in French, and this appears to be the but to which I. W. has confined his definition or description-the other but is derived from bute, or butan, or be-utan, aud answers to nisi in Latin-" this last but (as distinguished from bot) and without have both exactly the saine meaning; that is, in modern English, neither more nor less than be-out."

It is this last but, the want of the knowledge of which has occasioned all the perplexity both in the mind of your correspondent and also of many of his more learned predecessors, and which knowledge was never clearly developed but by that man whose philological labours are an honour to his memory, and whose valuable papers, having been committed to the flames by himself in a fit of spleen, are an irréparable loss to the republic of letters, and operate as a serious visitation of the injuries he suffered, on generations yet unborn-a retaliation of injustice, not on those who committed it, but on innocent and unconscious inquirers.

is one of the most blameable and corrupt abbreviations of construction in our language. In the example, my intent is but to play, was formerly written, my intent is not but to play.

YOUR correspondent I. W.,p. 23. The omission of negation before but has quoted passages from several authors, in which he conceives the word but has been improperly used; and in order to give his notion of the meaning of the word, he says, "This is a conjunction, which when we meet with it is a kind of stop to the sense, and prepares the mind to expect a

Most of the instances which I. W. has given of the improper use of the word but exhibit a perfect redundancy

Dr. Chauncey's Opinion of the Future State.

in which the total omission of the
word actually clears the sense in the
quotation.

"I trembling wak'd and for a season after
Could not believe but that I was in hell."
I think he will discover the evident
difference between that but which an-
swers to his description and the but
which Mr. Tooke derives from be-utan
and signifies be-out, nisi.

I

ŞIR,

S. W.

Mansfield, March 11, 1816.

BEG leave to propose to your correspondent W., H. to reconsider the ground upon which he has stated it as Dr. Chauncey's sentiment, "that the righteous, in successive ages, will pass through many deaths, or states of oblivion" (M. Rep. for Feb. p. 69). The Doctor's words, in his treatise "On the Salvation of all Men" (London, printed in 1784) are as follows: "Some will be disposed and enabled in this present state, to make such improvements in virtue, the only rational preparative for happiness, as that they shall enter upon the enjoyment of it in the next state. Others, who have proved incurable under the means which have been used with them in this state, instead of being happy in the next, will be awfully miserable; not to continue so finally, but that they may be convinced of their folly and recovered to a virtuous frame of mind. And this, as I suppose, will be the effect of the future torments upon many; the consequence whereof will be their salvation, they being thus fitted for it. And there may be yet other states, before the scheme of God may be perfected, and mankind universally cured of their moral disorders, and in this way qualified for, and finally instated in, eternal happiness," (p. 12.) He considers the death," which is said (Rom. vi. 23,) to be "the wages of sin," as the same with what is called (Rev. ii. 11, xx. 14, xxi. 8.) "the second death" (p. 277), And, having asserted (p. 279) that the first death is intended to put an end, not to our existence, but only to its present mode, with all its connections and dependencies," he maintains, that, at the resurrection, the souls of wicked men will be again related or

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united to particular systems of matter, somehow adapted, by the wisdom of God, to render them capable of com

VOL. XI.

2 B

205

munication with the world they shall then be placed in; that they will become fitted for sensations of pain, vastly more various in kind, and greater in degree, than at present, which yet they will be able to endure for a much longer continuance; but that, in time, the torments they must endure, will (again) end in death, that is, in a (second) dissolution of the union between their souls and their bodies; that, in God's time, their souls shall be (again) united to their bodies; and if, by means of the torments of hell, they have been humbled, and so brought into subjection to the government of God, as that they are meet for his mercy in Jesus Christ, the bodies they shall be related to shall, by the Divine wisdom and power, be fitted for that glorious dispensation when God shall be all in all; but, if not, they shall again, in some other form of existence, be put into a state of suffering and discipline, till at length they are, in a wise and rational way, prepared for final and everlasting happiness" (p. 281, 282). On the contrary, he maintains, in regard to "the righteous," that they

will pass into that final dispensation (in which God himself will be immediately all in all), not by dying again, but probably in some way analogous to that in which the believers that are alive on the earth at Christ's second coming, shall pass into the resurrection state; upon which account their life and happiness may properly be said never to have an entp. 283): in proof of which he refers to those passages which speak of their not being hurt by the second death, of their putting on incorruption and immortality, and especially to that declaration of Jesus that they can die no more. (Rev. ii. 11, 1 Cor. xv. 53, 54, Luke xx. 36-see p. 287). Without entering into a discussion of Dr. Chauncey's opinions concerning the nature of man, or the operation and effect of death, I presume that these quotations will sufficiently prove that the sentiment ascribed to him (that the righteous will, in successive ages, pass through many deaths) was not his.

J. T.

Bromley, Jan. 12, 1816.
SIR,
COPY of the foregoing Resolu

Ations of a Meeting having been

Inserted p. 50.- -ED.

206

Belfast Resolutions on Persecution in France:

lately sent me by a much valued friend of mine, who took a prominent part in the proceedings of the day, I send the same to you, not doubting but they will be generally acceptable to your readers, as a gratifying proof how warmly "the cause of universal liberty of conscience" has been recently asserted in the sister kingdom, by persons of the most opposite sentiments on the doctrines of the Christian religion.

After expressing his preference for the 5th of those Resolutions as it was first moved, my friend in a letter annexed to them makes the following pertinent observations, which you are at liberty to present to your readers. "I do not," says he, " charge the British ministers with directly promoting persecution in France, but I certainly do conceive they were less susceptible of alarms on this subject than in their zeal against liberty and revolutionary principles. They were anxious to place the old dynasty on the throne of France; thus they risked the more than probable return of the bigotry which characterized many of this feeble race. In the present temper of the times, the governors intoxicated with their triumphs on the restoration of legitimate despotism, and the people meanly crouching to them, I should not be much surprised, if for a season, arbitrary power should again come into fashion, and by the people surrendering their rights, freedom, both civil and religious, should become Dreami of a dream and shadow of a shade.'

"I embraced the opportunity of the persecution in France by Catholics to turn the public attention to the persecution at home of our Protestant Church and State mob against Catholics, and even against the liberalamong the Protestants. Our domestic perse

cution is less severe than the late attacks in France, but in the course of twenty-two years many have fallen victims to it, and many Catholic chapels have been burned, as well as innumerable outrages of less magnitude committed. The Orangemen have also gone as far as the spirit of the times and the circumstances of the country would permit, and our Irish persecution has only differed from the French in being more limited in extent, but not in the spirit which actuated it. In short, I think it would have been hypocritical affectation in us to have cen

sured the proceedings in the South of France if we had not impartially reprobated the conduct of our Irish Orangemen, as being alike hostile to the principles of civil and religious liberty."

Yesterday's post brought me the Belfast Commercial Chronicle of Saturday, Jan. 6, 1816, from which I send you the following interesting letters, and remain, sincerely yours,

THOMAS FOSTER.

Friends of Civil and Religious Liberty. The following correspondence on the subject of the Resolution passed at the Meeting held in this town on the 11th uit. has taken place. The Resolution ran thus:

Resolved Unanimously-That the thanks of this meeting be returned to DANIEL O'CONNELL, Esq. as being the first in Ireland to call public attention to the Persecution of the Protestants in France, at a meeting of the Catholic Association in Dublin; thus evincing, that in the honourable pursuit of Catholic emancipation, and protection from the hostility of Orange Outrages, he only sought for himself, and his fellowCatholics, that Liberty which he was equally ready to grant to others."

Lisburn, 12th Month, 13th, 1815.
DEAR FRIEND-I have great satisfaction
in communicating to thee the annexed re-
solution of a meeting held in Belfast on the
11th inst. It is a just tribute to thy ho-
nourable firmness and zeal in the cause of
civil and religious liberty, which, after a
close attention, I have always found to be
displayed in thy public conduct, as well as
thou hast occasionally favoured me.
in the private correspondence with which

I am, with sincere respect, thine truly,
JOHN HANCOCK..
DAN. O'CONNELL, Dublin.

Merrion Square, 16th Dec. 1815. MY DEAR SIR-The kind manner in which you have transmitted to me the vote "of the friends of civil and religious liberty in Belfast," demands my sincerest thanks.

I am truly proud of that vote. It is a ricia reward, infinitely beyond the value of my poor exertions in the sacred cause of free

dom of conscience.

I have ever sought Catholic emancipation on principle, and as a matter of right. That principle, if established, would be equally useful to the Protestant in France and Italy, as to the Catholic in Ireland. It is a principle which would leave conscience free and unshackled in every country, and without which real liberty cannot, in my opinion, exist in any country.

As a Catholic I feel myself bound, not only by the genuine precepts of my religion, but by the glorious example of other Catholics, to be the first in my humble sphere

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