Selected quad for the lemma: heart_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
heart_n	artery_n	blood_n	lung_n	3,010	5	11.3115	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A77179	A disquisition about the final causes of natural things wherein it is inquir'd, whether, and (if at all) with what cautions, a naturalist should admit them? By T.H. R.B. Fellow of the Royal Society. To which are subjoyn'd, by way of appendix some uncommon observations about vitiated sight. By the same author.	Boyle, Robert, 1627-1691.	1688 (1688)	Wing B3945A; ESTC R231094	85,440	301

ought not to appear incredible That He that gave man both the Limbs of his Body and the Rational Endowments of his Mind and that has made many Parts as the Eyes and the Ears Double that One may supply the want of the Other Did both Foresee what Uses men might according to their Sagacitys and Emergencies make of these Parts and so Contrive the Parts that they should be applicable to such Uses Suppose a Wise man should send his Son to Travel and among other things give him a Pocket-Dyal with a Magnetic Needle and this Traveller having lost his way in some wild Plain or being at Sea in a Vessel whose Compass was broken or spoyl'd by a Storm or some other Mischance If I say in this case tho' the Traveller Ordinarily Imployed his Dyal only to find the Hour of the Day He shall now Imploy it to Guide his Course or Steer the Vessel by the help of the Needles pointing Northward tho' this would be an Effect of His own Sagacity yet his Father being a Wise and Experienced Man may reasona bly enough be suppos'd to have Foreseen that his Son might have need of knowing the Northern and Southern Points of the Horizon And accordingly may have given him a Dial furnish'd with a Magnetic Needle rather than an Ordinary Gnomonic Dial. And so a Man that has taught another to Paint Landskips when he gives him a Pencil and a Pallet furnish'd with Colours to draw a Particular Prospect is not to be suppos'd to have Design'd that he should not Imploy them to any other purpose if Urgent Circumstances made it requisite for him to do so Having insisted longer than I intended upon the former part of my Proposition I now proceed to the latter namely That in some cases we may from the known Ends of Nature as well as from the Structure of the Parts ground Probable Conjectures both Affirmative and Negative about the particular Offices of the Parts Which I could not seasonably doe before because the Arguments that were founded on the Uses of the Parts of Animals suppose not only that those Parts were destinated to Particular Uses knowable by Us but that the several Parts of the Body were Contrived as Wisely and Commodiously as Men are able to Devise in order to the Ends of Nature which is always to be understood to have United in her Designs the Uses of the Parts and the Welfare of the Whole And indeed if we consider how admirable a Fitness there is in the Parts of the Human Body for instance to those Particular Ends we can discover them to have been Predesign'd for it seems allowable to Conjecture that such a Part was not Primarily Design'd to such an Use because it is on the account of its Structure or otherwise less Fitted for it than the constant Wisdom of Nature seems to require especially if there be any Other Parts by which That Office may be more commodiously perform'd And on the other side it may be a Probable Ground tho' not altogether so Probable as the former to Conclude that such a Part was Destinated to such an Use if the Use it self appear to be necessary and the Part better fitted for it than any Other is Thus tho' Anatomical and Optical Writers as well as the Schools did for many ages unanimously conclude the Crystalline Humor to be the Principal Seat of Vision yet the industrious Scheiner in his useful Tract intituled Oculus does Justly enough reject that receiv'd Opinion by shewing that it Suits not with the Skill and Providence of Nature to make that Part the Seat or chief Organ of Vision for which it wants divers requisite Qualifications especially most of these being to be found in the Retina And I remember that when I asked our famous Harvey in the only Discourse I had with him which was but a while be fore he dyed What were the things that induc'd him to think of a Circulation of the Blood He answer'd me that when he took notice that the Valves in the Veins of so many several Parts of the Body were so Plac'd that they gave free passage to the Blood Towards the Heart but oppos'd the passage of the Venal Blood the Contrary way He was invited to imagine that so Provident a Cause as Nature had not so Plac'd so many Valves without Design and no Design seem'd more probable than That since the Blood could not well because of the interposing Valves be Sent by the Veins to the Limbs it should be Sent through the Arteries and Return through the Veins whose Valves did not oppose its course that way Thus whereas former Anatomists and Physicians generally believed the Nutrition of the Parts by the Venal Blood the more Recent Writers are wont to teach that the Parts are nourish'd by the Blood in its passage through the Arteries Not that they Think the Blood that runs through the Veins altogether unfit to Irrigate the Parts with that Vital Liquor but that they Judge the Veins to be less fit than the Arteries into which the Blood comes immediately from the left Ventricle of the Heart Agitated and Spirituous and with a brisk Impulse which forces out the Particles of the Blood at those Pores of the Arteries that they find Congruous to their Shape and Size and which answer to the several Parts that are to be nourished by Corpuscles so Qualified 'T were not Difficult if 't were Necessary to accumulate Instances to the same purposes with those already mentioned there being nothing more frequent in the Books of Anatomists and those that treat of the Physiological and Pathological parts of Physick than to draw Arguments as well Affirmative as Negative about the Use of the Parts of the Body from their Fitness or Unfitness or their greater or lesser Fitness to attain such Ends as are suppos'd to have been Design'd by Nature And indeed these Argumentations occur so frequently that I think there is less need of my Increasing them than of my Proceeding to give you a Caution about them which I shall do in the following Proposition PROP. III. IT is Rational from the Manifest Fitness of some things to Cosmical or Animal Ends or Vses to Infer that they were Fram'd or Ordain'd in reference thereunto by an Intelligent and Designing Agent Divers things have Incidentally been said in this Paper especially in the first Section of it and others may hereafter be Occasionally added that may justly be imploy'd against that part of the Epicurean Hypothesis which Ascribes the Origine of Things to Chance and Rejects the Interest of a Deity and the Designing of Ends in the Production and Management of Natural things But because I observe not without grief that of late years too many otherwise perhaps Ingenious Men have with the Innocent Opinions of Epicurus embrac'd those Irreligious ones wherein as I was saying the Deity and Providence are quite Excluded from having any Influence upon the Motions of Matter all whose Productions are refer'd

to take notice that besides those Ules of the Parts of a Human Body which I venture to call Anatomical because they are such as Anatomists have discover'd by meer Dissections there may be of several Parts Other Uses which I call Chymical because These Parts do Elaborate Spirits of several Sorts and perhaps Exercise some other Spagyrical Functions of great Importance if not of Necessity to the Welfare of a Living Man. And besides the Anatomical and Chymical Uses there may be others very fit to be consider'd in some parts of a Human Body as the Mechanical Advantages for which the Various Shapes and Structures of differing Muscles and the seeming Irregular and as it 't were Casual Fabrick of the Bones and especially of the Processes and Protuberances are admirably Fitted And there are also in some Parts as the Eyes Optical Reasons to be consider'd before One can otherwise than Rashly Censure what the Author of Nature has done about them As tho' the figure of the Chrystalline Humour be much more Globous in most Fishes than in Men and Terestrial Animals yet he that understands the Doctrine of Refractions and considers that Fishes under Water are to see Objects through a far thicker Medium than Air will readily acknowledge that this Difference between the Eyes of Fishes and those of Men is not an Imperfection in the former but whilst those Creatures are in their own Element a great Advantage And to be short I think there are so many Sciences and other Parts of Knowledge some of them perhaps scarce yet Discover'd that may be required to warrant a man to Censure the Ends of God in the Bodies of Animals that very Few have Knowledge enough to be capable of Condemning them without Rashness And they that have Knowledge enough to Judge aright will not be forward to Condemn them but Admire them But tho' this Consideration be not here display'd yet the now mention'd Intimation of it may afford us this Reflexion That Men may easily be too Rash if they think a part Bunglingly Fram'd upon Supposition that by the Anatomical Inspection of it they know all the Uses that the Skill of the Divine Opificer could Design it for Nor will it necessarily follow that because in some Particular Bird or Beast or Fish we may not be able to give an account Why this or that Part is not to be found or Why it is otherwise Fram'd or Situated than that which is Analogous to it in Man it must therefore be Casually or Improvidently Fram'd or Plac'd Since we cannot expect from Brute Animals Answers to those proper Questions about their own Bodies which we can receive from Men about their Human Ones And yet notwithstanding the great Assiduity with which the more curious Physicians are oblig'd to Cultivate Anatomy and the frequent Opportunities they have to do it and to ask Living Men Questions about what they find when the Natural Use of their Parts is Hindred or Perverted Our Sagacious Moderns are to this day at a Loss as to the True Uses of the Visible Parts of the Body to say nothing of the Invisible such as Spirits Salts c. So that it ought to be no Wonder if in Animals whose Fabrick we have much less Concern to Inquire into and and much less Opportunity to Examine we sometimes find Parts of whose Uses and their Fitness for them Men are not yet able to give a satisfactory Account For I consider that even in Man himself tho' there be numerous Valves found in his Veins yet for those many Ages that the True Uses of them lay Hid an Asclepiades or some Other bold Epicurean Physician might have thought himself well grounded to look upon them as Superfluous Parts Which now that the Circulation of the Blood is discover'd they are acknowledg'd to be far from being On this Occasion it may help us if it be consider'd That since God is both a most Free and a most Wise Agent it need not seem Strange that He should Adorn some Animals with Parts or Qualities that are not Necessary to their Welfare but seem'd Design'd for their Beauty Such as are the Disposition of the Camelion to Change Colours and the lovely Greens Blews Yellows and Other Vivid Colours that Adorn some sorts of Pigeons and of Parrots and divers Lesser Birds as Gold-finches Canary-Birds and especially those admirably little Winged Creatures Humming Birds And on the Other side sometimes God's Wisdom seems to be as it were Thrifty and Solicitous not to bestow on an Animal or a Part of it more than is Necessary for the Use for which 't is Design'd As the Veins are by Anatomists observ'd to have but One Coat or Membrane and usually to lye more Expos'd than the Arteries that accompany them These having Stronger and Double Coats because they are to convey a more Important Liquor the Arterial Blood which besides that 't is more Agitated and Spirituous is forcibly impell'd into Those Vessels by the Muscular Contraction or Strong Impulse of the Heart And to the same purpose it may be observ'd That the Arteries within the Skull are far more Thinly Coated than elsewhere the Solidity of that Bony Part being a Fence to the Vessels that it covers And to add That on This Occasion we may observe That tho' the Nerves usually lye Deep in the Parts to be kept both Safe and Warm being very lyable to be offended both by Cold and the Contact of External Bodies yet it being necessary that the Optick Nerve should Expand itself into the Eye the Membranes that Invest the Nerve and Other Coats of the Eye except the Retina which seems to consist of the Medullar Fibres are made by great Odds more Firm than the Dura and the Pia Mater whence they proceed and tho' Expos'd to the Free Air are less sensible of the Cold than most Parts of the Body and will bear without Danger divers Liquors and Other Offensive Things whose Pungency would put Other Nerves of the Body into Convulsive and perhaps very Dangerous Motions This Conduct looks as if God like an Excellent Writing-Master did in the great Volume of his Creatures Intend to bestow on some of These Things rather Ornamental than Necessary as Flourishes on the Capital Letters of the Alphabet of Nature and sometimes to Imploy Characters and divers of them very differingly Shap'd as the Latin are from those of the Greek the Hebrew the Saxon c. to Express the Same Letter and sometimes also to Imply Abbreviations as a Stroke or a Dash instead of a Letter or a Syllable to Express Compendiously that which might be very Justifiable had it been more Fully set down or Delineated If That be admitted which We have formerly propos'd as very Likely that God Design'd by the great Variety of His Works to Display to their Intelligent Considerers the Faecundity if I may so speak of His Wisdom One may readily conceive that a great part of the Variety Observable in the

to the Casual Concourse of Atoms For this Reason I say I thought it a part of my Duty as well to the most Wise Author of Things as to Their Excellent Contrivance and Mutual Subserviency to say Something tho' but briefly yet distinctly and expresly to shew That at least in the Structure and Nature of Animals there are Things that argue a far Higher and Nobler Principle than is Blind Chance But that I may do what I here intend with as much brevity as I can I will do little more than name some Particulars that I have not observed to be so usually reflected on to the Purpose for which I mention them And I shall Confirm these Considerations but with One Instance and That too taken from a Sort of Parts that are as little Elaborate and therefore seem to be as little Fit for my Purpose as almost any in the Humane Body I will not now inculcate what has been delivered and may be farther said of that Exquisite Structure of the Bodies of Dead Animals that is discoverable by the Knives of Anatomists tho' I shall not Scrupulously forbear to touch lightly on a few things of that kind that are requisite to my Purpose My present Design being to set down very briefly a few Arguments to Strengthen the Proposition lately delivered First then I observe That there seems to have been Care taken that the Body of an Animal should be furnished not only with all things that are Ordinarily Necessary and Convenient but with some Superabundant Provision for Casualties Thus tho' a Man may Live very well and Propagate his Kind as many do tho' he have but One Eye yet Nature is wont to furnish Men with Two Eyes that if One be Destroyed or Diseased the Other may suffice for Vision And so if One Ear grow Deaf a Man may be Conversed with by the help of the Other that remains Sound In short Nature has furnished Men with Double Parts of the same Kind where that Duplicity may be highly Useful and can be permitted without Incongruity to the rest of the Body And this is the more Considerable because in Other Parts Nature appears to Husband things so as to Shun doing things Superfluous As within the Skull some Vessels that would in other Parts of the Body have Double Coats like other Arteries are much Thinner almost like Veins the Thickness of the Skull being ordinarily a sufficient Fence to them from External Injuries Another Argument That divers Things that Nature does about Animals are done with Design may be taken from what Anatomists Observe of Those Parts of the Womb or the Foetus that are to be found but at Certain Times at which there is Need of them and not at Others when they would be Useless Thus when a Woman is with Child the Vasa Vmbilicalia are produc'd to be Channels either for the Blood or Alimental Juice and Spirits that then ought to pass between the Womb and the Foetus which is to be Nourished either only or chiefly by the Liquors derived to It through those Vessels assisted by the Placenta that Supply to it the want of Eating with the Mouth which the Unborn Infant either does not at all or does but very imperfectly employ to Feed himself And though as long as he continues Imprison'd in the Womb-state these Temporary Parts if I may so call them continue with him yet as soon as he comes abroad into the World these Umbilical Vessels particularly the Two Arteries and the Vein together with the Membranes they are wrapt up in and Those commonly call'd the Chorion and the Amnios that Involve the Foetus are Thrown off as Unnecessary to the Born Infant 's New State and when It has quitted the Womb are Expell'd after it whence they are call'd the After-birth there remaining only that Part of the Umbilical Vessels that lies within the Child's Abdomen between the Navel and the Liver where its Use is Considerable tho' New it Serving no more to convey Blood or an Alimental Liquor to and fro but Degenerating into a Ligament To the same Purpose with this Contrivance we may mention that other wherein Nature employs the Foramen Ovale that gives Passage to the Blood from the Right Ventricle of the Heart to the Left that the Circulation of It may be maintain'd tho' It cannot in the Embryo as it does in a Born Child pass through the Vessels of the Lungs from One of the Ventricles to the Other For this Formen Ovale being but if I may so call it an Expedient that Nature Employs as long as that which is Intended to be an Infant remains an Embryo this Temporary Conformation is Obliterated when the Child Breathing the free Air is in a Condition to make the Blood Circulate through the Pulmonick Vessels according to the Primary Intention of Nature From which and the like Instances we may infer That these Temporary Parts were Fram'd by a Forecasting as well as a Designing Agent who Intended they should Serve for such a Turn and then be laid Aside it being utterly Improbable that an Undesigning Agent should so Appositely and Exquisitely Frame Scaffolds for the future Buildings if he did not before-hand Destinate both the One and the Other to concur to the same ultimate Effect Another Argument for our present purpose may be drawn from the Consideration of those things that in Animals are commonly call'd Instincts whereof Some more directly regard the Welfare of the Individuals they belong to Others the Propagation of their Species and Some again respect both The Writers of Voyages and those that professedly deliver Natural History recount strange and scarce credible Instances of the Instincts observable in certain Animals But we need not lay the stress of our Argument upon dubious or suspected Relations since what I have met with in Authors of good Authority or receiv'd from the mouths of Travellers of good Credit may serve my present turn especially if it be allow'd as I see not why it may not be to take the word Instinct in a latitude so as to comprise those Untaught Shifts and Methods that are made use of by some Animals to shun or escape Dangers or to provide for their future Necessities or to catch their Preys Divers Strange Things are deliver'd not only by Poets but by more Credible Writers about the wonderful Sagacity and Government of Bees in point not only of Oeconomy but of Politicks too But tho' I shall not build any thing upon the Authorities that I my self Suspect yet having had the Curiosity to keep for a good while in my Closet a Transparent Hive whence there was a free passage into a neighbouring Garden and having thereby had the opporunity to make frequent Observations of the Actions of these little Animals and particularly to see them at work about making their Combs and filling them with Honey I confess I discover'd some things that I did not believe before and was induc'd to look upon them as very fit