The Existence of God

by François de Salignac de La Mothe- Fénelon

But who can forbear admiring the nature of the bones? They are very hard; and we see that even the corruption of all the rest of the body, after death, does not affect them. Nevertheless, they are full of numberless holes and cavities that make them lighter; and in the middle they are full of the marrow, or pith, that is to nourish them. They are bored exactly in those places through which the ligaments that knit them are to pass. Moreover, their extremities are bigger than the middle, and form, as it were, two semicircular heads, to make one bone turn more easily with another, that so the whole may fold and bend without trouble.

SECT. XXXV. Of the Organs.

Within the enclosure of the ribs are placed in order all the great organs such as serve to make a man breathe; such as digest the aliments; and such as make new blood. Respiration, or breathing, is necessary to temper inward heat, occasioned by the boiling of the blood, and by the impetuous course of the spirits. The air is a kind of food that nourishes the animal, and by means of which he renews himself every moment of his life. Nor is digestion less necessary to prepare sensible aliments towards their being changed into blood, which is a liquor apt to penetrate everywhere, and to thicken into flesh in the extreme parts, in order to repair in all the members what they lose continually both by transpiration and the waste of spirits. The lungs are like great covers, which being spongy, easily dilate and contract themselves, and as they incessantly take in and blow out a great deal of air, they form a kind of bellows that are in perpetual motion. The stomach has a dissolvent that causes hunger, and puts man in mind of his want of food. That dissolvent, which stimulates and pricks the stomach, does, by that very uneasiness, prepare for it a very lively pleasure, when its craving is satisfied by the aliments. Then man, with delight, fills his belly with strange matter, which would create horror in him if he could see it as soon as it has entered his stomach, and which even displeases him, when he sees it being already satisfied. The stomach is made in the figure of a bagpipe. There the aliments being dissolved by a quick coction, or digestion, are all confounded, and make up a soft liquor, which afterwards becomes a kind of milk, called chyle; and which being at last brought into the heart, receives there, through the plenty of spirits, the form, vivacity, and colour of blood. But while the purest juice of the aliments passes from the stomach into the pipes destined for the preparation of chyle and blood, the gross particles of the same aliments are separated, just as bran is from flour by a sieve; and they are dejected downwards to ease the body of them, through the most hidden passages, and the most remote from the organs of the senses, lest these be offended at them. Thus the wonders of this machine are so great and numerous, that we find some unfathomable, even in the most abject and mortifying functions of the body, which modesty will not allow to be more particularly explained.

SECT. XXXVI. Of the Inward Parts.

I own that the inward parts are not so agreeable to the sight as the outward; but then be pleased to observe they are not made to be seen. Nay, it was necessary according to art and design that they should not be discovered without horror, and that a man should not without violent reluctance go about to discover them by cutting open this machine in another man. It is this very horror that prepares compassion and humanity in the hearts of men when one sees another wounded or hurt. Add to this, with St. Austin, that there are in those inward parts a proportion, order, and mechanism which still please more an attentive, inquisitive mind than external beauty can please the eyes of the body. That inside of man—which is at once so ghastly and horrid and so wonderful and admirable—is exactly as it should be to denote dirt and clay wrought by a Divine hand, for we find in it both the frailty of the creature and the art of the Creator.

SECT. XXXVII. Of the Arms and their Use.

From the top of that precious fabric we have described hang the two arms, which are terminated by the hands, and which bear a perfect symmetry one with another. The arms are knit with the shoulders in such a manner that they have a free motion, in that joint. They are besides divided at the elbow and at the wrist that they may fold, bend, and turn with quickness. The arms are of a just length to reach all the parts of the body. They are nervous and full of muscles, that they may, as well as the back, be often in action and sustain the greatest fatigue of all the body. The hands are a contexture of nerves and little bones set one within another in such a manner that they have all the strength and suppleness necessary to feel the neighbouring bodies, to seize on them, hold them fast, throw them, draw them to one, push them off, disentangle them, and untie them one from another.

The fingers, the ends of which are armed with nails, are by the delicacy and variety of their motions contrived to exercise the most curious and marvellous arts. The arms and hands serve also, according as they are either extended, folded, or turned, to poise the body in such a manner as that it may stoop without any danger of falling. The whole machine has, besides, independently from all after-thoughts, a kind of spring that poises it on a sudden and makes it find the equilibrium in all its different postures and positions.

SECT. XXXVIII. Of the Neck and Head.

Above the body rises the neck, which is either firm or flexible at pleasure. Must a man bear a heavy burden on his head? This neck becomes as stiff as if it were made up of one single bone. Has he a mind to bow or turn his head? The neck bends every way as if all its bones were disjointed. This neck, a little raised above the shoulders, bears up with ease the head, which over-rules and governs the whole body. If it were less big it would bear no proportion with the rest of the machine; and if it were bigger it would not only be disproportioned and deformed, but, besides, its weight would both crush the neck and put man in danger of falling on the side it should lean a little too much. This head, fortified on all sides by very thick and very hard bones in order the better to preserve the precious treasure it encloses, is jointed with the vertebræ of the neck, and has a very quick communication with all the other parts of the body. It contains the brain, whose moist, soft, and spongy substance is made up of tender filaments or threads woven together; this is the centre of all the wonders we shall speak of afterwards. The skull is regularly perforated, or bored, with exact proportion, and symmetry, for, the two eyes, the two ears, the mouth, and the nostrils. There are nerves destined for sensations, that exercise and play in most of those pipes. The nose, which has no nerves for its sensation, has a cribriform, or spongy bone, to let odours pass on to the brain. Amongst the organs of these sensations the chief are double, to preserve to one side what the other might happen to be defective in by any accident. These two organs of the same sensation are symmetrically placed either on the forepart or on the sides, that man may use them with more ease to the right or to the left or right against him—that is to say, towards the places his joints direct his steps and all his actions. Besides, the flexibility of the neck makes all those organs turn in an instant which way soever he pleases. All the hinder part of the head, which is the least able to defend itself, is therefore the thickest. It is adorned with hair which at the same time serves to fortify the head against the injuries of the air; and, on the other hand, the hair likewise adorns the fore part of the head and renders the face more graceful. The face is the fore part of the head, wherein the principal sensations meet and centre with an order and proportion that render it very beautiful unless some accident or other happen to alter and impair so regular a piece of work. The two eyes are equal, being placed about the middle, on the two sides of the head, that they may, without trouble, discover afar off both on the right and left all strange objects, and that they may commodiously watch for the safety of all the parts of the body. The exact symmetry with which they are placed is the ornament of the face; and He that made them has kindled in them I know not what celestial flame, the like of which all the rest of nature does not afford. These eyes are a sort of looking-glasses, wherein all the objects of the whole world are painted by turns and without confusion in the bottom of the retina that the thinking part of man may see them in those looking-glasses. But though we perceive all objects by a double organ, yet we never see the objects double, because the two nerves that are subservient to sight in our eyes are but two branches that unite in one pipe, as the two glasses of a pair of spectacles unite in the upper part that joins them together. The two eyes are adorned with two equal eyebrows, and, that they may open and close, they are wrapped up with lids edged with hair that defend so delicate a part.