The Sun.
London, England, 1827-12-26 00:00:00

LONDON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 26, 1827.

This day was published in 12mo. Ss. half-bound, a Ninth
Edition of

STORIES FROM THE HISTORY OF
ENGLAND.

Printed for John Murray, Albemarle-street.
In a few days, by the same Author, ELEMENTS of
GEOGRAPHY for Children, 12mo.

This day was published, in Svo. price Is. Qd Edition,
ESSAYS on some of the PECULIARI-
TIES of the CHRISTIAN RELIGION.

By RICHARD WHATELY, D.D.
Principal of St. Alban's Hall, Oxford, and late Fellow of
Oriel College. . _

Printed for John Murray, Albemarle-street, and J.
Parker, Oxford.
Edited by the same Author, 2d Edition, Svo. of
ARCHBISHOP KING'S SERMONS.

FROM LAST NIGHT'S GAZETTE.

DIVIDENDS.

Charles William Clarke, Holborn-hill, druggist, Jan. 16,
at twelve, at the Court of Commissioners--Harry Cook,
Lancaster-place, Strand, navy agent, Jan. 29, at eleven, at
the Court of Commissioners—John Dowley, Howland-
street, -Tottenham-sourt-road, and Robert Tuck, Pembroke-
square, Kensington, builders, Jan. 26, at eleven, at the
Court of Commissioners—James Gregory, Sun-street,
Bishopsgate-street, grocer, Jan. 15, at eleven, at the Court
of Commissioners—Thomas Plaw, Fulham, carpenter, Jan.

15, at one, at the Court of Commissioners—William Pros-
ser, jun., Watling-street, wine-merchant, Jan. 15, at eleven,
at the Court of Commissioners—Ann Walke, and Samuel
Sanders, King-street, Cheapeide, victuallers, Jan. 22, at
ten, at the Court of Commissioners—Samuel Wagstaff and
Thomas Baylis, Kidderminster, carpet-manufacturers,
January 15, at eleven, at the Court of Commissioners—
John Banks and Wm. Garrod, Beccles, Suffolk, linen-
drapers, Jan. 23, at eleven, at the White Lion Inn, Beccles
—Charles Thomas Baskett, Poole, wine-merchant, Jan.
19, at eleven, at the Old Antelope Inn, Poole—William
Coupland and William Butterfield Colton, Liverpool, mer-
chants, Jan. 19, at one, at the George Inn, Liverpool—
Charles Hankinson, Hale, Chester, tanner, Jan. 18, at
eleven, at White's Hotel, Manchester—Samuel Holbrook
and James Adamson, Northwich, Chester, brewers, Jan.
15, at eleven, at the Hotel Inn, Newark-upon-Trent—
Oliver Luff, Bristol, timber-factor, Jan. 25, at two, at
the Rummer Tavern, Bristol—William Moore, Southtaw-
ton, Devon, cattle-salesman, Jan. 19, at twelve, at the
Globe Tavern, Exeter—Charles Pasheller and John Pa-
sheller, Huntingdon, bankers, Jan. 16, at eleven, at the
George Inn, Huntingdon—Richard Potter, East Teign-
mouth, Devon, ship-builder, Jan. 15, at eleven, at the
Hotel, Exeter—James Walker, Itadstock, Somersetshire,
innkeeper, Jan. 18, at twelve, at the George Inn, Shep-
ton Mallet.

beauty ? View the same eye, gazing, as it were
on vacancy, when the senses are wrapt in obli-

vion—

" We start—for eoul is wanting there !
It fires not—weeps not—wins not—now !"
yet that eye is equally as perfect, and equally as
structurally beautiful as ever : it is now insen-
sible to the stimulus of light,thrown on it by the
taper—you may discern the image of that taper
imprinted on the delicate and reflecting rnem
braise, the Retina, yet the eye sees it not ! Sight
therefore cannot be the result of organization.
The same argument extends itself to all the va-
ried phenomena of life. It is related of the ce-
lebrated heathen, Galen, that walking one day
in a shady grove, he accidentally found a human
skeleton. When he surveyed this • only remain-
ing memorial of some being, who had once been
as fully in the possession of every attribute of
human nature, as he' himself was at that mo-
ment, he very naturally arrived at the conclusion
that such mechanism could not have bean con-
structed by chance; in a word, he became con-
vinced of the existence of God ! Mr. F. then
traced this subject still further ; he argued, that
if Galen had contemplated this same being, a
few hours after the close of existence, stamped
with the pallid hue of death, but retaining a
roundness and symmetry, ha would have been
still more forcibly struck ; and then let the ad-
mirable piece pf mechanism, man, be animated
with Promethean fire, the living principle—let
vitality and exertion .be given to the limbs ; let
the heart beat, and the blood circulate ; and. he
contended, the divinity of its origin would
be stamped a thousand fold more strongly.
After regretting the difficulties interposed to the
pursuit of anatomieal studies, Mr. F. proceeded
to remark on the intellectual capacities of man,
in which he stands prbudly pre-eminent at the
head of Creation. He asserted, however, that
it was not in intellect only, that man is superior
to other living creatures, but in his physical for-
mation and the admirable adaptation of his
structure, for the fulfilment of all the various
purposes which reason dictates. Man is ex-
celled by many animals in particular attributes,
as, by the lion in strength, the deer in swiftness,
but could reason have been more fitly bestowed
on any of these animals than on man t Man,
alone, he contended, was formed and calculated
for the dominion and exercise of reason! It had
been the fashion, of late to ascribe all the mea-
sureless superiority of man over the rest of the
animal creation, to the greater proportional
quantity of his brain in, comparison with the
weight of his body. Soemmering, however, had
proved by direct experiment that this doctrine
qfproportzons was incorrect in several instances,
and conseruently the hypothesis fell to the
ground ! Mr. F. then proceeded to take a brief
survey of the different parts and organs, consti-
tuting the human structure. In allusion to the
nerves, he remarked, lastly, man requires some
power to direct him in his communications with
his fellow-creatures, with himself, and with the
rest of the world, animate and inanimate, and
some apparatus by which lie may receive cog-
nizance of whatever is beneficial or hurtful to
his structure : all this is amply provided for by
the copious distribution of nerves throughout the
whole body, and by the exquisite structures fur-
nished for the purposes of seeing, of hearing, of
smelling, tasting, and feeling.—The Brain, the
mysterious centre of all this nervous energy,
where every sensation is received, and, as it were,
registered, is situated at the top of the spinal
column; and contained in, and protected by, a
hard bony case, the scull. The Brain, more-
over, contains, according to the fancies of some
the seat of that invisible and intangible essence,
the Soul ; and here she sits (in her snug little
sand box, the pineal gland, according to the Car-
tesian system of Philosophy) and dispenses her,
vivifying influence, and her laws, over the whole
body.—Mr. Fielding concluded his paper, by
stating that it.was simply intended as a brief out-
line—a mere introductory view of the, subject,
and that if it were not deemed too professional,
it was his intention to enter more at large into it
at some future opportunity,
The reading of the above paper was not fol-
lowed by any discussion.
Several presents made to the Society, were cx-,
hibited at this meeting, namely, two extraordi-
nary fossil shells from the neighbourhood of
Caistor ; some ancient coins found in excavating
thelunction Docks ; and a beautiful stuffed spe-
cimen of a bird of the Avosetta species.
A conversation took place at the close of the
meeting, on the inadequacy of the rooms now
used by the Society for the accommodation of
the Members and the display of the objects con-
tained in the museum.