With the melting of the ice the more daring spirits dashed into the new current with such ardour that for them all traditions, all institutions, were thrown into hotchpot; even elderly and sober physicians took enough of the infection to liberate their minds, and, in the field of the several diseases and in that of post-mortem pathology, the hollowness of classification by superficial resemblance, the transitoriness of forms, and the flow of processes, broke upon the view.
In The Wisdom of God, &c., Ray recites innumerable examples of the perfection of organic mechanism, the multitude and variety of living creatures, the minuteness and usefulness of their parts, and many, if not most, of the familiar examples of purposive adaptation and design in nature were suggested by him, such as the structure of the eye, the hollowness of the bones, the camel's stomach and the hedgehog's armour.
A careful and thorough exegesis will show the hollowness of this justification.