Soc. But now if you had two sorts of things, the one of which presents
no clue as to what it is for, and the other is obviously for some
useful purpose--which would you judge to be the result of chance,
which of design?

Ar. Clearly that which is produced for some useful end is the work of
design.

Soc. Does it not strike you then that he who made man from the
beginning[5] did for some useful end furnish him with his several
senses--giving him eyes to behold the visible word, and ears to catch
the intonations of sound? Or again, what good would there be in odours
if nostrils had not been bestowed upon us? what perception of sweet
things and pungent, and of all the pleasures of the palate, had not a
tongue been fashioned in us as an interpreter of the same? And besides
all this, do you not think this looks like a matter of foresight, this
closing of the delicate orbs of sight with eyelids as with folding
doors, which, when there is need to use them for any purpose, can be
thrown wide open and firmly closed again in sleep? and, that even the
winds of heaven may not visit them too roughly, this planting of the
eyelashes as a protecting screen?[6] this coping of the region above
the eyes with cornice-work of eyebrow so that no drop of sweat fall
from the head and injure them? again this readiness of the ear to
catch all sounds and yet not to be surcharged? this capacity of the
front teeth of all animals to cut and of the "grinders" to receive the
food and reduce it to pulp? the position of the mouth again, close to
the eyes and nostrils as a portal of ingress for all the creature's
supplies? and lastly, seeing that matter passing out[7] of the body is
unpleasant, this hindward direction of the passages, and their removal