cerning the watch, viz. that these superfluous parts do not negative the reasoning which we instituted concerning those parts which are useful, and of which we know the use: the indication of contrivance, with respect to them, remains as it was before."

out, and when a question is started concerning numerous; for they will be so in proportion to our the skill of the artist, or dexterity with which the ignorance. They will be more or fewer to differwork is executed, then, indeed, in order to defend ent persons, and in different stages of science. these qualities from accusation, we must be able, Every improvement of knowledge diminishes their either to expose some intractableness and imper- number. There is hardly, perhaps, a year passes, fection in the materials, or point out some invinci- that does not, in the works of nature, bring some ble difficulty in the execution, into which imper- operation, or some mode of operation, to light, fection and difficulty the matter of complaint may which was before undiscovered,-probably unsus be resolved; or if we cannot do this, we must ad-pected. Instances of the second kind, namely, duce such specimens of consummate art and con- where the part appears to be totally useless, I be trivance, proceeding from the same hand, as may lieve to be extremely rare; compared with the convince the inquirer of the existence, in the case number of those, of which the use is evident, they before him, of impediments like those which we are beneath any assignable proportion; and, perhave mentioned, although, what from the nature haps, have never been submitted to a trial and of the case is very likely to happen, they be un- examination sufficiently accurate, long enough known and unperceived by him. This we must continued, or often enough repeated. No accounts do in order to vindicate the artist's skill, or, at which I have seen are satisfactory. The mutileast, the perfection of it: as we must also judge lated animal may live and grow fat, (as was the of his intention, and of the provisions employed case of the dog deprived of its spleen,) yet may be in fulfilling that intention, not from an instance defective in some other of its functions; which, in which they fail, but from the great plurality of whether they can all, or in what degree of vigour instances in which they succeed. But, after all, and perfection, be performed, or how long prethese are different questions from the question of served, without the extirpated organ, does not the artist's existence; or, which is the same, whe- seem to be ascertained by experiment. But to ther the thing before us be a work of art or not: this case, even were it fully made out, may be apand the questions ought always to be kept sepa-plied the consideration which we suggested conrate in the mind. So likewise it is in the works of nature. Irregularities and imperfections are of little or no weight in the consideration, when that consideration relates simply to the existence of a Creator. When the argument respects his attributes, they are of weight; but are then to be taken in conjunction (the attention is not to rest III. One atheistic way of replying to our ob upon them, but they are to be taken in conjunc-servations upon the works of nature, and to the tion) with the unexceptionable evidences which we possess, of skill, power, and benevolence, displayed in other instances: which evidences may, in strength, number, and variety, be such, and may so overpower apparent blemishes, as to induce us, upon the most reasonable ground, to believe, that these last ought to be referred to some cause, though we be ignorant of it, other than defect of knowledge or of benevolence in the author. II. There may be also parts of plants and animals; as there were supposed to be of the watch, of which, in some instances, the operation, in others, the use, is unknown. These form different cases: for the operation may be unknown, yet the use be certain. Thus it is with the lungs of animals. It does not, I think, appear, that we are acquainted with the action of the air upon the blood, or in what manner that action is communicated by the lungs; yet we find that a very short suspension of their office destroys the life of the animal. In this case, therefore, we may be said to know the use, nay we experience the necessity, of the organ, though we be ignorant of its operation. Nearly the same thing may be observed of what is called the lymphatic system. We suffer grievous inconveniences from its disorder, without being informed of the office which it sustains in the economy of our bodies. There may possibly also be some few examples of the second class, in which not only the operation is unknown, but in which experiments may seem to prove that the part is not necessary; or may leave a doubt, how far it is even useful to the plant or animal in which it is found. This is said to be the case with the spleen; which has been extracted from dogs, without any sensible injury to their vital functions. Instances of the former kind, namely, in which we cannot explain the operation, may be

proofs of a Deity which we think that we perceive in them, is to tell us, that all which we see must necessarily have had some form, and that it might as well be its present form as any other. Let us now apply this answer to the eye, as we did before to the watch. Something or other must have occupied that place in the animal's head; must have filled up, we will say, that socket; we will say also, that it must have been of that sort of substance which we call animal substance, as flesh, bone, membrane, cartilage, &c. But that it should have been an eye, knowing as we do what an eye comprehends,-viz. that it should have consisted, first of a series of transparent lenses (very different, by the by, even in their substance, from the opaque materials of which the rest of the body is, in general at least, composed; and with which the whole of its surface, this single portion of it excepted, is covered ;) secondly, of a black cloth or canvass (the only membrane of the body which is black) spread out behind these lenses, so as to receive the image formed by pencils of light transmitted through them; and placed at the precise geometrical distance at which, and at which alone, a distinct image could be formed, namely, at the concourse of the refracted rays: thirdly, of a large nerve communicating between this membrane and the brain; without which, the action of light upon the membrane, however modified by the organ, would be lost to the purposes of sensation-that this fortunate conformation of parts should have been the lot, not of one individual out of many thousand individuals, like the great prize in a lottery, or like some singularity in nature, but the happy chance of a whole species; nor of one species out of many thousand species, with which we are acquainted, but of by far the greatest number of all that exist;

and that under varieties, not casual, or capricious, but bearing marks of being suited to their respective exigencies:-that all this should have taken place, merely because something must have occupied those points in every animal's forehead;-or, that all this should be thought to be accounted for, by the short answer, "that whatever was there, must have had some form or other," is too absurd to be made more so by any augmentation. We are not contented with this answer; we find no satisfaction in it, by way of accounting for appearances of organization far short of those of the eye, such as we observe in fossil shells, petrified bones, or other substances which bear the vestiges of animal or vegetable recrements, but which, either in respect of utility, or of the situation in which they are discovered, may seem accidental enough. It is no way of accounting even for these things, to say that the stone, for instance, which is shown to us (supposing the question to be concerning a petrifaction,) must have contained some internal conformation or other. Nor does it mend the answer to add, with respect to the singularity of the conformation, that, after the event, it is no longer to be computed what the chances were against it. This is always to be computed, when the question is, whether a useful or imitative conformation be the produce of chance or not: I desire no greater certainty in reasoning, than that by which chance is excluded from the present disposition of the natural world. Universal experience is against it. What does chance ever do for us? in the human body, for instance, chance, i. e. the operation of causes without design, may produce a wen, a wart, a mole, a pimple, but never an eye. Amongst inanimate substances, a clod, a pebble, a liquid drop, might be; but never was a watch, a telescope, an organized body of any kind, answering a valuable purpose by a complicated mechanism, the effect of chance. In no assignable instance hath such a thing existed without intention somewhere.

corns and mermaids, sylphs and centaurs, the fancies of painters, and the fables of poets, realized by examples. Or, if it be alleged that these may transgress the limits of possible life and propagation, we might, at least, have nations of human beings without nails upon their fingers, with more or fewer fingers and toes, than ten; some with one eye, others with one ear, with one nostril, or without the sense of smelling at all. All these, and a thousand other imaginable varieties, might live and propagate. We may modify any one species many different ways, all consistent with life, and with the actions necessary to preservation, although affording different degrees of conveniency and enjoyment to the animal. And if we carry these modifications through the different species which are known to subsist, their number would be incalculable. No reason can be given why, if these deperdits ever existed, they have now disappeared. Yet, if all possible existences have been tried, they must have formed part of the catalogue.

But, moreover, the division of organized substances into animals and vegetables, and the distribution and sub-distribution of each into genera and species, which distribution is not an arbitrary act of the mind, but founded in the order which prevails in external nature, appear to me to contradict the supposition of the present world being the remains of an indefinite variety of existences; of a variety which rejects all plan. The hypothesis teaches, that every possible variety of being hath, at one time or other, found its way into existence, (by what cause or in what manner is not said,) and that those which were badly formed, perished; but how or why those which survived should be cast, as we see that plants and animals are cast, into regular classes, the hypothesis does not explain; or rather the hypothesis is inconsistent with this phenomenon.

The hypothesis, indeed, is hardly deserving of the consideration which we have given to it. What should we think of a man who, because we had never ourselves seen watches, telescopes, stocking-mills, steam-engines, &c. made, knew not how they were made, or could prove by testimony when they were made, or by whom,- would have us believe that these machines, instead of deriving their curious structures from the thought and design of their inventors and contrivers, in truth derive them from no other origin than this; viz. that a mass of metals and other materials having run when melted into all possible figures, and combined themselves in all possible forms, and shapes, and proportions, these things which we see, are what were left from the accident, as best worth preserving; and, as such, are become the remaining stock of a magazine, which, at one time or other, has, by this means, contained every mechanism, useful and useless, convenient and inconvenient, into which such-like materials could be thrown? I cannot distinguish the hypothesis as applied to the works of nature, from this solution, which no one would accept, as applied to a collection of machines.

IV. There is another answer, which has the same effect as the resolving of things into chance; which answer would persuade us to believe, that the eye, the animal to which it belongs, every other animal, every plant, indeed every organized body which we see, are only so many out of the possible varieties and combinations of being, which the lapse of infinite ages has brought into existence; that the present world is the relict of that variety; millions of other bodily forms and other species having perished, being by the defect of their constitution incapable of preservation, or of continuance by generation. Now there is no foundation whatever for this conjecture in any thing which we observe in the works of nature; no such experiments are going on at present; no such energy operates, as that which is here supposed, and which should be constantly pushing into existence new varieties of beings. Nor are there any appearances to support an opinion, that every possible combination of vegetable or animal structure has formerly been tried. Multitudes of conformations, both of vegetables and animals, may be conceived capable of existence and succes- V. To the marks of contrivance discoverable in sion, which yet do not exist. Perhaps almost as animal bodies, and to the argument deduced from many forms of plants might have been found in them, in proof of design, and of a designing Crethe fields, as figures of plants can be delineated ator, this turn is sometimes attempted to be given, upon paper. A countless variety of animals namely, that the parts were not intended for the might have existed, which do not exist. Upon use, but that the use arose out of the parts. This the supposition here stated, we should see uni-distinction is intelligible. A cabinet-maker rubs

ward to our view our own ignorance, or rather the tion, which did not contradict all the principles general imperfection of our knowledge of nature. we possess of knowledge; the principles accordNor, in many cases, ought this consideration to ing to which, things do, as often as they can be affect us, even when it respects some parts of the brought to the test of experience, turn out to be subject immediately under our notice. True for- true or false. Its coats and humours, constructed, titude of understanding consists in not suffering as the lenses of a telescope are constructed, for what we know, to be disturbed by what we do not the refraction of rays of light to a point, which know. If we perceive a useful end, and means forms the proper action of the organ; the proviadapted to that end, we perceive enough for our sion in its muscular tendons for turning its pupil conclusion. If these things be clear, no matter to the object, similar to that which is given to the what is obscure. The argument is finished. For telescope by screws, and upon which power of instance; if the utility of vision to the animal direction in the eye, the exercise of its office as which enjoys it, and the adaptation of the eye to an optical instrument depends; the farther provithis office, be evident and certain, (and I can men- sion for its defence, for its constant lubricity and tion nothing which is more so,) ought it to preju- moisture, which we see in its socket and its lids, dice the inference which we draw from these pre-in its gland for the secretion of the matter of tears, mises, that we cannot explain the use of the spleen? its outlet or communication with the nose for carNay, more if there be parts of the eye, viz. the rying off the liquid after the eye is washed with cornea, the crystalline, the retina, in their sub-it; these provisions compose altogether an appastance, figure, and position, manifestly suited to the formation of an image by the refraction of rays of light, at least, as manifestly as the glasses and tubes of a dioptric telescope are suited to that purpose; it concerns not the proof which these afford of design, and of a designer, that there may perhaps be other parts, certain muscles for instance, or nerves in the same eye, of the agency or effect of which we can give no account, any more than we should be inclined to doubt, or ought to doubt, about the construction of a telescope, viz. for what purpose it was constructed, or whether it were constructed at all, because there belonged to it certain screws and pins, the use or action of which we did not comprehend. I take it to be a general way of infusing doubts and scruples into the mind, to recur to its own ignorance, its own imbecility: to tell us that upon these subjects we know little; that little imperfectly; or rather, that we know nothing properly about the matter. These suggestions so fall in with our consciousness, as sometimes to produce a general distrust of our faculties and our conclusions. But this is an unfounded jealousy. The uncertainty of one thing does not necessarily affect the certainty of another thing. Our ignorance of many points need not suspend our assurance of a few. Before we yield, in any particular instance, to the scepticism which this sort of insinuation would induce, we ought accurately to ascertain, whether our ignorance or doubt concern those precise points upon which our conclusion rests. Other points are nothing. Our ignorance of other points may be of no consequence to these, though they be points, in various respects, of great importance. A just reasoner removes from his consideration, not only what he knows, but what he does not know, touching matters not strictly connected with his argument, i. e. not forming the very steps of his deduction: beyond these, his knowledge and his ignorance are alike relative.

ratus, a system of parts, a preparation of means, so manifest in their design, so exquisite in their contrivance, so successful in their issue, so precious, and so infinitely beneficial in their use, as, in my opinion, to bear down all doubt that can be raised upon the subject. And what I wish, under the title of the present chapter, to observe is, that if other parts of nature were inaccessible to our inquiries, or even if other parts of nature presented nothing to our examination but disorder and confusion, the validity of this example would remain the same. If there were but one watch in the world, it would not be less certain that it had a maker. If we had never in our lives seen any but one single kind of hydraulic machine, yet, if of that one kind we understood the mechanisin and use, we should be as perfectly assured that it proceeded from the hand, and thought, and skill, of a workman, as if we visited a museum of the arts, and saw collected there twenty different kinds of machines for drawing water, or a thousand different kinds for other purposes. Of this point, each machine is a proof, independently of all the rest. So it is with the evidences of a Divine agency. The proof is not a conclusion which lies at the end of a chain of reasoning, of which chain each instance of contrivance is only a link, and of which, if one link fail, the whole falls; but it is an argument separately supplied by every separate example. An error in stating an example, affects only that example. The argument is cumulative, in the fullest sense of that term. The eye proves it without the ear; the ear without the eye. The proof in each example is complete; for when the design of the part, and the conduciveness of its structure to that design, is shown, the mind may set itself at rest; no future consideration can detract any thing from the force of the example.

part is not so constructed as to effectuate its purpose whilst it operates according to these laws; but it is because these laws themselves are not in all cases equally understood; or, what amounts to nearly the same thing, are not equally exemplified in more simple processes, and more simple machines; that we lay down the distinction, here proposed, between the mechanical parts and other parts of animals and vegetables.

know perhaps as little as we do of the nervous fluid. But, magnetic attraction being assumed (it signifies nothing from what cause it proceeds,) we can trace, or there can be pointed out to us, with perfect clearness and certainty, the mechanism, viz. the steel bars, the wheels, the joints, the wires, by which the motion so much admired is communicated to the fingers of the image and to make any obscurity, or difficulty, or controver For instance: The principle of muscular mo- sy, in the doctrine of magnetism, an objection to tion, viz. upon what cause the swelling of the our knowledge or our certainty concerning the belly of the muscle, and consequent contraction of contrivance, or the marks of contrivance, displayed its tendons, either by an act of the will, or by in the automaton, would be exactly the same involuntary irritation, depends, is wholly un- thing, as it is to make our ignorance (which we known to us. The substance employed, whether acknowledge) of the cause of nervous agency, or it be fluid, gaseous, elastic, electrical, or none of even of the substance and structure of the nerves these, or nothing resembling these, is also un- themselves, a ground of question or suspicion as known to us: of course the laws belonging to to the reasoning which we institute concerning that substance, and which regulate its action, are the mechanical part of our frame. That an aniunknown to us. We see nothing similar to this mal is a machine, is a proposition neither correctcontraction in any machine which we can make, ly true nor wholly false. The distinction which or any process which we can execute. So far (it we have been discussing will serve to show how is confessed) we are in ignorance, but no farther. far the comparison, which this expression implies, This power and principle, from whatever cause it holds; and wherein it fails. And whether the proceeds, being assumed, the collocation of the distinction be thought of importance or not, it is fibres to receive the principle, the disposition of certainly of importance to remember, that there is the muscles for the use and application of the neither truth nor justice in endeavouring to bring power, is mechanical; and is as intelligible as the a cloud over our understandings, or a distrust into adjustment of the wires and strings, by which a our reasonings upon this subject, by suggesting puppet is moved. We see, therefore, as far as that we know nothing of voluntary motion, of irrirespects the subject before us, what is not mecha-tability, of the principle of life, of sensation, of nical in the animal frame, and what is. The animal heat, upon all which the animal functions nervous influence (for we are often obliged to give depend; for, our ignorance of these parts of the names to things which we know little about)-I animal frame concerns not at all our knowledge of say the nervous influence, by which the belly, or the mechanical parts of the same frame. I conmiddle, of the muscle is swelled, is not mechani-tend, therefore, that there is mechanism in anical. The utility of the effect we perceive; the means, or the preparation of means, by which it is produced, we do not. But obscurity as to the origin of muscular motion, brings no doubtfulness into our observations upon the sequel of the process: which observations relate, 1st, To the constitution of the muscle; in consequence of which constitution, the swelling of the belly or middle part is necessarily and mechanically followed by the contraction of the tendons: 2dly, To the number and variety of the muscles, and the corresponding number and variety of useful powers which they supply to the animal; which is astonishingly great 3dly, To the judicious (if we may be permitted to use that term, in speaking of the Author, or of the works, of nature,) to the wise and well-contrived disposition of each muscle for its specific purpose: for moving the joint this way, and that way, and the other way; for pulling and drawing the part to which it is attached, in a determinate and particular direction; which is a mechanical operation, exemplified in a multitude of instances. To mention only one: The tendon of the trochlear muscle of the eye, to the end that it may draw in the line required, is passed through a cartilaginous ring, at which it is reverted, exactly in the same manner as a rope in a ship is carried over a block or round a stay, in order to make it pull in the direction which is wanted. All this, as we have said, is mechanical; and is as accessible to inspection, as capable of being ascertained, as the mechanism of the automaton in the Strand. Suppose the automaton to be put in motion by a magnet (which is probable,) it will supply us with a comparison very apt for our present purpose. Of the magnetic effluvium, we

mals; that this mechanism is as properly such, as it is in machines made by art; that this mechanism is intelligible and certain; that it is not the less so, because it often begins or terminates with something which is not mechanical; that whenever it is intelligible and certain, it demonstrates intention and contrivance, as well in the works of nature as in those of art; and that it is the best demonstration which either can afford.

But whilst I contend for these propositions, I do not exclude myself from asserting, that there may be, and that there are, other cases, in which, although we cannot exhibit mechanism, or prove indeed that mechanism is employed, we want not sufficient evidence to conduct us to the same conclusion.

There is what may be called the chymical part of our frame; of which, by reason of the imperfec tion of our chymistry, we can attain to no distinct knowledge; I mean, not to a knowledge, either in degree or kind, similar to that which we possess of the mechanical part of our frame. It does not, therefore, afford the same species of argument as that which mechanism affords; and yet it may afford an argument in a high degree satisfactory. The gastric juice, or the liquor which digests the food in the stomachs of animals, is of this class. Of all menstrua, it is the most active, the most universal. In the human stomach, for instance, consider what a variety of strange substances, and how widely different from one another, it, in a few hours, reduces to a uniform pulp, milk, or mucilage. It seizes upon every thing, it dissolves the texture of almost every thing that comes in its way. The flesh of perhaps all animals; and fruits of the greatest number of plants; the

the seeds