if there were a few parts of the watch, concerning which we could not
discover, or had not yet discovered, in what manner they conduced to
the general effect; or even some parts, concerning which we could not
ascertain, whether they conduced to that effect in any manner
whatever. For, as to the first branch of the case; if, by the loss, or
disorder, or decay of the parts in question, the movement of the watch
were found in fact to be stopped, or disturbed or retarded, no doubt
would remain in our minds as to the utility or intention of these
parts, although we should be unable to investigate the manner
according to which, or the connection by which, the ultimate effect
depended upon their action or assistance: and the more complex is the
machine, the more likely is this obscurity to arise. Then, as to the
second thing supposed, namely, that there were parts which might be
spared without prejudice to the movement of the watch, and that we had
proved this by experiment; these superfluous parts, even if we were
completely assured that they were such, would not vacate the reasoning
which we had instituted concerning other parts. The indication of
contrivance remained, with respect to them, nearly as it was before.
“IV. Nor, fourthly, would any man in his senses think the existence of
the watch, with its various machinery, accounted for, by being told
that it was one out of possible combinations of material forms; that
whatever he had found in the place where he found the watch, must have
contained some internal configuration or other; and that this
configuration might be the structure now exhibited, _viz._ of the
works of a watch, as well as of a different structure.
“V. Nor, fifthly, would it yield his enquiry more satisfaction to be
answered, that there existed in things a principle of order, which had
disposed the parts of the watch into their present form and situation.
He never knew a watch made by the principle of order; nor can he even
form to himself an idea of what is meant by a principle of order,
distinct from the intelligence of the watch-maker.
“VI. Sixthly, he would be surprised to hear, that the mechanism of the
watch was no proof of contrivance, only a motive to induce the mind to
think so.
“VII. And not less surprised to be informed, that the watch in his
hand was nothing more than the result of the laws of _metallic_
nature. It is a perversion of language to assign any law, as the
efficient, operative, cause of any thing. A law presupposes an agent;
for it is only the mode, according to which an agent proceeds: it
implies a power; for it is the order, according to which that power
acts. Without this agent, without this power, which are both distinct
from itself, the law does nothing; is nothing. The expression, ‘the
law of metallic nature,’ may sound strange and harsh to a philosophic
ear; but it seems quite as justifiable as some others which are more
familiar to him, such as ‘the law of vegetable nature,’ ‘the law of
animal nature,’ or indeed as ‘the law of nature’, in general, when
assigned as the cause of phænomena, in exclusion of agency and power;
or when it is substituted into the place of these.
“VIII. Neither, lastly, would our observer be driven out of his
conclusion, or from his confidence in its truth, by being told that he
knew nothing at all about the matter. He knows enough for his
argument. He knows the utility of the end: he knows the subserviency
and adaptation of the means to the end. These points being known, his
ignorance of other points, his doubts concerning other points, affect
not the certainty of his reasoning. The consciousness of knowing
little, need not beget a distrust of that which he does know.”——
“Suppose, in the next place, that the person who found the watch,
should, after some time, discover, that, in addition to all the
properties which he had hitherto observed in it, it possessed the
unexpected property of producing, in the course of its movement,
another watch like itself; (the thing is conceivable;) that it
contained within it a mechanism, a system of parts, a mould for
instance, or a complex adjustment of laths, files, and other tools,
evidently and separately calculated for this purpose; let us enquire,
what effect ought such a discovery to have upon his former conclusion!
“I. The first effect would be to increase his admiration of the
contrivance, and his conviction of the consummate skill of the
contriver. Whether he regarded the object of the contrivance, the
distinct apparatus, the intricate, yet in many parts intelligible,
mechanism by which it was carried on, he would perceive, in this new
observation, nothing but an additional reason for doing what he had
already done; for referring the construction of the watch to design,
and to supreme art. If that construction _without_ this property, or,
which is the same thing, before this property had been noticed, proved
intention and art to have been employed about it; still more strong
would the proof appear, when he came to the knowledge of this further
property, the crown and perfection of all the rest.
“II. He would reflect, that though the watch before him were, _in some
sense_, the maker of the watch, which was fabricated in the course of
its movements, yet it was in a very different sense from that, in
which a carpenter, for instance, is the maker of a chair; the author
of its contrivance, the cause of the relation of its parts to their
use. With respect to these, the first watch was no cause at all to the
second: in no such sense as this was it the author of the constitution
and order, either of the parts which the new watch contained, or of
the parts by the aid and instrumentality of which it was produced. We
might possibly say, but with great latitude of expression, that a
stream of water ground corn: but no latitude of expression would allow
us to say, no stretch of conjecture could lead us to think, that the
stream of water built the mill, though it were too ancient for us to
know who the builder was. What the stream of water does in the affair,
is neither more nor less than this: by the application of an
unintelligent impulse to a mechanism previously arranged, arranged
independently of it, and arranged by intelligence, an effect is
produced, _viz._ the corn is ground. But the effect results from the
arrangement. The force of the stream cannot be said to be the cause or
author of the effect, still less of the arrangement. Understanding and
plan in the formation of the mill were not the less necessary, for any
share which the water has in grinding the corn: yet is this share the
same, as that which the watch would have contributed to the production
of the new watch, upon the supposition assumed in the last section.
Therefore,
“III. Though it be now no longer probable, that the individual watch
which our observer had found, was made immediately by the hand of an
artificer, yet doth not this alteration in any wise affect the
inference that an artificer had been originally employed and concerned
in the production. The argument from design remains as it was. Marks
of design and contrivance are no more accounted for now, than they
were before. In the same thing, we may ask for the cause of different
properties. We may ask for the cause of the colour of a body, of its
hardness, of its heat; and these causes may be all different. We are
now asking for the cause of that subserviency to an use, that relation
to an end, which we have remarked in the watch before us. No answer is
given to this question by telling us that a preceding watch produced
it. There cannot be design without a designer; contrivance without a
contriver; order without choice; arrangement, without any thing
capable of arranging; subserviency and relation to a purpose, without
that which could intend a purpose; means suitable to an end, and
executing their office in accomplishing that end, without the end ever
having been contemplated, or the means accommodated to it.
Arrangement, disposition of parts, subserviency of means to an end,
relation of instruments to an use, imply the presence of intelligence
and mind. No one, therefore, can rationally believe, that the
insensible, inanimate watch, from which the watch before us issued,
was the proper cause of the mechanism we so much admire in it; could
be truly said to have constructed the instrument, disposed its parts,
assigned their office, determined their order, action, and mutual
dependency, combined their several motions into one result, and that
also a result connected with the utilities of other beings. All these
properties therefore, are as much unaccounted for as they were before.
“IV. Nor is any thing gained by running the difficulty further back,
_i. e._ by supposing the watch before us to have been produced by
another watch, that from a former, and so on indefinitely. Our going
back ever so far brings us no nearer to the least degree of
satisfaction upon the subject. Contrivance is still unaccounted for.
We still want a contriver. A designing mind is neither supplied by
this supposition, nor dispensed with. If the difficulty were
diminished the further we went back, by going back indefinitely we
might exhaust it. And this is the only case to which this sort of
reasoning applies. Where there is a tendency, or, as we increase the
number of terms, a continual approach towards a limit, _there_, by
supposing the number of terms to be what is called infinite, we may
conceive the limit to be attained: but where there is no such tendency
or approach, nothing is effected by lengthening the series. There is
no difference as to the point in question, (whatever there may be as
to many points) between one series and another; between a series which
is finite, and a series which is infinite. A chain composed of an
infinite number of links, can no more support itself, than a chain
composed of a finite number of links. And of this we are assured,
(though we never _can_ have tried the experiment) because, by
increasing the number of links, from ten for instance to a hundred,
from a hundred to a thousand, &c. we make not the smallest approach,
we observe not the smallest tendency, towards self-support. There is
no difference in this respect (yet there may be a great difference in
several respects) between a chain of a greater or less length, between
one chain and another, between one that is finite and one that is
indefinite. This very much resembles the case before us. The machine,
which we are inspecting, demonstrates, by its construction,
contrivance and design. Contrivance must have had a contriver; design,
a designer; whether the machine immediately proceeded from another
machine, or not. That circumstance alters not the case. That other
machine may, in like manner, have proceeded from a former machine: nor
does that alter the case: contrivance must have had a contriver. That
former one from one preceding it: no alteration still: a contriver is
still necessary. No tendency is perceived, no approach towards a
diminution of this necessity. It is the same with any and every
succession of these machines; a succession of ten, of a hundred, of a
thousand; with one series as with another; a series which is finite,
as with a series which is infinite. In whatever other respects they
may differ, in this they do not. In all equally, contrivance and
design are unaccounted for.
“The question is not simply, How came the first watch into existence?
which question, it may be pretended, is done away by supposing the
series of watches thus produced from one another to have been
infinite, and consequently to have had no such _first_, for which it
was necessary to provide a cause. This, perhaps, would have been
nearly the state of the question, if nothing had been before us but an
unorganized unmechanised substance, without mark or indication of
contrivance. It might be difficult to shew that such substance could
not have existed from eternity, either in succession (if it were
possible, which I think it is not, for unorganized bodies to spring
from one another,) or by individual perpetuity. But that is not the
question now. To suppose it to be so, is to suppose that it made no
difference whether we had found a watch or a stone. As it is, the
metaphysics of that question have no place; for, in the watch which we
are examining, are seen contrivance, design; an end, a purpose; means
for the end, adaptation to the purpose. And the question, which
irresistibly presses upon our thoughts, is, whence this contrivance
and design? The thing required is the intending mind, the adapting
hand, the intelligence by which that hand was directed. This question,
this demand, is not shaken off, by increasing a number or succession
of substances, destitute of these properties; nor the more, by
increasing that number to infinity. If it be said, that, upon the
supposition of one watch being produced from another in the course of
that other’s movements, and by means of the mechanism within it, we
have a cause for the watch in my hand, _viz._ the watch from which it
proceeded, I deny, that for the design, the contrivance, the
suitableness of means to an end, the adaptation of instruments to an
use (all which we discover in the watch,) we have any cause whatever.
It is in vain, therefore to assign a series of such causes, or to
allege that a series may be carried back to infinity; for I do not
admit that we have yet any cause at all of the phænomena, still less
any series of causes either finite or infinite. Here is contrivance,
but no contriver; proofs of design, but no designer.
“V. Our observer would further also reflect, that the maker of the
watch before him, was, in truth and reality, the maker of every watch
produced from it; there being no difference (except that the latter
manifests a more exquisite skill) between the making of another watch
with his own hands by the mediation of files, laths, chisels, &c. and
the disposing, fixing, and inserting, of these instruments, or of
others equivalent to them, in the body of the watch already made, in
such a manner, as to form a new watch in the course of the movements
which he had given to the old one. It is only working by one set of
tools, instead of another.
“The conclusion which the _first_ examination of the watch, of its
works, construction, and movement suggested, was, that it must have
had, for the cause and author of that construction, an artificer, who
understood its mechanism, and designed its use. This conclusion is
invincible. A _second_ examination presents us with a new discovery.
The watch is found in the course of its movement to produce another
watch similar to itself: and not only so, but we perceive in it a
system of organization, separately calculated for that purpose. What
effect would this discovery have, or ought it to have, upon our former
inference? What, as hath already been said, but to increase, beyond
measure, our admiration of the skill, which had been employed in the
formation of such a machine? Or shall it, instead of this, all at once
turn us round to an opposite conclusion, _viz._ that no art or skill
whatever has been concerned in the business, although all other
evidences of art and skill remain as they were, and this last and
supreme piece of art be now added to the rest? Can this be maintained
without absurdity? Yet this is atheism.”
PALEY.
Footnote 11:
“The works of nature want only to be contemplated. When contemplated,
they have every thing in them which can astonish by their greatness;
for, of the vast scale of operation, through which our discoveries
carry us, at one end we see an intelligent Power arranging planetary
systems, fixing, for instance, the trajectory of _Saturn_, or
constructing a ring of a hundred thousand miles diameter, to surround
his body, and be suspended like a magnificent arch over the heads of
his inhabitants; and, at the other, bending a hooked tooth, concerting
and providing an appropriate mechanism, for the clasping and
reclasping of the filaments of the feather of a humming-bird. We have
proof, not only of both these works proceeding from an intelligent
agent, but of their proceeding from the same agent: for, in the first
place, we can trace an identity of plan, a connexion of system, from
Saturn to our own globe; and when arrived upon our own globe, we can,
in the second place, pursue the connexion through all the organized,
especially the animated, bodies, which it supports. We can observe
marks of a common relation, as well to one another, as to the elements
of which their habitation is composed. Therefore one mind hath
planned, or at least hath prescribed a general plan for, all these
productions. One being has been concerned in all.
“Under this stupendous Being we live. Our happiness, our existence, is
in his hands. All we expect must come from him. Nor ought we to feel
our situation insecure. In every nature, and in every portion of
nature, which we can descry, we find attention bestowed upon even the
minutest parts. The hinges in the wings of an _earwig_, and the joints
of its antennæ, are as highly wrought, as if the Creator had had
nothing else to finish. We see no signs of diminution of care by
multiplicity of objects, or of distraction of thought by variety. We
have no reason to fear therefore, our being forgotten, or overlooked,
or neglected.
“The existence and character of the Deity, is, in every view, the most
interesting of all human speculations. In none, however, is it more
so, than as it facilitates the belief of the fundamental articles of
_Revelation_. It is a step to have it proved, that there must be
something in the world more than what we see. It is a further step to
know, that, amongst the invisible things of nature, there must be an
intelligent mind, concerned in its production, order, and support.
These points being assured to us by Natural Theology, we may well
leave to Revelation the disclosure of many particulars, which our
researches cannot reach, respecting either the nature of this Being as
the original cause of all things, or his character and designs as a
moral governor; and not only so, but the more full confirmation of
other particulars, of which, though they do not lie altogether beyond
our reasonings and our probabilities, the certainty is by no means
equal to the importance. The true Theist will be the first to listen
to _any_ credible communication of divine knowledge. Nothing which he
has learnt from Natural Theology, will diminish his desire of further
instruction, or his disposition to receive it with humility and
thankfulness. He wishes for light: he rejoices in light. His inward
veneration of this great Being, will incline him to attend with the
utmost seriousness, not only to all that can be discovered concerning
him by researches into nature, but to all that is taught by a
revelation, which gives reasonable proof of having proceeded from him.
“But, above every other article of revealed religion, does the
anterior belief of a Deity, bear with the strongest force, upon that
grand point, which gives indeed interest and importance to all the
rest—the resurrection of the human dead. The thing might appear
hopeless, did we not see a power under the guidance of an intelligent
will, and a power penetrating the inmost recesses of all substance. I
am far from justifying the opinion of those, who ‘thought it a thing
incredible that God should raise the dead;’ but I admit that it is
first necessary to be persuaded, that there _is_ a God to do so. This
being thoroughly settled in our minds, there seems to be nothing in
this process (concealed and mysterious as we confess it to be,) which
need to shock our belief. They who have taken up the opinion, that the
acts of the human mind depend upon _organization_, that the mind
itself indeed consists in organization, are supposed to find a greater
difficulty than others do, in admitting a transition by death to a new
state of sentient existence, because the old organization is
apparently dissolved. But I do not see that any impracticability need
be apprehended even by these; or that the change, even upon their
hypothesis, is far removed from the analogy of some other operations,
which we know with certainty that the deity is carrying on. In the
ordinary derivation of plants and animals from one another, a
particle, in many cases, minuter than all assignable, all conceivable
dimension; an aura, an effluvium, an infinitesimal; determines the
organization of a future body: does no less than fix, whether that
which is about to be produced, shall be a vegetable, a merely
sentient, or a rational being; an oak, a frog, or a philosopher; makes
all these differences; gives to the future body its qualities, and
nature, and species. And this particle, from which springs, and by
which is determined a whole future nature, itself proceeds from, and
owes its constitution to, a prior body: nevertheless, which is seen in
plants most decisively, the incepted organization, though formed
within, and through, and by a preceding organization, is not corrupted
by its corruption, or destroyed by its dissolution; but, on the
contrary, is sometimes extricated and developed by those very causes;
survives and comes into action, when the purpose, for which it was
prepared, requires its use.—Now an œconomy which nature has adopted,
when the purpose was to transfer an organization from one individual
to another, may have something analogous to it, when the purpose is to
transmit an organization from one state of being to another state: and
they who found thought in organization, may see something in this
analogy applicable to their difficulties; for, whatever can transmit a
similarity of organization will answer their purpose, because,
according even to their own theory, it may be the vehicle of
consciousness, and because consciousness, without doubt, carries
identity and individuality along with it through all changes of form
or of visible qualities. In the most general case, that, as we have
said, of the derivation of plants and animals from one another, the
latent organization is either itself similar to the old organization,
or has the power of communicating to new matter the old organic form.
But it is not restricted to this rule. There are other cases,
especially in the progress of insect life, in which the dormant
organization does not much resemble that which incloses it, and still
less suits with the situation in which the inclosing body is placed,
but suits with a different situation to which it is destined. In the
larva of the libellula, which lives constantly, and has still long to
live, under water, are descried the wings of a fly, which two years
afterwards is to mount into the air. Is there nothing in this analogy?
It serves at least to shew, that, even in the observable course of
nature, organizations are formed one beneath another; and, amongst a
thousand other instances, it shews completely, that the Deity can
mould and fashion the parts of material nature, so as to fulfil any
purpose whatever which he is pleased to appoint.
“They who refer the operations of mind to a substance totally and
essentially different from matter, as, most certainly, these
operations, though affected by material causes, hold very little
affinity to any properties of matter with which we are acquainted,
adopt, perhaps, a juster reasoning and a better philosophy; and by
these the considerations above suggested are not wanted, at least in
the same degree. But to such as find, which some persons do find, an
insuperable difficulty in shaking off an adherence to those analogies,
which the corporeal world is continually suggesting to their thoughts;
to such, I say, every consideration will be a relief, which manifests
the extent of that intelligent power which is acting in nature, the
fruitfulness of its resources, the variety, and aptness, and success
of its means; most especially every consideration, which tends to
shew, that, in the translation of a conscious existence, there is not,
even in their own way of regarding it, any thing greatly beyond, or
totally unlike, what takes place in such parts (probably small parts)
of the order of nature, as are accessible to our observation.