We think it next to impossible for a candid unbeliever to read the
Evidences of Paley, in their proper order, unshaken. His Natural
Theology will open the heart, that it may understand, or at least
receive the Scriptures, if any thing can. It is philosophy in its
highest and noblest sense; scientific, without the jargon of science;
profound, but so clear that its depth is disguised. There is nothing
of the "budge Doctor" here; speculations which will convince, if aught
will, that "in the beginning _God_ created the heaven and the earth,"
are made familiar as household words. They are brought home to the
experience of every man, the most ordinary observer on the facts of
nature with which he is daily conversant. A thicker clothing, for
instance, is provided in winter for that tribe of animals which are
covered with _fur_. Now, in these days, such an assertion would be
backed by an appeal to some learned Rabbi of a Zoological Society,
who had written a deep pamphlet, upon what he would probably call the
_Theory of Hair_. But to whom does Paley refer us? To any dealer in
rabbit skins. The curious contrivance in the bones of birds, to unite
strength with lightness, is noticed. The bore is larger, in proportion
to the weight of the bone, than in other animals; it is empty; the
substance of the bone itself is of a closer texture. For these facts,
any "operative" would quote Sir Everard Home, or Professor Cuvier,
by way of giving a sort of philosophical éclat to the affair, and
throwing a little learned dust in the eyes of the public. Paley,
however, advises you to make your own observations when you happen to
be engaged in the scientific operation of picking the leg or wing of a
chicken. The very singular correspondence between the two sides of any
animal, the right hand answering to the left, and so on, is touched
upon, as a proof of a contriving Creator, and a very striking one it
is. Well! we have a long and abstruse problem in chances worked out to
show that it was so many millions, and so many odd thousands to one,
that accident could not have produced the phenomenon; not a bit of it.
Paley, who was probably scratching his head at the moment, offers
no other confirmation of his assertion, than that it is the most
difficult thing in the world to get a _wig made even_, seldom as it is
that the _face_ is made awry. The circulation of the blood, and the
provision for its getting from the heart to the extremities, and back
again, affords a singular demonstration of the Maker of the body being
an admirable Master both of mechanics and hydrostatics. But what is
the language in which Paley talks of this process?--technical?--that
mystical nomenclature of Diaforius, which frightens country patients
out of their wits, thinking, as they very naturally do, that a disease
must be very horrid which involves such very horrid names? Hear our
anatomist from Giggleswick.
"The aorta of a whale is larger in the bore than the main-pipe of the
water-works at London Bridge; and the roaring in the passage through
that pipe is inferior, in impetus and velocity, to the blood gushing
from the whale's heart."
He cares not whence he fetches his illustrations, provided they are to
the purpose. The laminae of the feathers of birds are kept together by
teeth that hook into one another, "as a _latch_ enters into the catch,
and fastens a door." The eyes of the mole are protected by being very
small, and buried deep in a cushion of skin, so that the apertures
leading to them are like _pin-holes in a piece of velvet_, scarcely
pervious to loose particles of earth. The snail without wings, feet,
or thread, adheres to a stalk by a provision of _sticking-plaster_.
The lobster, as he grows, is furnished with a way of uncasing himself
of his buckler, and drawing his legs out of _his boots_ when they
become too small for him.
In this unambitious manner does Paley prosecute his high theme,
drawing, as it were, philosophy from the clouds. But it is not
merely the fund of entertaining knowledge which the Natural Theology
contains, or the admirable address displayed in the adaption of it,
which fits it for working conviction; the "sunshine of the breast,"
the cheerful spirit with which its benevolent author goes on his way
([Greek: kudei gaion],) this it is that carries the coldest reader
captive, and constrains him to confess within himself, and even in
spite of himself, "it is good for me to be here."
...We mourn over the leaves of our peaches and plum-trees, as they
wither under a blight. What does Paley see in this? A legion of
animated beings (for such is a _blight_) claiming their portion of
the bounty of Nature, and made happy by our comparatively trifling
privation, We are tortured by bodily _pain_,--Paley himself was so,
even at the moment that he was thus nobly vindicating God's wisdom
and ways. What of that? Pain is not the object of contrivance--no
anatomist ever dreamt of explaining any organ of the body on the
principle of the thumb screw; it is itself productive of good; it
is seldom both violent, and long continued; and then its pauses and
intermissions become positive pleasures. "It has the power of shedding
a satisfaction over intervals of ease, which I believe," says this
true philosopher, "few enjoyments exceed." The returns of an hospital
in his neighbourhood lie before him. Does he conjure up the images of
Milton's lazar-house, and sicken at the spectacle of human suffering?
No--he finds the admitted 6,420--the dead, 234--the _cured_, 5,476;
his eye settles upon the last, and he is content.
There is nothing in the world which has not more handles than one; and
it is of the greatest consequence to get a habit of taking hold by the
best. The bells speak as we make them; "how many a tale their music
tells!" Hogarth's industrious apprentice might hear in them that he
should be "Lord Mayor of London"--the idle apprentice that he should
be hanged at Tyburn. The landscape looks as we see it; if we go to
meet a friend, every distant object assumes his shape--
"In great and small, and round and square,
'Tis Johnny, Johnny, every where."
Crabbe's lover passed over the very same heath to his mistress and
from her; yet as he went, all was beauty--as he returned all was
blank. The world does not more surely provide different kinds of food
for different animals, than it furnishes doubts to the sceptic and
hopes to the believer, as he takes it. The one, in an honest and good
heart, pours out the box of ointment on a Saviour's head--the other,
in the pride of his philosophy, only searches into it for a dead
fly.--_Q. Rev._
* * * * *
"ALL FOR THE BEST."
When Bernard Gilpin was summoned up to London to give an account of
himself and his creed before Bonner, he chanced to break his leg on
the way; and, on some persons retorting upon him a favourite saying
of his own, "that nothing happens to us but what is intended for our
good," and asking him whether it was for his good that he had broken
his leg, he answered, "that he made no question but it was." And so it
turned out, for before he was able to travel again, Queen Mary died,
and he was set at liberty.
* * * * *
Men keep their word simply because it is _right_ to do so. They feel
it is right, and ask no further questions. Conscience carries along
with it its own authority--its own credentials. The depraved appetites
may rebel against it, but they are aware that it is rebellion.--_Q.
Rev._
* * * * *