LOUIS AGASSIZ AND GEORGE BERKELEY 337 



watch happened to be in that place, I should hardly think of the 

 answer which I had before given. Yet why should not this 

 answer serve for the watch, as well as for the stone ? Why is it 

 not as admissible in the second case as in the first? For this 

 reason, and for no other ; viz. that when we come to inspect the 

 watch we perceive (what we could not discover in the stone) 

 that its several parts are framed and put together for a purpose, 

 e.g. that they are so formed and adjusted as to produce motion, 

 and that motion so regulated as to point out the , hour of the 

 day." 



Whether it is or is not possible to prove intention without 

 proving contrivance, I do not believe one can read a dozen pages 

 of Paley or of any other English writer on natural theology, 

 without finding that they fail to draw any such distinction; and 

 while the question what they believed may have only an histori- 

 cal interest, it is important to note that the point of view has 

 changed. 



We have seen that, like Paley, even Berkeley is not always 

 consistent; but as his earlier works are by far the clearest and 

 at the same time the most profound of all the writings on natural 

 theology, I have tried to set forth his reasoning in the clearest 

 way I can command in the space at my disposal; although I 

 hope no one who does not know Berkeley at first hand will be 

 contented with my summary; for his beautiful essays and dia- 

 logues are no small part of our birthright in English literature. 



In my opinion, however, the modern zoologist who studies 

 Berkeley must also ask whether natural selection, so far as it 

 accounts for living things and their works and ways, does not, 

 in the same measure, account for language; both that which men 

 use among themselves, and that which we find in nature. 



The teleologist of our day is brought face to face with the 

 question, What if we should some time find that we know no 

 contrivances and no contrivers, except those that are part of the 

 chain of natural causation ? Unless he can show that this never 

 can be proved, by proving its reverse, is it not clear that he must 

 abandon his search for intention, or seek it elsewhere than in 

 the contrivance of nature ? 



Is it not, when all is said, illogical to seek a supernatural basis 



