MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 



921 



cause at all for the phaenoraena, still once turn us round to an opposite 

 less any series of causes, either finite conchision, viz. that no art or skill 



whatever has been concerned in the 

 Inisiness, although all other evi- 

 dences 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 with- 

 out absurdity ? Yet this is atheism. 



or infinite. Here is contrivance, 

 but no contriver : proofs of design, 

 but no designer. 



5. Our observer would further 

 also reflect, that the maker of the 

 M^atch 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 skillj 

 between the making of another 

 watch with his own hands, by the 

 jEodiation of files, laths, chisels, kc. 

 and the disposing, fixing, and in- 

 serting, 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 move- 

 ments which he had given to the 



old one. It is only Avorking by one 



set of tools instead of another. 

 The conclusion -^^ hich 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 artificrr, who un- 



tlerstood its meclianism, and de- 

 signed its use. This conclusion is 



invincible. A second examination 



presents us ■with a new discoveiy. 



The watch is found, in the course of 



its movement, to produce another 



watch, similar to itself: and not 



only so, but we pc rceive in it a sys. 



tern of organization, separately cal- 

 culated for that purpose. What 



ctfcct would this discovery hiive, or 



eight it to have, upon our former 



inference? What, as hath already be dismissed and forbidden ever to 



been said, but to incrfase, beyond return to the cliarge. 



Vieu of Manners and Societj) in Hoi' 

 land, in three Papers, translated 

 from the Dutch Spectator, a cek' 

 brated Periodical Work, and en- 

 titled, " Natural Courtship." 



In my earliest youth I experienced 

 in myself,as well as in my compani- 

 ons, during that blossom of life, that 

 those who had their share of wit 

 were so wonderfully vain of it, as 

 to suppose it to be the pivot ou 

 which all society turns, and that no- 

 thing can be well executed without 

 it. 



Full of these thoughts, I often 

 considered how peasants, labourers, 

 handicraft-men, in short, stupid and 

 ignorant fellows, when they were 

 in love, could manage so as to ac- 

 quaint the object of their love witfi 

 their inclinations ; and to make such 

 communication agreeable. A de- 

 claration of love, of which 1 had 

 read many adorned and pleasant 

 specimens in novels and tales of gal- 

 lantry, appeared to me as a master- 

 piece of human uiulerstanding, and 

 I imagined that a lover, who in this 

 H'spect acquitted himself uncouthly 

 and clownishly, would immediately 



measure, our admiration of the 

 tkill which had been fmi)l()yod iu 

 the formation of such a machine ? 

 Or shall it, instead of this, all at 



I obtained some knowledge of 

 artless courtship whilst on a visit in 

 a nobleman, at his country house : 

 during my stay, a fair was held at 



Lh^' 



