DESIGN VERSUS NECESSITY. 73 



and so affords a presumption for the rest, on the side 

 of design. For you seem to assume an actor, a design- 

 er, accomplishing his design in the first instance. You 

 — a bystander — infer that the player effected his de- 

 sign in sending the first hall to the pocket before him. 

 You infer this from observation alone. Must you not 

 from a continuance of the same observation equally 

 infer a common design of the two players in the com- 

 plex result, or a design of one of them to frustrate the 

 design of the other ? If you grant a designing actor, 

 the presumption of design is as strong, or upon con- 

 tinued observation of instances soon becomes as strong, 

 in regard to the deflection of the balls, or variation of 

 the species, as it was for the result of the first impulse 

 or for the production of the original animal, etc. 



But, in the case to be illustrated, we do not see the 

 player. We see only the movement of the balls. 

 Now, if the contrivances and adaptations referred to 

 (p. 229) really do " prove a designer as much as the 

 palace or the watch proves an architect or a watch- 

 maker " — as Paley and Bell argue, and as your skeptic 

 admits, while the alternative is between design and 

 chance — then they prove it with all the proof the case 

 is susceptible of, and with complete conviction. For 

 we cannot doubt that the watch had a watchmaker. 

 And if they prove it on the supposition that the unseen 

 operator acted immediately — i. e., that the player di- 

 rectly impelled the balls in the directions we see them 

 moving, I insist that this proof is not impaired by our 

 ascertaining that he acted mediately — i. e., that the 

 present state or form of the plants or animals, like 

 the present position of the billiard-balls, resulted from 



