EVOLUTIONARY TELEOLOGY. 363 



But, surely, all human doings are not "products 

 of design;" many are contingent or accidental. And 

 why not suppose that the tinder of the watch, or 

 of the watch- wheel, infers both design and human 

 workmanship ? The two are mutually exclusive only 

 on the supposition that man alone is a designer, 

 which is simply begging the question in discussion. 

 If the watch-finder's attention had been arrested by 



not rest on it. His matured convictions appear to be expressed in 

 statements such as the following, here cited at second hand from Jack- 

 son's " Philosophy of Natural Theology," a volume to which a friend 

 has just called our attention: 



" Though the stupidity of men," writes Hume, " barbarous and un- 

 instructed, be so great that they may not see a sovereign author in the 

 more obvious works of Nature, to which they are so much familiarized, 

 yet it scarce seems possible that any one of good understanding should 

 reject that idea, when once it is suggested to him. A purpose, an in- 

 tention, a design, is evident in everything ; and when our comprehen- 

 sion is so far enlarged as to contemplate the first rise of this visible 

 system, we must adopt, with the strongest conviction, the idea of some 

 intelligent cause or author. The uniform maxims, too, which prevail 

 throughout the whole frame of the universe, naturally, if not neces- 

 sarily, lead us to conceive this intelligence as single and undivided, 

 where the prejudices of education oppose not so reasonable a theory. 

 Even the contrarieties of Nature, by discovering themselves every- 

 where, become proofs of some consistent plan, and establish one single 

 purpose or intention, however inexplicable and incomprehensible." — 

 (" Natural History of Religion," xv.) 



" In many views of the universe, and of its parts, particularly the 

 latter, the beauty and fitness of final causes strike us with such irre- 

 sistible force that all objections appear (what I believe they really are) 

 mere cavils and sophisms." — (" Dialogues concerning Natural Religion," 

 Part X.) 



" The order and arrangement of Nature, the curious adjustment of 

 final causes, the plain use and intention of every part and organ, all 

 these bespeak in the clearest language an intelligent cause or author." 

 —{Ibid., Part IV.) 



