10 STATE OF THE ARGUMENT, 



corn : yet is this share the same, as that which the watcli 

 would have contriDuted to the production of the new watch., 

 upon the supposition assumed in the last section. There- 

 fore, 



III. Though it be now no longer probable, that the 

 individual watch which our observer had found was made 

 immediately by the hand of an artificer, yet doth not this 

 alteration in any wise affect the inference, that an artificer 

 had been originally employed and concerned in the pro- 

 duction. The argument from design remains as it was, 

 Marks of design and contrivance are no more accounted 

 for now, than they were before. In the same thing, we 

 may ask for the cause of different properties. We may 

 ask for the cause of the colour of a body, of its hardness, of 

 its heat ; and these causes may be all different. We are 

 now asking for the cause of that subserviency to an use^ 

 that relation to an end, which we have remarked in the 

 watch before us. No answer is given to this question by 

 telling us that a preceding watch produced it. There can- 

 not be design without a designer ; contrivance without a 

 contriver ; order v.ithout choice ; arrangement, without 

 any thing capable of arranging; subserviency and relation 

 to a purpose, without that which could intend a purpose ; 

 means suitable to an end, and, executing their office in 

 accomplishing that end, without the end ever having been 

 contemplated, or the means accommodated to it. Arrange- 

 ment, disposition of parts, subserviency of means to an end, 

 relation of instruments to an use, imply the presence of in- 

 telligence and mind. No one, therefore can rationally be- 

 lieve, that the insensible, inanimate watch, from which the 

 watch before us issued, Vv'as the proper cause of the me- 

 chanism we so much admire in it ; could be truly said to 

 have constructed the instrument, disposed its parts, assign- 

 ed their office, determined their order, action, and mutual 

 dependency, combined their several motions into one re- 

 sult, and that also a result connected with the utilities of 

 other beings. All these properties, therefore, are as much 

 miaccounted for, as they were before. 



IV. Nor is any thing gained by running the difficulty 

 farther back, i, e. by supposing the watch before us to have 

 been produced from another watch, that from a former, 

 and so on indefinitely. Our going back ever so far brings 

 us no nearer to the least degree of satisfaction upon the 

 subject. Contrivance is still unaccounted for. We still 

 want a contriver. A designing mind is neither supplied 



