1:1 STATE OP THE ARGUMENT. 



fliiced from one another to have been infinite, and consc- 

 «iuently to liave had no such /?r.s^, for which it was neces- 

 >«ary to provide a cause. This, perhaps, would have been 

 nearly the stateof the question if nothing had been before 

 us, but an unorganized, unmechanized substance, without 

 mark or indication of contrivance. It might be difficult to 

 .>^how that such substance could not have existed from eter- 

 nity, either in succession (if it were possible, which I think 

 it is not, for unorganized bodies to spring from one another,) 

 or by individual perpetuity. But that is not the question 

 now. To suppose it to be so, is to suppose timt it made 

 no difference whether we had found a watch or a stone. 

 As it is, the metaphysics of that question have no place ; 

 for, in the watch which we are examining, are seen con- 

 trivance, design ; an end, a purpose , means for the 

 end, adaptation to the purpose. And the question, which 

 irresistibl} presses upon our thoughts, is, whence this con- 

 trivance and design ? The thing required is the intending 

 mind, the adapting hand, the intelligence by which that 

 hand was directed. This question, this demand, is not 

 shaken off, by increasing a number of succession of sub- 

 stances, destitute of these properties; nor the more, by in- 

 creasing that number to infinity. If it be said, that, upon 

 the sup})osition of one watch being produced from another 

 in the course of that other's movements, and by means of 

 the mechanism within it, we have a cause for the watch in 

 my hand, viz. tlie watch from which it proceeded, I deny, 

 that for the design, the contrivance, the suitableness of means 

 to an end, the adaptation of instruments to an use (all 

 which we discover in a watch,) we have any cause what- 

 ever. It is in vain, therefore, to assign a series of such 

 causes, or to allege that a series may be carried back to 

 infinity ; fvir I do not admit tiiat we have yet any cause at 

 all for the phenomena, still less any series of causes either 

 finite or infinite. Here is contrivance, but no contriver; 

 proofs of design, but no designer. 



V. Our observpr would further also reflect, that the mak- 

 er of the watch 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 ex- 

 quisite skill,) between the making of another watch with 

 his own hands by the mediation of files, lathes, chisels, &c. 

 and the disposinj, fixing, and inserting, of these instru* 

 ments, or of others equivalent to them, in the body of the 

 watch already mn.de, in such a manner, as to form a new 



