42 APPLICATION OF THE ARGUMENT CONTINUED, 



is not universal ; \vhich it would be, if it issued from a con- 

 stant and necessary principle; nor indiscriminate, which iti 

 would be, if it issued from an unintelligent principle. Where 

 order is wanted, there we find it ; where order is not want- 

 ed, i. e. where, if it prevailed, it would be useless, there we 

 do not find it. In the structure of the eye (for we adhere to 

 our example,) in the figure and position of its several parts, 

 the most exact order is maintained. In the forms of rocks 

 and m.ountains, in the lines which bound the coasts of con- 

 tinents and islands, in the shape of bays and promontories^ 

 no order "hatever is perceived, because it wotdd have been 

 superflu as. No useful purpose would have arisen from 

 moulding rocks and mountains into regular solids, bound- 

 ing the channel of the ocean by geometrical curves, or 

 from the map of the world resembling a table of diagrams 

 in Euclid's Elements, or Simpson's Conic Sections 



VII. Lastly, the confidence which we place in our ob- 

 servations upon the works of nature, in the marks which 

 we discover of contrivance, choice, and design, and in our 

 reasoning upon the proofs afforded us, ought not to be sha- 

 ken, as it is sometimes attempted to he done by bringing 

 forward to our view our own ignorance, or rather, the gen- 

 eral imperfection of our knowledge of nature. Nor, in 

 many cases, ought this consideration to affect us, even 

 when it respects some parts of the subject immediately un- 

 der our notice. True fortitude of understanding consists in 

 not suffering what v;e know to be disturbed by what we 

 do not know. If we perceive an useful end, and means 

 adapted to that end, we perceive enough for our conclusion. 

 If these things be clear, no matter what is obscure. The 

 argument is finished. For instance ; if the utility of vision 

 to the animal which enjoys it, and the adaptation of the 

 rye to this office be evident and certain (and I can mention 

 nothing that is more so,) ought it to prejudice the inference 

 ^vhich we draw from these premises, that we cannot ex- 

 plain the use of the spleen 1 Nay more ; if there be parts 

 of the eye, viz. the cornea, the crystalline, the retina, in 

 their substance, figure, and position, manifestly suited to 

 the formation of an image by the refraction of rays of light, 

 at least as manifestly as the glasses and tubes of a dioptric 

 telescope are suited to that purpose, it concerns not the 

 proof which these afford of design and of a designer, that 

 there may perhaps be other parts, certain muscles, for in- 

 stance, or nerves, in the same eye, of the agency or effect 

 of which we can give no account: any more than we 



