240 OF THE PERSONALITY OF THE DEITY. 



ing, by intermediate, and, frequently, by sensible steps, to 

 their ultimate result. Yet, because the whole of this com- 

 plicated action is wrapped up in a single term , generation^ 

 we are to set it down as an elementary principle ; and to 

 suppose, that, when we have resolved the things which we 

 see into this principle, we have sufficiently accounted for 

 their origin, without the necessity of a designing, intelli- 

 gent Creator. The truth is, generation is not a principle, 

 but di process. We might as well call the casting of metals 

 a principle ; we might, so far as appears to me, as well call 

 spinning and weaving principles ; and then, referring the 

 texture of cloths, the fabric of muslins and calicoes, the 

 patterns of diapers and damasks, to these as principles, 

 pretend to dispense with intention, thought, and contrivance, 

 on the part of the artist ; or to dispense, indeed, with the 

 necessity of any artist at all either in the manufacturing of 

 the article, or in the fabrication of the machinery by which 

 the manufactory was carried on. 



And, after all, how, or in what sense, is it true, that 

 animals produce their like 1 A butterfly, with a proboscis 

 instead of a mouth, with four wings and six legs, produces 

 a hairy caterpillar, with jaws and teeth, and fourteen feet. 

 A frog produces a tadpole. A black beetle, with gauze 

 wings and a crusty covering, produces a white, smooth, 

 soft worm ; an ephemeron fly, a cod-bait maggot. These, 

 by a progress through different stages of life, and action, 

 and enjoyment, (and, in each state, provided with imple- 

 ments and organs appropriated to the temporary nature 

 which they bear,) arrive at last at the form and fashion of 

 the parent animal. But all this is process, not principle ; 

 and proves, moreover, that the property of animated bodies 

 of producing their like, belongs to them, not as a primordial 

 property, not by any blind necessity in the nature of things, 

 but as the effect of economy, wisdom, and design ; because 

 the property itself assumes diversities, and submits to devia- 

 tions, dictated by intelligible utilities, and serving distinct 

 purposes of animal happiness. 



The opinion which would consider " generation" as a 

 principle in nature ; and which would assign this principle 

 as a cause, or endeavour to satisfy our minds with such a 

 cause of the existence of organized bodies, is confuted, in 

 my judgment, not only by every mark of contrivance dis- 

 coverable in those bodies for which it gives us no contriver, 

 offers no account whatever ; but also by the further consid- 

 eration, that things generated possess a clear relation to 



