GOD IN NATURE 201 



absence of any share of consciousness, or of sensibility, or of 

 will, is one part of our very conception of it. But that other 

 part of our conception of a machine which consists in its 

 relation to a contriver and constructor is equally essential, 

 and may, if we choose, be separated from the rest, and may 

 be taken as a representative of the whole. If, then, by any 

 agency in nature, or outside of it, which can contrive and 

 build up structures endowed with the gifts of life ; structures 

 which shall not only digest but which shall also feel and see ; 

 which shall be sensible of enjoyment from things condu 

 cive to their welfare, and of alarm on account of things 

 which are dangerous to the same then such structures 

 have the same relation to that agency which machines have 

 to man ; and in this aspect it may be a legitimate figure 

 of speech to call them living machines. What these 

 machines do is different in kind from the things which 

 human machines do, but both are alike in this that what 

 ever they do is done in virtue of their construction and of 

 the powers which have been given to them by the mind 

 which made them. 



Lastly, the reason of man himself is an actual 

 illustration of mind and will as an efficient power in 

 nature, and implies a creative mind. We cannot 

 imagine the development of reason from that which has 

 no reason, and must admit that only the inspiration 

 of the Almighty could have given understanding. 

 The inherent absurdity of the evolution of powers 

 and properties from things in which they are not even 

 potentially contained appears nowhere more clearly 

 than here. The subject is, however, sufficiently im 

 portant to demand a separate chapter. 



