18 NATURAL THEOLOGi'. 



of contrivance. It might be difficult to show that such sub 

 stance could not have existed from eternity, either in suc- 

 cession — if it were possible, which I think it is not, for unor- 

 ganized 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 that it made no difference whether 

 he 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 contrivance, design, an end, a pur- 

 pose, means for the end, adaptation to the purpose. And 

 the question which irresistibly presses upon our thoughts is. 

 Whence this contrivance and design ? The thing required 

 is the intending mind, the adapted hand, the intelligence by 

 which that hand was directed. Tliis question, this demand, 

 is not shaken off by increasing a number or succession of 

 substances destitute of these properties ; nor the more, by 

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

 the supposition 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, namely, the 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 a use, all ol 

 which we discover hi the 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 ; foi 

 I do not admit that we have yet any cause at all for the 

 phenomena, still less any series of causes either finite or infi- 

 i^ite. Here is contrivance, but no contriver ; proofs of design, 

 but no designer. 



V. Our observer would farther 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 dif- 

 ference, except that the latter manifests a more exquisite 

 skill, between the making of another watch with his own 

 hands, by the mediation of files, lathes, chisels, etc., and ih.9 



