34 NATURAL THEOLOaY. 



tiling proposed, could not a simple volition of the Creator 

 have communicated the capacity ? Why resort to contriv- 

 ance where power is omnipotent ? Contrivance, hy its very 

 definition and nature, is the refuge of imperfection. To 

 have recourse to expedients implies difficulty, impediment, 

 restraint, defect of power. This question belongs to the other 

 genses as well as to sight ; to the general functions of ani- 

 mal life, as nutrition, secretion, respiration ; to the economy 

 of vegetables — and indeed to almost all the operations of 

 nature. The question, therefore, is of very wide extent ; and 

 among other answers which may be given to it, besides 

 reasons of which probably we are ignorant, one answer is 

 this : It is only by the display of contrivance that the ex- 

 istence, the agency, the wisdom of the Deity could be testi- 

 fied to his rational creatures. This is the scale by which we 

 ascend to all the knowledge of our Creator which we possess, 

 so far as it depends upon the phenomena or the works of 

 nature. Take away this, and you take away from us every 

 subject of observation and ground of reasoning ; I mean, as 

 our rational faculties are formed at present. Whatever is 

 done, God could have done without the intervention of in- 

 struments or means ; but it is in the construction of instru- 

 ments, in the choice and- adaptation of means, that a crea- 

 tive intelligence is seen. It is this which constitutes the 

 order and beauty of the universe. God, therefore, has been 

 pleased to prescribe limits to his own power, and to work his 

 ends within those limits. The general laws of matter have 

 perhaps prescribed the nature of these limits ; its inertia ; its 

 reaction ; the laws which govern the communication of mo- 

 tion, the refraction and reflection of light, and the constitu- 

 tion of fluids non-elastic and elastic, the transmission of 

 srand through the latter ; the laws of magnetism, of electri- 

 city, and probably others yet undiscovered. These are gen- 

 eral laws ; and when a particular purpose is to be eflected. 

 it is not by making a new law, nor by the suspension of the 

 old ones, nor by making them wind and bend, and yield tc 



