THE ARaUMENT APPLIED. 35 



the occasion — for nature with great steaditiess adheres to 

 and supports them — but it is, as we have seen in the eye, 

 by the interposition of an apparatus corresponding with these 

 laws, and suited to the exigency which results from them, 

 that the purpose is at length attained. As we have said. 

 Iherefore, God prescribes limits to his power, that he may 

 !et in the exercise and thereby exhibit demonstrations of his 

 wisdom. For then — that is, such laws and limitations being 

 laid down — it is as though one Being should have fixed cer- 

 tain rules, and, if Ave may so speak, provided certain mate- 

 rials, and afterwards have committed to another Being, 

 out of these materials, and in subordination to these rules, 

 the task of drawing forth a creation : a supposition which 

 evidently leaves room and induces indeed a necessity for con- 

 trivance. Nay, there may be many such agents, and many 

 ranks of these. We do not advance this as a doctrine either 

 of philosophy or of religion ; but we say that the subject may 

 safely be represented under this view, because the Deity, 

 acting himself by general laws, will have the same conse- 

 quences upon our reasoning as if he had prescribed these 

 laws to another. It has been said, that the problem of crea- 

 tion was, " attraction and matter being given, to make a 

 world out of them ;" and, as above explamed, this statement 

 perhaps does not convey a false idea. 



We have mad) choice of the eye as an instance upon 

 which to rest the argument of this chapter. Some smgle 

 example was to be proposed, and the eye offered itself un- 

 'ler the advantage of admitting of a strict comparison with 

 optical instruments. The ear, it is probable, is no less arti- 

 ficially and mechanically adapted to its office than the eye. 

 Bu t we know less about it ; we do not so well understand 

 the action, the use, or the mutual dependency of its internal 

 parts. Its general form however, both external and inter- 

 nal, is sufficient to show that it is an instrument adapted 

 to the reception of sound; that is to say, already knowing 

 that soimd consists in pulses of the air, we perceive in the 



