THE ARGUMENT APPLIED. 41 



CHAPTER lY. 



ON THE SUCCESSION OF PLANTS AND AN[- 



MALS. 



The generation of the animal no more accounts for the 

 contrivance of the eye or ear, than, upon the supposition 

 stated in a preceding chapter, the production of a watch 

 by the motion and mechanism of a former watch, would ac- 

 count for the skill and attention evidenced in the watch so 

 produced — than it would account for the disposition of the 

 wheels, the catcliing of their teeth, the relation of the sev- 

 eral parts of the works to one another, and to their common 

 end — for the suitableness of their forms and places to theii 

 offices, for their comiection, their operation, and the useful 

 result of that operation. I do insist most strenuously upon 

 the correctness of this comparison ; that it holds as to every 

 mode of specific propagation ; and that whatever was true 

 of the watch, under the hypothesis above-mentioned, is true 

 of plants and aiiimals. 



I. To begin with the fructification of plants. Can it be 

 doubted but that the seed contains a particular organization ? 

 Whether a latent plantule with the means of temporary nu- 

 trition, or whatever else it be, it encloses an organization 

 suited to the germination of a new plant. Has the plant 

 which produced the seed any thing more to do with that 

 organization, than the watch would have had to do with the 

 structure of the watch which was produced in the course of 

 its mechariical movement ? I mean. Has it any thing at 

 all to do with the contrivance ? The maker and contriver 

 of one watch, when he inserted within it a mechanism^ suit- 

 ed to the production of another watch, was, in truth, the 

 maker and contriver of that other watch. All the proper- 

 ties of the new watch were to be referred to his agency : the 

 design manifested in it, to his intention ; the art, to him as 

 the artist ; the collocation of each part, to his placing ; the 



