268 NATURAL THEOLOaY. 



been asked, namely, "Why, since some other thing must have 

 existed from eternity, may not the present universe be that 

 something ? The contrivance perceived in it proves that to 

 be impossible. Nothing contrived can, in a strict and proper 

 sense, be eternal, forasmuch as the contriver must have exist^ 

 ej before the contrivance. 



Wherever we see marks of contrivance, we are led for its 

 cause to an intelligent author. And this transition of the 

 understanding is founded upon uniform experience. We see 

 intelligence constantly contriving ; that is, we see intelligence 

 constantly producing eiTects, marked and distinguished by 

 certain properties — not certain particular properties, but by 

 a kind and class of properties, such as relation to an end 

 relation of parts to one another and to a common purpose. 

 We see, wherever we are witnesses to the actual formation 

 of things, nothing except intelligence producing effects so 

 marked and distinguished. Furnished with this experience, 

 we view the productions of nature. We observe them also 

 marked and distinguished in the same manner. We wish 

 to account for their origin. Our experience suggests a cause 

 perfectly adequate to this account. No experience, no single 

 instance or example, can be offered in favor of any other. 

 In this cause, therefore, we ought to rest ; in this cause the 

 common-sense of mankind has, in fact, rested, because it 

 agrees with that which in all cases is the foundation of 

 knowledge — the undeviating course of their experience. The 

 reasoning is the same as that by which we conclude any 

 ancient appearances to have been the effects of volcanoes or 

 inundations, namely, because they resemble the effects which 

 fire and water produce before our ej^es, and because we have 

 aever known these effects to result from any other opera- 

 tion. And this resemblance may subsist in so many circum- 

 stances as not to leave us under the smallest doubt m form- 

 ing our opinion. Men are not deceived by this reasoning ; 

 for whenever it happens, as it sometimes does happen, that 

 the truth comes to be known by direct information, it turns 



