PERSONALITY OF JEITY. 209 



?ut to be what was expected. Iii like manner and upon 

 the same foundation — which in truth is that of experience — 

 we conclude that the works of nature proceed from intelli- 

 gence and design ; because, in the properties of relation to a 

 purpose, subserviency to a use, they resemble what intelli- 

 gence and design are constantly producing, and what noth- 

 ing except intelligence and design ever produce at all. Oi 

 every argument which would raise a question as to the safety 

 of this reasoning, it may be observed, that if such argument 

 be listened to, it leads to the inference, not only that the 

 present order of nature is insuflicient to prove the existence 

 of an intelligent Creator, but that no imaginable order would 

 be sufficient to prove it — that no contrivance, Avere it evei 

 so mechanical, ever so precise, ever so clear, ever so perfect- 

 ly like those which we ourselves employ, would support this 

 conclusion : a doctrine to which I conceive no sound mind 

 can assent. 



The force, however, of the reasoning is sometimes sunk 

 by our taking up with mere names. We have already no- 

 ticed,* and we must here notice again, the misapplication 

 of the term "law," and the mistake concerning the idea 

 which that term expresses in physics, whenever such idea is 

 made to take the place of power, and still more of an intelli- 

 gent power, and, as such, to be assigned for the cause of any 

 thing, or of any property of any thing that exists. This is 

 what we are secretly apt to do, when we speak of oi-ganized 

 bodies — plants, for instance, or animals — owing their pro- 

 duction, their form, their growth, their qualities, their beau- 

 ty, their use, to any law or laws of nature ; and when we 

 are contented to sit down with that ansvy-er to our inquiries 

 concerning them. I say once more, that it is a perversion 

 of language to assign any law as the efficient, operative cause 

 of any thing. A law presupposes an agent, for it is only the 

 mode according to which an agent proceeds ; it implies a 

 power, for it is the order according to which that power acts. 

 * Chap. I., sect. 7. 



