LIVING THINGS AND MACHINES 201 



This intelligent animal had lived all his life in 

 common with the rest of his tribe within a 

 piano and, after careful study, had arrived at 

 tEe conclusion that the sounds which it pro- 

 duced came from the wires when they were 

 tapped by the hammers. " ' Thus far,' says he, The philo- 



6 1 have prosecuted my researches,' and he goes soP 1 " * 1 



mouse 

 on with the blithe optimism of the Atheist : ' so 



much is evident now, viz., that the sounds pro- 

 ceed not from any external agency, but from the 

 uniform operation of fixed laws. These laws 

 may be explored by intelligent mice, and to 

 their exploration I shall devote my life.' And 

 so the mouse, arguing himself out of the old 

 belief of his kind, becomes convinced that the 

 piano player has no existence." 



Paley's traveller on the heath who found the 

 watch and made such intelligent deductions 

 from it, was not confronted amongst the other Paley's 

 explanations, which his inventor supposes him watch 

 to reject, that it existed because it had a re- 

 silient spring and was thereby explained. 

 Perhaps Paley did not imagine that anybody 

 would ever seriously advance such an " explan- 

 ation " as that, yet in the astronomical theory 

 quoted above we have just that explanation 

 and no more. 



However, it is time that we returned from 

 what tends to become a digression, though really 



