LENGTH OF THE YEAR. 31 



license of hypothesis would enable the opponent 

 to obliterate the traces of an intentional adapta- 

 tion of one part of nature to another. 



Nor would it at all affect the argument, if these 

 periodical occurrences could be traced to some 

 proximate cause : if for instance it could be 

 shown, that the budding or flowering of plants 

 is brought about at particular intervals, by the 

 nutriment accumulated in their vessels during 

 the preceding months. For the question would 

 still remain, how their functions were so adjusted, 

 that the accumulation of the nutriment necessary 

 for budding and flowering, together with the 

 operation itself, comes to occupy exactly a year, 

 instead of a month only, or ten years. There 

 must be in their structure some reference to 

 time: how did such a reference occur? how 

 was it determined to the particular time of the 

 earth's revolution round the sun ? This could 

 be no otherwise, as we conceive, than by design 

 and appointment. 



We are left therefore with this manifest adjust- 

 ment before us, of two parts of the universe, at 

 first sight so remote ; the dimensions of the solar 

 system and the powers of vegetable life. These 

 two things are so related, that one has been made 

 to fit the other. The relation is as clear as that 

 of a watch to a sundial. If a person were to com- 

 pare the watch with a dial, hour after hour, 

 and day after day, it would be impossible for him 



