NATURAL THEOLOGY* 21 



telescope, that the one is a perceiving organ, the 

 other an unperceiving instrument. The fact is 

 that they are both instruments. And as to the me- 

 chanism, at least as to mechanism being employed, 

 and even as to the kind of it, this circumstance 

 varies not the analogy at all. For observe what 

 the constitution of the eye is. It is necessary, in 

 order to produce distinct vision, that an image or 

 picture of the object be formed at the bottom of 

 the eye. Whence this necessity arises, or how 

 the picture is connected with the sensation, or con- 

 tributes to it, it may be difficult, nay, we will con- 

 fess, if 3 ou please, impossible for us to search out. 

 But the present question is not concerned in the 

 inquiry. It may be true, that, in this, and in other 

 instances, we trace mechanical contrivance a cer- 

 tain way ; and that then we come to something 

 which is not mechanical, or which is inscrutable. 

 But this affects not the certainty of our investiga- 

 tion, as far as we have gone. The difference be- 

 tween an animal and an automatic statue consists 

 in this, — that, in the animal, we trace the mecha- 

 nism to a certain point, and then we are stopped ; 

 either the mechanism being too subtile for our 

 discernment, or something else beside the known 

 laws of mechanism taking place ; w hereas, in the 

 automaton, for the comparitively few motions of 

 which it is capable, we trace the mechanism 

 throughout. But, up to the limit, the reasoning is 

 as clear and certain in the one case as in the 

 other. In the example before us, it is a matter of 



