NATURAL THEOLOGY. 55 



suited to the germination of a new plant. Has 

 the plant which produced the seed any thing more 

 to do with that organization, than the watch would 

 have had to do with the structure of the watch 

 which w as produced in the course of its mechani- 

 cal movement ? I mean — Has it any thing at 

 all to do with the contrivance ? The maker and 

 contriver of one watch, when he inserted within 

 it a mechanism suited to the production of another 

 w^atch, was, in truth, the maker and contriver of 

 that other watch. All the properties of the new 

 watch were to be referred to his agency : the de- 

 sign manifested in it, to his intention : the art, to 

 him as the artist ; the collocation of each part, to 

 his placing : the action, effect, and use, to his coun- 

 sel, intelligence, and workmanship. In producing 

 it by the intervention of a former watch, he was 

 only working by one set of tools instead of another. 

 So it is with the plant, and the seed produced by 

 it. Can any distinction be assigned between the 

 two cases ; between the producing watch, and the 

 producing plant ; both passive unconscious substan- 

 ces ; both, by the organization which was given 

 to them, producing their like, without understand- 

 ing or design ; both, that is, instruments ? 



n. From plants we may proceed to oviparous 

 animals : from seeds to eggs. Now I say, that 

 the bird has the same concern in the formation of 

 the egg which she lays, as the plant has in that of 

 the seed which it drops; and no other nor greater. 

 The internal constitution of the egg is as much a 



