160 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



account of it than what, if it may be called an 

 account, is contained in the answer, that events 

 rise up by chance. But since the contrivances of 

 nature decidedly evince intention ; and since the 

 course of the world and the contrivances of nature 

 have the same author, we are, by the force of this 

 connexion, led to believe that the appearance un- 

 der which events take place, is reconcilable with 

 the supposition of design on the part of the Deity. 

 It is enough that they be reconcilable with this 

 supposition ; and it is undoubtedly true that they 

 may be reconcilable, though we cannot reconcile 

 them. The mind, however, which contemplates 

 the works of nature, and in those works sees so 

 much of means directed to ends, of beneficial ef- 

 fects brought about by wise expedients, of con- 

 certed trains of causes terminating in the happiest 

 results ; so much, in a word, of counsel, intention, 

 and benevolence ; a mind, I say, drawn into the 

 habit of thought, which these observations excite, 

 can hardly turn its view to the condition of our 

 own species without endeavouring to suggest to 

 itself some purpose, some design, for which the 

 5>tate in which we are placed is fitted, and which 

 it is made to serve. Now we assert the most 

 probable supposition to be, that it is a stale of 

 moral probation ; and that many things in it suit 

 with this hypothesis which suit no other. It is 

 not a state of unmixed happiness, or of happiness 

 simply ; it is not a state of designed misery, or of 

 misery simply ; it is not a state of retribution ; it 



