ANNUAL ADDRESS, MDCCCLXX. 5 



physical laws ; we must mount no higher. We will not 

 brand this class of philosophers with the title of atheists, 

 but say they are of a peculiar frame of mind. No doubt 

 they are generally believers in the existence of an overruling 

 power. Dr. S. Clarke, who has probably written on the 

 being and attributes of God as well as any man, admits 

 (Discourse, 1749, p. 159) that it may be held that infinite 

 wisdom, foresight, and unerring design originally so 

 ordered, disposed, and adapted all the springs and series 

 of future necessary and unintelligent causes, that, without 

 the immediate interposition of almighty power upon every 

 particular occasion, they should regularly, by virtue of 

 that original disposition, have produced effects worthy to 

 proceed from the direction and government of infinite 

 wisdom. 



At the same time let us not give up our belief that 

 we can trace the finger of a Designer and Creator in the 

 objects around us. The effort to discover the uses of 

 parts (necessarily in our opinion implying design) has led 

 to more discoveries in anatomy and natural history than 

 any other principle of research. This caused Harvey to 

 discover the circulation of the blood. Ray and Derham, 

 Paley, and the authors of the Bridgewater Treatises have 

 developed this mode of reasoning, and Cuvier, Hunter, and 

 Owen have been content to trace design, and to discover. 

 Paley instances the curious mechanism of the superior 

 oblique muscle of the human eye as a plain and unmis- 

 takable instance of a simple but thoroughly artificial 

 contrivance, sufficiently mechanical to convince any one 

 that it originates in a design. With respect to the eye, 

 I once met with an instance of structure for a purpose, 

 which I call design, that is very remarkable, but of a 

 miniature description, in the cirripides, a class of animals 



