282 HUME ON THE 



understood ? What is their meaning ? Where is the 

 theory ? The method of inquisition is the same here 

 as elsewhere : Is there any similar class of facts of 

 which we know the explanation ? Yes ! there is one. 

 In the works of human art, the mechanism of a watch, 

 the construction of a steam-engine, in every product 

 of art, there are adaptations of one result to another, 

 completely resembling those which are found in the 

 world which art attempts to imitate and control. In 

 truth, all art consists in the institution of such mutual 

 relations and such production of effects by fitly-chosen 

 means. Now the explanation of this set of facts is 

 ready beforehand Art is the product of a designing 

 mind, and the designer is man. Accordingly the sub- 

 stance of the Paleyan argument is this : The facts of 

 adaptation discovered in nature are radically like the 

 facts of adaptation instituted in art, and the inference 

 is that they resemble them in origin as well as result- 

 ing character Nature is the product of a designing 

 mind, and the designer is God. This is the argument 

 of design, and it is essentially cumulative in its power, 

 for the greater the number, and more striking the kind 

 of evidences of design that can be gathered around it, 

 the stronger does it appear to become. I have some 

 strictures to make upon it, with the sincere hope of 

 convincing you that, without a previous or simul- 

 taneous act of faith, or intuitive belief, conscious, or 

 unconscious, it is wholly inadequate to the purposes 

 for which it was constructed. 



" The first is this : If there be any genuine analogy 

 between man, the designer of the works of art, and the 

 inferred designer of the works of nature, it must be 

 complete, and extensible in the inference to all the 



