432 PROOF OF THE EXISTENCE OF A DEITY. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 



Conclusion. 



In our last Chapter we have considered the Nature of the 

 Evidence afforded by unorganized mineral bodies, in proof 

 of the existence of design in the original adaptation of the 

 material Elements to their various functions, in the inorganic 

 and organic departments of the Natural World, and have 

 seen that the only sufficient Explanation we can discover, 

 of the orderly and wonderful dispositions of the material 

 Elements " in measure and number and weight," throughout 

 the terraqueous globe, is that which refers the origin of 

 every thing above us, and beneath us, and around us, to the 

 will and workings of One Omnipotent Creator. If the pro- 

 perties imparted to these Elements at the moment of their 

 Creation, adapted them beforehand to the infinity of compli- 

 cated useful purposes, which they have already answered, 

 and may have farther still to answer, under many succes- 

 sive Dispensations in the material World, such an aboriginal 

 constitution so far from superseding an intelligent Agent, 

 would only exalt our conceptions of the consummate skill 

 and power, that could comprehend such an infinity of future 

 uses under future systems, in the original groundwork of his 

 Creation. 



In an early part of our Inquiry, we traced back the his- 



In the first Section of his fourth Chapter the same author has also so clear- 

 ly shown the great extent to which several of the most common mineral 

 substances e. g. lime, magnesia, and iron, enter into the composition of ani- 

 mal and vegetable bodies, and has so fully set forth the evidences of design 

 in the constitution and properties of the few simple substances, viz. fifty-four 

 Elementary principles, into some one or more of which the component ma- 

 terials of all the three great kingdoms of Nature can be resolved, that I deem 

 it superfluous to repeat in another form, the substance of arguments which 

 have been so well and fully drawn by my learned Colleague, from those phe- 

 nomena of the mineral Elements, which form no small part of the evidence 

 afforded by the Chemistry of Mineralogy, in proof of the Wisdom, and 

 Power, and Goodness of the Creator. 



