14 EVOLUTION, OLD AND NEW. 



think, is inevitable that the watch must have had a 

 maker; that there must have existed, at some time, 

 cmd at some place or other, an artificer or artificers who 

 formed it for the purpose which we find it actually 

 to answer ; who comprehended its construction and 

 designed its use." * 



" That an animal is a machine, is a proposition neither 



correctly true nor wholly false I contend that 



there is a mechanism in animals ; that this mechanism 

 is as properly such, as it is in machines made by art ; 

 that this mechanism is intelligible and certain ; that it 

 is not the less so because it often begins and terminates 

 with something which is not mechanical ; that wherever 

 it is intelligible and certain, it demonstrates intention 

 and contrivance, as well in the works of nature as in 

 those of art; and that it is the best demonstration which 

 either can afford." t 



There is only one legitimate inference deducible 

 from these premises if they are admitted as sound, 

 namely, that there must have existed " at some time, and 

 in some place, an artificer" who formed the animal 

 mechanism after much the same mental processes of 

 observation, endeavour, successful contrivance, and after 

 a not wholly unlike succession of bodily actions, as 

 those with which a watchmaker has made a watch. 

 Otherwise the conclusion is impotent, and the whole 

 argument becomes a mere juggle of words. 



"Now, supposing or admitting," continues Paley, "that 

 we know nothing of the proper internal constitution of a 



* ' Natural Theology,' oh. i. § 1. f Ch. yii. 



