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intelligence requisite to have conceived, and of the power to 
have executed them, have no place in the conviction of design. 
This arises from the single fact of adaptation , whether seen 
in the wheels of a watch or of a locomotive, in the point of a 
pin or the lever of a steam-engine, in the antennae of an ant 
or the proboscis of an elephant. Could Lord Rosse's telescope 
itself be pi’ojected by a series of lenses to the farthest star 
within its field, this immensity of adaptation would no more 
exhaust the principle than does the actual size of the telescope 
as compared with the eye of a beetle. Size, number, magni- 
tude have no relation to the notion of adaptation, which in 
and of itself produces the conviction of design. 
Moreover, the human mind is the only possible unit by 
which we may compute the operations of “ the universal 
mind.” If we drop the argument from design, and fall back 
upon ontology, still the finite mind which we know in con- 
sciousness is the only agent by which, through analogy, 
contrast, or negation, we can attain to a conception of the 
Infinite. 
The very observations which Hume would classify under 
“ experience ” must be made and recorded by this selfsame 
mind ; and no man has a higher confidence in the scope and 
the trustworthiness of its powers than the philosopher who 
attempts to account for the existence of Nature without either 
a cause or an end. But as our conception of causality and of 
personality, derived from consciousness, is capable of being 
projected from ourselves into the infinite or “ universal ” mind, 
— just as we can project a mathematical line or circle into in- 
finite space, — so adaptation seen in Nature reflects our con- 
ception of design up to the highest heaven and back to the 
farthest eternity. 
The mathematician does not pretend to comprehend the 
infinities or the infinitesimals which he nevertheless conceives 
of as quantities in his calculations. It would require his life- 
time to count up the billions which he handles so freely on a 
sheet of paper. The mind which can conceive of infinite 
number and of universal space without comprehending either, 
can also derive from itself the conception of a “ universal 
mind.” To do complete justice to Hume, I will now sum up 
his argument and my reply. In his essay on “ Providence 
and a Future State,” Hume says : — 
“ Man is a being whom we know by experience, whoso 
motives and designs we are acquainted with, and whose 
projects and inclinations have a certain connection and co- 
herence, according to the laws which Nature has established 
for tho government of such a creature. When, therefore, 
wo find that any work has proceeded from tho skill and 
