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only of a very much superior kind, and on a much grander .scale, why I am 
not to infer that these adaptations are also the result of skill. I will mention 
now one or two illustrations in addition to those which I gave before to 
show the absurdity of the position of those who deny design. Suppose we 
are going through the picture gallery of the Louvre— you know that there is 
in that gallery a great picture of the Marriage at Cana in Galilee. Now 
that picture proves the presence of intelligence and of design on the part of 
the artist who painted it — no one can doubt that for an instant. The picture 
consists, as you are aware, of a large number of figures — different persons 
assembled together — and among the others, strange to say, there are several 
dogs, for we know that dogs were always excluded from Jewish feasts. 
Now bear that picture in mind for a moment. Suppose one was observing 
it attentively and some one came up to you and said, “ Oh, sir, you are 
entirely deceived. That is not the work of a single artist. That picture was 
painted by a set of men who some years ago took it into their heads to paint 
a whole lot of figures, and some one else came and put them together and 
made the picture.” Why even that would not be so a.bsurd as the argument 
against design, because you would still be able to say, “ Even that shows a 
high degree of intelligence on the part of the man who could select his mate- 
rials from a whole heap of previously-formed figures and put them together so 
as to make the picture.” But to make the analogy more perfect, suppose that 
it was asserted that those figures had simply come together by some law, and 
in that way the picture had been produced. I should think it a sufficient 
answer to say to the person who told me all this : “ Do you really take me for 
a fool ?” (Hear, hear.) I should think that a sufficient answer to make to any 
man who dared to allege such a monstrosity to me. I own I have never seen 
the person who painted the picture, but from looking at the unity of the 
composition and the harmony of the various parts, I draw this certain conclu- 
sion, that the picture is a work of very great genius. What we are urged to 
believe now is that when we see similar works in the great kingdom of 
nature from which we could infer the presence of a designing mind as cer- 
tainly as we can infer the presence of a designing mind presiding over the 
composition of the painting, we are altogether wrong and have no right to 
draw such an inference. That is a very fair statement of the case as between 
ourselves who believe we can see the most indubitable evidence of the 
presence of Deity in nature as against those who say they can see no 
such evidence. I think I have before quoted an instance which now 
again occurs to me, derived from the Alban Lake at Rome. Long before 
the Christian era, there was a lake in the neighbourhood of Rome called the 
Alban Lake, which overflowed the country round. At some period before 
the dawn of history, however, a channel was cut to drain off the water from 
the lake and prevent it from overflowing the neighbouring country. That 
channel is still in existence, cut through the rock. Now if we go and look 
at that channel and see the purpose it was made to answer, we shall be sure 
from a survey of it that some six centuries, perhaps, anterior to the Christian 
era there were men who had the powers of intelligence and design and who 
