216 
cut the channel Although I have never seen those men I am as ^tisftednf 
that as I am of the existence of this table before me. Now if we apply that 
to an exactly analogous thing in the human eye, the .argument , wi 1 be com- 
pete The human eye is a kind of Alban Lake producing a tear the object 
rf which t to wash the eye, but sometimes the ™^llr^n“u 
in Quantity and if there were not some means provided for drawm it ofi 
3^ a mess of our faces. The Creator is equal to His work how- 
ever He has cut a hole or channel through the solid bone of the , nose 
and that channel carries off the surplus moisture. (Hear, ^ar.l Thirt 
is cut at a place where the warm breath from the stomach meets it and dis. i 
pates the tear, under all ordinary circumstances except when we have a bad 
cold into simple vapour, and we are not further inconvenienced by it. Now 
if we can infer, from an inspection of the channel which drained the Alban 
Lake six omturies before the Christian era, that intelligent men were in 
existence I want to know why, on inspecting the channel which drains the 
eve through the nose, and provides warm breath from the stmnach to dissipate 
tC moisture we cannot infer that that is a proof of intelligence and skill 
“ antlor to the creation of man. The one argument is the ve^ 
counterpart of the other in point of logic We see that creation is filled to 
an enormous extent with matters of this kind-filled to such an l exte 
indeed that we want all the powers of the mind of man to grasp the very 
, . f i, fiiino-s There is nothing in London which gives me 
whereby those legs are fitted to the length of the birds J “ 
to he struck with this wonderful provision of nature. The birds are piacea 
on so h “h a pair of stilts that .it seems a marvellous thing how they are 
enaWed to balance themselves on one leg with the other leg drawn up under 
to each other, every portion being exactly fitted J P . ^ k 
denotes the presence of skill precisely m the same manner tha ‘ ^ of gkm 
of anv human workman denotes, m a minor degre > P 
presiding over it.' Here we have a work which shows, I do no say that an 
mS perfect God presided over it, but at all 
Now how is the conclusion of design to be avoided? for £* 
real question. When scientific men leave the purely scientific depa 
ments with which they are acquainted and venture into the region o 
metaphysics, their views on metaphysical matters do not of course carry 
same weight as their views on scientific matters. A man may e^ ^ 
eminent naturalist, and I will not contradict him on a P 01n ag 
history, but in metaphysics I feel myself entitled to question his utterance 
not necessarily to be considered oracular. Why is it that we are not to be 
allowed to infer from the mechanisms of nature that they were pro u 
