26 
APPLICATION OF THE ARGUMENT. 
Wherefore all this? Why make the difficulty in order 
to surmount it? If to perceive objects by some other 
mode than that of touch, or objects which lay out of 
the reach of that sense, were the thing purposed; could not 
a simple volition of the Creator have communicated the ca¬ 
pacity ? Why resort to contrivance, where power is omnip¬ 
otent? Contrivance, by its very definition and nature, is 
the refuge of imperfection. To have recourse to expedi¬ 
ents, implies difficulty, impediment, restraint, defect of 
power. This question belongs to the other senses, as well 
as to sights; to the general functions of animal life, as nu¬ 
trition, secretion, respiration; to the economy of vegeta¬ 
bles; and indeed to almost all the operations of nature. 
The question, therefore, is of very wide extent; and 
amongst other answers which may be given to it, beside rea¬ 
sons of which probably we are ignorant, one answer is this: 
It is only by the display of contrivance, that the existence, 
the agency, the wisdom of the Deity, could be testified to 
his rational creatures. This is the scale by which we as¬ 
cend to all the knowledge of our Creator which we possess, 
so far as it depends upon the phenomena, or the works of na¬ 
ture. Take away this, and you take away from us every sub¬ 
ject ofobservation, and ground of reasoning; I mean as our 
rational faculties are formed at present. Whatever is done, 
God could have done without the intervention of instru¬ 
ments or means: but it is in the construction of instru¬ 
ments, in the choice and adaptation of means, that a crea¬ 
tive intelligence is seen. It is this which constitutes the 
order and beauty of the universe. God, therefore, has 
been pleased to prescribe limits to his own power, and to 
work his ends within those limits. The general laws of 
matter have perhaps the nature of these limits; its inertia, 
its reaction; the laws which govern the communication of 
motion, the refraction and reflection of light, the constitu¬ 
tion of fluids non-elastic and elastic, the transmission of 
sound through the latter ; the laws of magnetism, of elec¬ 
tricity; and probably others, yet undiscovered. These are 
general laws; and when a particular purpose is to be ef¬ 
fected, it is not by making a new law, nor by the suspen¬ 
sion of the old ones, nor by making them wind, and bend, 
and yield to the occasion; (for nature w ith great steadiness 
adheres to and supports them;) but it is, as we have seen 
in the eye, by the interposition of an apparatus, correspond¬ 
ing with these law r s, and suited to the exigency w r hich re¬ 
sults from them, that the purpose is at length attained. As 
we have said, therefore, God prescribes limits to his pow r er, 
