APPLICATION SaC 
35 
CHAPTER V. 
APPLICATION OF THE ARGUMENT CONTiNUED. 
Every observation which was made in our first chap¬ 
ter, concerning the watch, may be repeated with strict pro¬ 
priety concerning the eye; concerning animals; concern¬ 
ing plants; concerning, indeed, all the organized parts of 
the works of nature. As, 
I. When we are inquiring simply after the existence of 
an intelligent Creator, imperfection, inaccuracy, liability 
to disorder, occasional irregularities, may subsist in a con¬ 
siderable degree, without inducing any doubt into the 
question: just as a watch may frequently go wrong, seldom 
perhaps exactly right, may be faulty in some parts, defec¬ 
tive in some, without the smallest ground of suspicion from 
thence arising that it was not a watch; not made; or not 
made for the purpose ascribed to it. When faults are 
pointed out, and when a question is started concerning the 
skill of the artist, or the dexterity with which the work is 
executed, then, indeed, in order to defend these qualities 
from accusation, we must be able, either to expose some 
intractableness and imperfection in the materials, or point 
out some invincible difficulty in the execution, into which 
imperfection and difficulty the matter of complaint may be 
resolved; or if we cannot do this, we must adduce such 
specimens of consummate art and contrivance, proceeding 
from the same hand, as may convince the inquirer of the 
existence, in the case before him, of impediments like those 
which we have mentioned, although, what from the nature 
of the case is very likely to happen, they be unknown and 
unperceived by him. This we must do in order to vindi¬ 
cate the artist’s skill, or, at least, the perfection of it; as 
we must also judge of his intention, and of the provision 
employed in fulfilling that intention, not from an instance 
in which they fail, but from the great plurality of instances 
in which they succeed. But, after all, these are different 
questions from the question of the artist’s existence; or, 
which is the same, whether the thing before us be a work of 
art or not: and the question ought always to be kept sepa¬ 
rate in the mind. So likewise it is in the works of nature. 
Irregularities and imperfections are of little or no weight 
in the consideration, when that consideration relates sim¬ 
ply to the existence of a Creator. When the argument re- 
