236 OF THE PERSONALITY OF THE DEITY. 
parts bearing strict and evident relation to one another, 
and to the utility of the whole: and it should seem that 
these particles could not move in any other way than as 
they do; for they testify not the smallest sign of choice, or 
liberty, or discretion. There may be particular intelligent 
beings guiding these motions in each case; or they may 
be the result of trains of mechanical dispositions, fixed 
beforehand by an intelligent appointment, and kept in ac¬ 
tion by a power at the centre. But, in either case, there 
must be intelligence. 
The minds of most men are fond of what they call a 
principle, and of the appearance of simplicity, in account¬ 
ing for phenomena. Yet this principle, this simplicity, 
resides merely in the name; which name, after all, com¬ 
prises, perhaps, under it a diversified, multifarious, or pro¬ 
gressive operation, distinguishable into parts. The power 
in organized bodies, of producing bodies like themselves, 
is one of these principles. Give a philosopher this, and 
he can get on. But he does not reflect, what this mode of 
production, this principle (if such he choose to call it) re¬ 
quires; how much it presupposes; what an apparatus of in¬ 
struments, some of which are strictly mechanical, is neces¬ 
sary to its success; what a train it includes of operations and 
changes, one succeeding another, one related to another, 
one ministering to another; all advancing, by intermediate, 
and frequently, by sensible steps, to their ultimate result' 
Yet, because the whole of this complicated action is wrap¬ 
ped up in a single term, generation, we are to set it down 
as an elementary principle; and to suppose, that when we 
have resolved the things which we see into this principle, 
we have sufficiently accounted for their origin, without the 
necessity of a designing, intelligent Creator. The truth is, 
generation is not a principle, but a process. We might 
as well call the casting of metals a principle; we might, so 
far as appears to me, as well call spinning and weaving 
principles: and then, referring the texture of cloths, the 
fabric of muslins and calicoes, the patterns of diapers and 
damasks, to these, as principles, pretend to dispense with 
intention, thought, and contrivance, on the part of the ar¬ 
tist; or to dispense, indeed, with the necessity of any artist 
at all, either in the manufacturing of the article, or in the 
fabrication of the machinery by which the manufacture 
was carried on. 
And after all, how, or in what sense, is it true, that ani¬ 
mals produce their Zi/ce? A butterfly, with a broboscis in¬ 
stead of a mouth, with four wings and six legs, produces a 
