machine, the more likely is this obscurity to arise. Then, as to the second thing supposed, namely, that there were parts which might be spared without prejudice to the movement of the watch, and that we had proved, by this experiment, these superfluous parts, even if we were completely assured that they were such, would not vacate the reasoning, which we had instituted concerning other parts. The indication of contrivance remained, with respect to them, nearly as it was before.

4. Nor, fourthly, would any man in his senses think the existence of the watch, with its various machinery, accounted for, by being told that it was one out of possible combinations of material forms; that whatever he had found in the place where he found the watch, must have contained some internal configuration or other; and that this configuration might be the structure now exhibited, viz. of the works of a watch, as well as a different structure.

5. Nor, fifthly, would it yield his enquiry more satisfaction to be answered, that there existed in things a principle of order, which had disposed the parts of the watch into their present form and situation. He never knew a watch made by the principle of order, nor can he form to himself an idea of what is meant by a principle of order, distinct from the intelligence of the watch

maker.

7. And not less surprised to be informed, that the watch in his hand was nothing more than the result of the laws of metallic nature. It is a perversion of language to assign any law as the efficient operative cause of any thing. A law presupposes an agent; for it is only the mode, according to which an agent proceeds, it implies a power; for it is the order, according to which that power acts. Without this agent, without this power, which are both distinct from itself, the law does nothing; is nothing. The expression, the law of metallic nature," may sound strange and harsh to a philosophic ear, but it seems quite as justifiable as some others which are more familiar to him, such as, "the law of vegetable 66 nature," "the law of animal "nature," or indeed, as, "the law "of nature," in general, when assigned as the cause of phænomena, in exclusion of agency and power; or when it is substituted into the place of these.

8. Neither, lastly, would our observer be driven out of his conclusion, or from his confidence in its truth, by being told, that he knew nothing at all about the matter. He knows enough for his argument. He knows the utility of the end: he knows the subserviency and adaptation of the means to the end. These points being known, his ignorance of other points, his doubts concerning other points, affect not the certainty of his reasoning. The consciousness of knowing little, need not beget a distrust of that which he does know.

ESSAY. II.

State of the Argument Continued.

Suppose, in the next place, that the person who found the watch should, after some time, discover that, in addition to all the properties which he had hitherto observed in it, t possessed the unexpected property of producing, in the course of its movement, another watch like itself; (the thing is conceivable ;) that it contained within it a me. chanism, a system of parts, a mould for instance, or a complex adjust ment of laths, files, and other tools, evidently and separately calculated for this purpose; let us enquire, what effect ought such a discovery to have upon his former conclusion?

1. The first effect would be to increase his admiration of the contrivance, and his conviction of the consummate skill of the contriver. Whether he regarded the object of the contrivance, the distinct apparatus, the intricate, yet in many parts intelligible, mechanism by which it was carried on, he would perceive, in this new observation, nothing but an additional reason for doing what he had already done; for referring the construction of the watch to design, and to supreme art. If that construction without this property, or, which is the same thing, before this property had been noticed, proved intention and art to have been employed about it; still more strong would the proof appear, when he came to the knowledge of this further property, the crown and perfection of all the rest.

2. He would reflect, that though the watch before him were (in some sense) the maker of the watch

which was fabricated in the course of its movement, yet it was in a very different sense from that in which a carpenter, for instance, is the maker of a chair; the author of its contrivance, the cause of the relation of its parts to their use. With respect to these, the first watch was no cause at all to the second in no such sense as this, was it the author of the constitution and order, either of the parts which the new watch contained, or of the parts by the aid and instrumentality, of which it was produced. We might possibly say, but with great latitude of expression, that a stream of water ground corn: but no latitude of expression would allow us to say, no stretch of conjecture could lead us to think, that the stream of water built the mill, though it were too ancient for us to know who the builder was. What the stream of water docs in the affair is neither more nor less than this by the application of an unintelligentimpulse, to a mechanism previously arranged, arranged independantly of it, and arranged by intelligence, an effect is produced, viz. the corn is ground, But the effect results from the arrangement. The force of the stream cannot be said to be the cause or author of the effect, still less of the arrangement. Understanding and plan, in the formation of the mill, were not the less necessary for any share which the water has in grinding the corn: yet is this share the same as that which the watch would have contributed to the production of the new watch, upon the supposition assumed in the last section. Therefore,

3. Though it be now no longer probable, that the individual watch which our observer had found was

made

we observe not the smallest tendency towards self support. There is no difference in this respect, (yet there may be a great difference in several respects,) between a chain of a greater or less length, between one chain and another, between one that is finite, and one that is indefinite. This very much resembles the case before us. The machine, which we are inspecting demonstrates, by its construction, contrivance and design. Contrivance must have had a contriver, design a designer; whether the machine immediately proceeded from another machine or not. That circumstance alters not the case. That other machine may, in like manner, have proceeded from a former machine: nor does that alter the case: contrivance must have had a contriver. That former one from one preceding it: no alteration still: a contriver is still necessary. No tendency is perceived, no approach towards a diminution of this necessity. It is the same with any and every succession of these machines; a succession of ten, of a hundred, of a thousand; with one series as with another; a series which is finite, as with a series which is infinite. In whatever other respects they may differ, in this they do not. In all, equally, contrivance and design are unaccounted for.

The question is not simply, How came the first watch into existence? which question, it may be pretended, is done away, by supposing the series of watches, thus produced from one another, to have been infinite, and consequently to have had no such first, for which it was necessary to provide a cause. This, perhaps, would have been nearly the state of the question, if nothing had been before us but an

unorganized,

unmechanized sub, stance, without mark or indication of contrivance. It might be diffi cult to shew that such substance could not have existed from eternity, either in succession (if it were possible, which I think it is not, for unorganized bodies to spring from one another,) or by individual perpetuity. But that is not the ques. tion now. To suppose it to be so, is to suppose that it made no dif. ference whether we had found a watch or a stone. As it is, the metaphysics of that question have no place; for in the watch which we are examining are seen contri. vance, design; an end, a purpose; means for the end, adaptation to the purpose. And the question which irrisistibly presses upon our thoughts is, whence this contrivance and design? The thing required is the intending mind, the adapting hand, the intelligence by which that hand was directed. This question, this demand, is not shaken off by in creasing a number or succession of substances, destitute of these properties; nor the more, by increasing that number to infinity. If it be said, that, upon the supposition of one watch being produced from another, in the course of that other's movements, and by that means of the mechanism within it, we have a cause for the watch in my hand, viz. the watch from which it pro ceeded, I deny that, for the design, the contrivance, the suitableness of means to an end, the adaptation of instruments to au use, (all which we discover in the watch,) we have any cause whatever. It is in vain, therefore, to assign a series of such causes, or to alledge, that a series may be carried back to infinity; for I do not admit that we have yet any

cause

cause at all for the phænomena, still less any series of causes, either finite or infinite. Here is contrivance, but no contriver: proofs of design, but no designer.

5. Our observer would further , also reflect, that the maker of the watch before him was, in truth and reality, the maker of every watch produced from it, there being no difference (except that the latter manifests a more exquisite skill) between the making of another watch with his own hands, by the mediation of files, laths, chisels, &c. and the disposing, fixing, and inserting, of these instruments, or of others equivalent to them, in the body of the watch already made, in such a manner as to form a new watch in the course of the movements which he had given to the old one. It is only working by one set of tools instead of another.

The conclusion which the first examination of the watch, of its works, construction, and movement suggested, was that it must have had, for the cause and author of that construction, an artificer, who understood its mechanism, and designed its use. This conclusion is invincible. A second examination presents us with a new discovery. The watch is found, in the course of its movement, to produce another watch, similar to itself: and not only so, but we perceive in it a system of organization, separately calculated for that purpose. What effect would this discovery have, or ought it to have, upon our former inference? What, as hath already been said, but to increase, beyond measure, our admiration of the skill which had been employed in the formation of such a machine? Or shall it, instead of this, all at

once turn us round to an opposite conclusion, viz. that no art or skill whatever has been concerned in the business, although all other evi dences of art and skill remain as they were, and this last and supreme piece of art be now added to the rest? Can this be maintained without absurdity? Yet this is atheism,

View of Manners and Society in Holland, in three Papers, translated from the Dutch Spectator, a celebrated Periodical Work, and entitled, "Natural Courtship."

In my earliest youth I experienced in myself, as well as in my compani ons, during that blossom of life, that those who had their share of wit were so wonderfully vain of it, as to suppose it to be the pivot on which all society turns, and that nothing can be well executed without it.

Full of these thoughts, I often considered how peasants, labourers, handicraft-men, in short, stupid and ignorant fellows, when they were in love, could manage so as to acquaint the object of their love with their inclinations; and to make such communication agreeable. A declaration of love, of which I had read many adorned and pleasant specimens in novels and tales of gallantry, appeared to me as a masterpiece of human understanding, and I imagined that a lover, who in this respect acquitted himself uncouthly and clownishly, would immediately be dismissed and forbidden ever to return to the charge.

I obtained some knowledge of artless courtship whilst on a visit to a nobleman, at his country house: during my stay, a fair was held at

the