parts of the
animal frame that apparently have no functions to perform--nay, that
are the source of pain without yielding any perceptible advantage;
arrangements and movements of bodies which are of one particular kind,
and yet we are quite at a loss to discern any reason why they might not
have been of many other descriptions; operations of nature that seem to
serve no purpose whatever; and other operations and other arrangements,
chosen equally without any beneficial view, and yet which often give
rise to much apparent confusion and mischief. Now, the question is,
_first_, whether in any one of these cases of arrangement and structures
with no visible object at all, we can for a moment suppose that there
really is no object answered, or only conceive that we have been
unable to discover it? _Secondly_, whether in the cases where mischief
sometimes is perceived, and no other purpose appears to be effected,
we do not almost as uniformly lay the blame on our own ignorance, and
conclude, not that the arrangement was made without any design, and that
mischief arises without any contriver, but that if we knew the whole
case we should find a design and contrivance, and also that the apparent
mischief would sink into the general good? It is not necessary to admit,
for our present purpose, this latter proposition, though it brings us
closer to the matter in hand; it is sufficient for the present to admit,
what no one doubts, that when a part of the body, for instance, is
discovered, to which, like the spleen, we cannot assign any function in
the animal system, we never think of concluding that it is made for no
use, but only that we have as yet not been able to discover its use.

Now, let us ask, why do we, without any hesitation whatever, or any
exception whatever, always and immediately arrive at this
conclusion respecting intelligence and design? Nothing could be more
unphilosophical, nay, more groundless, than such a process of reasoning,
if we had only been able to trace design in one or two instances; for
instance, if we found only the eye to show proofs of contrivance, it
would be wholly gratuitous, when we saw the ear, to assume that it was
adapted to the nature of sound, and still more so, if, on examination,
we perceived it bore no perceptible relation to the laws of acoustics.
The proof of contrivance in one particular is nothing like a proof,
nay, does not even furnish the least presumption of contrivance in other