ng the
existence of a Deity. If, then, there is a God, it by no means follows that
every apparent contrivance in nature is an actual contrivance, in the same
sense as is any human contrivance. The eye of a vertebrated animal, for
instance, exhibits as much apparent design as does a watch; but no one--at
the present day, at least--will undertake to affirm that the evidence of
divine thought furnished by one example is as conclusive as is the evidence
of human thought furnished by the other--and this even assuming a Deity to
exist. Why is this? The reason, I think, is, that we know by our personal
experience what are our own relations to the material world, and to the
laws which preside over the action of physical forces; while we can have no
corresponding knowledge of the relations subsisting between the Deity and
these same objects of our own experience. Hence, to suppose that the Deity
constructed the eye by any such process of thought as we know that men
construct watches, is to make an assumption not only incapable of proof,
but destitute of any assignable degree of likelihood. Take an example. The
relation in which a bee stands to the external world is to a large extent a
matter of observation, and, therefore, no one imagines that the formation
of its scientifically-constructed cells is due to any profound study on the
bee's part. Whatever the origin of the cell-making instinct may have been,
its nature is certainly not the same as it would have been in man,
supposing him to have had occasion to construct honeycombs. It may be said
that the requisite calculations have been made for the bees by the Deity;
but, even if this assumption were true, it would be nothing to the point,
which is merely that even within the limits of the animal kingdom the
relations of intelligence to the external world are so diverse, that the
same results may be accomplished by totally different intellectual
processes. And as this example is parallel to the case on which we are
engaged in everything save the _observability_ of the relations involved,
it supplies us with the exact measure of the probability we are trying to
estimate. Hence it is evident that so long as we remain ignorant of the
element essential to the argument from design in its Paleyerian form--viz.,
knowledge or presumption of the relations subsisting between an
hypothetical Deity and his creation--so long must that argument remain, not
only unassignably weak, but incapable o