ructures, and imparted to all their movements certain orderly
successions, it is still manifestly impossible for unintelligence to
have brought forth intelligence--for the speculative, critical, carping
spirit of man to have been generated by that which has no speculation in
its eyes, nor any eyes, to have speculation in; impossible, in short,
for the creature to be more richly endowed than its creator. Since
numerous embodied intelligences actually exist, they must have been
preceded by intelligence capable of creating them and all other existing
intelligences that have not eternally existed; and it is simply
impossible that creative intelligence, whose creatures owe to it
whatever intelligence they possess, should on any occasion have
exhibited a want of intelligence which they are competent to detect.

But although it be thus demonstrably certain that an author of the
universe exists, it does not follow that there is only one. As to this
no proof positive, only probabilities, can be adduced; but the
probabilities are of an amount all but equivalent to certainty. They are
forcibly urged by Mr. Mill. Many exactly uniform occurrences, he
observes, are more naturally referred to 'a single, than to a number of
wills precisely accordant.' But the classes of uniform occurrences being
exceedingly numerous, if there were a separate will for each class,
there would be equally numerous wills, and 'unless all these wills were
in complete harmony (which would itself be the most difficult to credit
of all cases of invariability, and would require beyond anything else
the ascendancy of a supreme Deity),' it would be 'impossible that the
course of phenomena under their government should be invariable.' Every
fresh appearance of resemblance extending through all nature 'affords
fresh presumption that the whole is the work, not of many, but of the
same hand, and renders it vastly more probable that there should be one
indefinitely foreseeing Intelligence and immoveable Will than that there
should be hundreds and thousands of such.'[50] I will not run the risk
of weakening this reasoning by expansion. Its obvious inference that,
there being a God, there cannot be more than one, could not be set forth
more irresistibly.

That the wisdom of the Creator cannot be less than the amount thereof
manifested in His works is a self-evident proposition, which none will
be hardy enough directly to dispute. There is, however, one critic, of
great