In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone
and were asked how the stone came to be there, I might possibly
answer that for anything I knew to the contrary it had lain
there forever; nor would it, perhaps, be very easy to show
the absurdity of this answer. But suppose I had found a
watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch
happened to be in that place, I should hardly think of the
answer which I had before given, that for anything I knew the
watch might have always been there. Yet why should not this
answer serve for the watch as well as for the stone? Why is it
not as admissible in the second case as in the first? For this
reason, and for no other, namely, that when we come to inspect
the watch, we perceive -- what we could not discover in the
stone -- that its several parts are framed and put together for
a purpose, e.g., that they are so formed and adjusted as to
produce motion, and that motion so regulated as to point out the
hour of the day; that if the different parts had been
differently shaped from what they are, of a different size from
what they are, or placed after any other manner or in any
other order than that in which they are placed, either no
motion at all would have been carried on in the machine, or
none which would have answered the use that is now served by
it. To reckon up a few of the plainest of these parts and of
their offices, all tending to one result; we see a cylindrical
box containing a coiled elastic spring, which, by its endeavor
to relax itself, turns round the box. We next observe a
flexible chain -- artificially wrought for the sake of flexure --
communicating the action of the spring from the box to the
fusee. We then find a series of wheels, the teeth of which
catch in and apply to each other, conducting the motion from
the fusee to the balance and from the balance to the pointer,
and at the same time, by the size and shape of those wheels,
so regulating that motion as to terminate in causing an index,
by an equable and measured progression, to pass over a
given space in a given time. We take notice that the wheels
are made of brass, in order to keep them from rust; the
springs of steel, no other metal being so elastic; that over
the face of the watch there is placed a glass, a material
employed in no other part of the work, but in the room of
which, if there had been any other than a transparent
substance, the hour could not be seen without opening the
case. This mechanism being observed -- it requires indeed an
examination of the instrument, and perhaps some previous
knowledge of the subject, to perceive and understand it; but
being once, as we have said, observed and understood -- the
inference we think is inevitable, that the watch must have had
a maker-that there must have existed, at some time and at
some place or other, an artificer or artificers who formed it for
the purpose which we find it actually to answer, who
comprehended its construction and designed its use.
I. Nor would it, I apprehend, weaken the conclusion,
that we had never seen a watch made -- that we had never
known an artist capable of making one -- that we were
altogether incapable of executing such a piece of workmanship
ourselves, or of understanding in what manner it was performed;
all this being no more than what is true of some exquisite
remains of ancient art, of some lost arts, and, to the
generality of mankind, of the more curious productions of modern
manufacture. Does one man in a million know how oval frames are
turned? Ignorance of this kind exalts our opinion of the unseen
and unknown artist's skiff, if he be unseen and unknown, but
raises no doubt in our minds of the existence and agency of such
an artist, at some former time and in some place or other. Nor
can I perceive that it varies at all the inference, whether the
question arise concerning a human agent or concerning an agent
of a different species, or an agent possessing in some respects
a different nature.
II. Neither, secondly, would it invalidate our
conclusion, that the watch sometimes went wrong or that it
seldom went exactly right. The purpose of the machinery, the
design, and the designer might be evident, and in the case
supposed, would be evident, in whatever way we accounted for the
irregularity of the movement, or whether we could account for it
or not. It is not necessary that a machine be perfect in order
to show with what design it was made: still less necessary,
where the only question is whether it were made with any de-
sign at all.
III. Nor, thirdly, would it bring any uncertainty into
the argument, if there were a few parts of the watch,,
concerning which we could not discover or had not yet discovered
in what manner they conduced to the general effect; or even some
parts, concerning which we could not ascertain whether they
conduced to that effect in any manner whatever. For, as to the
first branch of the case, if by the loss, or disorder, or decay
of the parts in question, the movement of the watch were found
in fact to be stopped, or disturbed, or retarded, no doubt
would remain in our minds as to the utility or intention of these
parts, although we should be unable to investigate the manner
according to which, or the connection by which, the ultimate
effect depended upon their action or assistance; and the more
complex is the 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 this by 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.
IV. 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, namely, of the works of a watch, as well
as a different structure.
V. Nor, fifthly, would it yield his inquiry 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 even form to himself an
idea of what is meant by a principle of order distinct from the
intelligence of the watchmaker.
VI. Sixthly, he would be surprised to hear that the
mechanism of the watch was no proof of contrivance, only a motive
to induce the mind to think so:
VII. 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 nature," "the law of animal nature," or,
indeed, as "the law of nature" in general, when assigned as the
cause of phenomena, in exclusion of agency and power, or when it
is substituted into the place of these.
VIII. 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.
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, it
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 mechanism, a system of
parts -- a mold, for instance, or a complex adjustment of
lathes, baffles, and other tools -- evidently and separately
calculated for this purpose; let us inquire what effect ought
such a discovery to have upon his former conclusion.
I. 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.
II. 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 movements, 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 arts 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 does in the affair is neither more nor
less than this: by the application of an unintelligent impulse
to a mechanism previously arranged, arranged independently of it
and arranged by intelligence, an effect is produced, namely, 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,
III. Though it be now no longer probable that the
individual watch which our observer had found was made
immediately by the hand of an artificer, yet does not this
alteration in anyway affect the inference that an artificer had
been originally employed and concerned in the production. The
argument from design remains as it was. Marks of design and
contrivance are no more accounted for now than they were before.
In the same thing, we may ask for the cause of different
properties. We may ask for the cause of the color of a body, of
its hardness, of its heat; and these causes may be all
different. We are now asking for the cause of that subserviency
to a use, that relation to an end, which we have remarked in the
watch before us. No answer is given to this question by telling
us that a preceding watch produced it. There cannot be design
without a designer; contrivance without a contriver; order
without choice; arrangement without anything capable of
arranging; subserviency and relation to a purpose without that
which could intend a purpose; means suitable to an end, and
executing their office in accomplishing that end, without the end
ever having been contemplated or the means accommodated to it.
Arrangement, disposition of parts, subserviency of means to an
end, relation of instruments to a use imply the presence of
intelligence and mind. No one, therefore, can rationally believe
that the insensible, inanimate watch, from which the watch before
us issued, was the proper cause of the mechanism we so much
admire in it -- could be truly said to have constructed the
instrument, disposed its parts, assigned their office, determined
their order, action, and mutual dependency, combined their
several motions into one result, and that also a result connected
with the utilities of other beings. All these properties,
therefore, are as much unaccounted for as they were before.
IV. Nor is anything gained by running the difficulty
farther back, that is, by supposing the watch before us to have
been produced from another watch, that from a former, and so on
indefinitely. Our going back ever so far brings us no nearer to
the least degree of satisfaction upon the subject. Contrivance is
still unaccounted for. We still want a contriver. A designing
mind is neither supplied by this supposition nor dispensed with.
If the difficulty were diminished the farther we went back, by
going back indefinitely we might exhaust it. And this is the only
case to which this sort of reasoning applies. Where there is a
tendency, or, as we increase the number of terms, a continual
approach toward a limit, there, by supposing the number of terms
to be what is called infinite, we may conceive the limit to be
attained; but where there is no such tendency or approach,
nothing is effected by lengthening the series. There is no
difference as to the point in question, whatever there may be as
to many points, between one series and another -- between a
series which is finite and a series which is infinite. A chain
composed of an infinite number of links, can no more support
itself, than a chain composed of a finite number of links. And of
this we are assured, though we never can have tried the
experiment; because, by increasing the number of links, from ten,
for instance, to a hundred, from a hundred to a thousand, etc.,
we make not the smallest approach, we observe not the smallest
tendency toward 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
infinite. 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 toward 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 substance,
without mark or indication of contrivance. It might be difficult
to show 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 question now. To
suppose it to be so is to suppose that it made no difference
whether he 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 contrivance, design, an end, a
purpose, means for the end, adaptation to the purpose. And the
question which irresistibly 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
increasing 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 means of the mechanism within it, we have a
cause for the watch in my hand, namely, the watch from which it
proceeded; I deny that for the design, the contrivance, the
suitableness of means to an end, the adaptation of instruments
to a use, all of 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 allege that a series may be carried back to
infinity; for I do not admit that we have yet any cause at all
for the phenomena, still less any series of causes either finite
or infinite. Here is contrivance but no contriver; proofs of de-
sign, but no designer.
V. 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 ffles, lathes, chisels, etc., 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 io
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 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 has 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, namely, that no art or skill whatever has been
concerned in the business, although all other evidences 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. . . .
Every observation which was made in our first chapter
concerning the watch may be repeated with strict propriety
concerning the eye, concerning animals, concerning plants,
concerning, indeed, all the organized parts of the works of
nature. As,
I. When we are inquiring simply after the existence of
an intelligent Creator, imperfection, inaccuracy, liability to
disorder, occasional irregularities may subsist in a
considerable degree without inducing any doubt into the question;
just as a watch may frequently go wrong, seldom perhaps exactly
right, may be faulty in some parts, defective in some, without
the smallest ground of suspicion from thence arising that it was
not a watch, not made, or not made for the purpose ascribed to
it. When faults are pointed out, and when a question is started
concerning the skill of the artist or dexterity with which the
work is executed, then, indeed, in order to defend these
qualities from accusation, we must be able either to expose some
intractableness and imperfection in the materials or point out
some invincible difficulty in the execution, into which
imperfection and difficulty the matter of complaint may be
resolved; or, if we cannot do this, we must ad- duce such
specimens of consummate art and contrivance proceeding from the
same hand as may convince the inquirer of the existence, in the
case before him, of impediments like those which we have
mentioned, although, what from the nature of the case is very
likely to happen, they be unknown and unperceived by him. This
we must do in order to vindicate the artist's skill, or at least
the perfection of it; as we must also judge of his intention and
of the provisions employed in fulfilling that intention, not from
an instance in which they fail but from the great plurality of
instances in which they succeed. But, after all, these are
different questions from the question of the artist's existence;
or, which is the same, whether the thing before us be a work of
art or not; and the questions ought always to be kept separate in
the mind. So likewise it is in the works of nature.
Irregularities and imperfections are of little or no weight in
the consideration when that consideration relates simply to the
existence of a Creator. When the argument respects His
attributes, they are of weight; but are then to be taken in
conjunction-the attention is not to rest upon them, but they are
to be taken in conjunction with the unexceptionable evidence
which we possess of skill, power, and benevolence displayed in
other instances; which evidences may, in strength, number, and
variety, be such and may so overpower apparent blemishes as to
induce us, upon the most reasonable ground, to believe that these
last ought to be referred to some cause, though we be ignorant of
it, other than defect of knowledge or of benevolence in the
author. . . .
CHAPTER ONE: "STATE OF THE ARGUMENT"
CHAPTER TWO: "STATE OF THE ARGUMENT CONTINUED"
CHAPTER FIVE: "APPLICATION OF THE ARGUMENT CONTINUED"