have been discovered in the machine, or none which would have answered the use now served by it. Paley pursues the argument with perspicacity and cogency, and if he were more extensively read, it would be seen that he has many merits beyond those allowed to him by many philosophers of the present day, and that his argument is not refutable, even though it may be disparaged.

When for instance, Mr. Herbert Spencer cites this supposition of Paley's and endeavours to discredit it by imagining a reversal of the conditions, so that instead of the human finder of the watch speculating upon its maker, the watch itself should become intelligent and for itself reason about its maker, and so reason as to arrive at the false conclusion that its maker was a being like itself, and subject to the necessity of being provided with springs, escapements, and cog-wheels; he grossly misrepresents the result, for in such a case the watch would reason not wrongly but rightly according to the measure of its intelligence, that is, it would conceive of its maker only in watch-terms. To suppose, however, that man's whole reasoning about God from nature is as limited as would be that of the intelligent watch, is a palpable absurd

ity. Man well knows that when he has reached the conception of a great designer, he has not reached the ultimate conception of God, but only one which lies midway between himself and the Infinite Being. It is true and trustworthy enough for a mediate position, but unsuitable beyond it. Man is Man is possessed of supramechanical faculties, and exercises them in the whole range of inductive reasoning. He reasons. onward and upward, and in the case supposed, he is well aware that the conception he may derive from the watch of its maker is merely a first and imperfect conception of the perfection of the Almighty Maker. It is simply intermediate between man and God, and is by no means final, but elementary and suggestive of infinitely more than is comprised in itself.

This supposed reversal of the conditions of the watch and its human finder, is merely a fruit of David Hume's old subtle argument against reasoning from the appearances and operations of nature to the existence of an intelligent cause. By him it is adroitly and speciously argued that in reasoning about an agent or being wholly unlike all we have hitherto known, our inferences must be strictly confined to the facts whence they are drawn. Ascending

from the works of nature to their cause, we are entitled to conclude that a Being exists who created them as we see them, and therefore that this Being is possessed of sufficient skill and power to contrive and execute those precise works and no other or no more, hence it follows that a finite, but not that an infinite and all powerful Being exists. This line of argument has been repeated and varied, and is sometimes at present appealed to as an insuperable bar to the foundation of Natural Theology.

It is, however, capable of a satisfactory refutation, as Lord Brougham has briefly shown,* and as might be more largely shown, if it could really deceive any sound reasoner; who would however clearly see, as Lord Brougham observes that "according to this argument, all experimental knowledge must stand still, generalizing be at an end, and philosophers be content never to take a single step, or draw one conclusion beyond the mere facts observed by them; in a word, Inductive Science must be turned from a process of general reasoning upon particular facts, into a bare dry record of those particular facts themselves."

Hence to charge Natural Theologians with

* "Discourse on Natural Theology," Preface to Paley, Note.

presumption because they reason in this manner, and to affirm that all such ideas of the Unknowable One must be false and misleading, is both unfair and illogical. Thus in fact the opponents of all Natural Theology as impossible and unprofitable, proceed upon assumptions which may be shown to be untenable and baseless.

Reflect upon the continually repeated

charge which they urge against us of anthropomorphism of conceiving and representing the Creator under human figures and limitations, and as impelled by human motives and adopting human forms of procedure. Our opponents allege that so long as we judge of the Divine Mind by human standards, so long as we liken His aims and ends to ours, we make a science of Natural Theology impossible or absurd; that we thus reduce God to man, and nullify the whole force of our arguments. Frequently as this charge is renewed, and specious as it seems, we think it will be found to be in a great measure unfounded and unphilosophical. For if we are not to judge by such tests as we can apply, if we are not to employ our reason in the only direction in which we can exercise it, all reasoning upon this subject

is impracticable, and we must be content to confess that our faculties have been given to us in vain. Admitting that in older books and amongst contracted thinkers anthropomorphism has been carried too far, still the only way in which we can regard the Creator at all is in the manner in which our powers apprehend him naturally and readily. He has chosen to reveal Himself to us under various human representaions, as for example a King, a Ruler, a Guide, a Father, a Provider, a Director, and Friend. These and all similar terms are simply human, and embody various human relationships. But they are the only relationships we can in our present state recognize, and the only relationships which can call forth responsive affections and obedience in all. No thinker is deceived or deluded by them, because he knows that they are merely representative symbols of higher truth, and are simply tuitional indications of future and clearer revelations.

We must necessarily think of the Divine Nature as the Divine Being has qualified us to conceive of it. To attempt anything more is to lose the substance and grasp at a shadow. "That the true conception," says Dean Mansel, "of the Divine Nature, so far as we are able to