at all, either in the manufactory of the article, or in the fabrication of the machinery by which the manufactory was carried on!

And, after all, how, or in what fenfe, is it true, that animals produce their like? A butterfly, with a probofcis inftead of a mouth, with four wings and fix legs, produces a hairy caterpillar, with jaws and teeth, and fourteen feet. A frog produces a tadpole. A black beetle, with gauze wings and a crufty covering, produces a white, fmooth, soft worm; an ephemeron fly, a cod-bait maggot. These, by a progress through different ftages of life, and action, and enjoyment, (and, in each state, provided with implements and organs appropriated to the temporary nature which they bear,) arrive at laft at the form and fashion of the parent animal. But all this is procefs, not principle; and proves, moreover, that the property of animated bodies of producing their like, belongs to them, not as a primordial property, not by any blind neceffity in the nature of things, but as the effect of oeconomy, wifdom, and defign; because the property itself, affumes diverfities, and fubmits to deviations, dictated by intelligible utilities, and ferving diftinct purposes of animal happiness.

The

ge

The opinion, which would confider " neration" as a principle in nature; and which would affign this principle as the cause, or endeavour to fatisfy our minds with fuch a cause, of the existence of organized bodies, is confuted, in my judgment, not only by every mark of contrivance difcoverable in those bodies, for which it gives us no contriver, offers no account, whatever; but alfo by the further confideration, that things generated poffefs a clear relation to things not generated. If it were merely one part of a generated body bearing a relation to another part of the same body, as the mouth of an animal to the throat, the throat to the ftomach, the ftomach to the inteftines, those to the recruiting of the blood, and, by means of the blood, to the nourishment of the whole frame; or if it were only one generated body bearing a relation to another generated body, as the fexes of the fame fpecies to each other, animals of prey to their prey, herbivorous and graminivorous animals to the plants or feeds upon which they feed, it might be contended, that the whole of this correfpondency was attributable to generation, the common origin from which these substances proceeded. But what shall we fay to agree

ments which exift between things generated and things not generated? Can it be doubted, was it ever doubted, but that the lungs of animals bear a relation to the air, as a permanently elastic fluid? They act in it and by it: they cannot act without it. Now, if generation produced the animal, it did not produce the air; yet their properties correfpond. The eye is made for light, and light for the eye. The eye would be of no use without light, and light perhaps of little without eyes: yet one is produced by generation; the other not. ear depends upon undulations of air. are two sets of motions; firft, of the pulfes of the air; fecondly, of the drum, bones, and nerves of the ear; fets of motions bearing an evident reference to each other: yet the one, and the apparatus for the one, produced by the intervention of generation; the other altogether independent of it.

The

Here

If it be faid, that the air, the light, the elements, the world itself, is generated, I anfwer, that I do not comprehend the propofition. If the term mean any thing, fimilar to what it means, when applied to plants or animals, the propofition is certainly without proof; and, I think, draws as near to abfur

dity, as any propofition can do, which does not include a contradiction in its terms. I am at a lofs to conceive, how the formation of the world can be compared to the generation of an animal. If the term generation fignify fomething quite different from what it fignifies upon ordinary occafions, it may, by the fame latitude, fignify any thing. In which cafe a word or phrase taken from the language of Otaheite, would convey as much theory concerning the origin of the universe, as it does to talk of its being generated.

We know a caufe (intelligence) adequate to the appearances, which we wish to account for: we have this caufe continually producing fimilar appearances: yet, rejecting this cause, the fufficiency of which we know, and the action of which is conftantly before our eyes, we are invited to refort to fuppofitions, deftitute of a single fact for their support, and confirmed by no analogy with which we are acquainted. Were it neceffary to enquire into the motives of men's opinions, I mean their motives feparate from their arguments, I fhould almoft fufpect, that, because the proof of a Deity drawn from the conftitution of nature is not only popular but vulgar, (which may

arife from the cogency of the proof, and be indeed its highest recommendation,) and becaufe it is a species almost of puerility to take up with it, for thefe reafons, minds, which are habitually in search of invention and originality, feel a refiftless inclination to strike off into other folutions and other expofitions. The truth is, that many minds are not so indifpofed to any thing which can be offered to them, as they are to the flatness of being content with common reafons; and, what is most to be lamented, minds conscious of superiority are the moft liable to this repugnancy.

The "

fuppofitions" here alluded to all agreė in one character. They all endeavour to difpense with the neceffity in nature of a particular, perfonal, intelligence; that is to fay, with the exertion of an intending, contriving mind, in the ftructure and formation of the organized conftitutions which the world contains. They would refolve all productions into unconscious energies, of a like kind, in that refpect, with attraction, magnetifm, electricity, &c.; without any thing further.

In this the old fystems of atheism and the new agree. And I much doubt, whether the new schemes have advanced any thing upon the

old,