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their fubftance, figure and pofition, manifeftly fuited to the formation of an image by the refraction of rays of light, at least as manifeftly as the glaffes and tubes of a dioptric telescope are fuited to that purpose, it concerns not the proof which these afford of defign and of a defigner, than there may perhaps be other parts, certain mufcles, for inftance, or nerves, in the fame eye, of the agency of effect of which we can give no account; any more than we should be inclined to doubt, or ought to doubt, about the construction of a telescope, viz. for what purpose it was conftructed, or whether it were conftructed at all, because there belonged to it certain fcrews and pins, the use or action of which we did not comprehend. I take it to be a general way of infusing doubts and fcruples into the mind, to recall to it its own ignorance, its own imbecility; to tell us that upon these subjects we know little; that little imperfeâly; or rather, that we know nothing properly about the matter. These suggestions fo fall in with our confcioufneffes, as fometimes to produce a general diftruft of our faculties and our conclufions. But this is an unfounded jealousy. The uncertainty of one thing, does not neceffarily

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ceffarily affect the certainty of another thing. Qur ignorance of many points need not fufpend our affurance of a few. Before we yield, in any particular inftance, to the feepticism which this fort of infinuation would induce, we ought accurately to afcertain, whether our ignorance or doubt concern thofe precife points upon which our conclufion refts. Other points are nothing. Our ignorance of other points may be of no confequence to thefe; though they be points, in various respects, of great importance. A juft reafoner removes from his confideration, not only what he knows, but what he does not know, touching matters not strictly connected with his argument, i. e. not forming the very fteps of his deduction: beyond these, his knowledge and his ignorance are alike irrelative.

CHAP

CHAPTER VI.

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THE ARGUMENT CUMULATIVE.

WERE there no example in the world of contrivance except that of the eye, it would be alone fufficient to fupport the conclusion which we draw from it, as to the neceffity of an intelligent Creator. It could never be got rid of: because it could not be accounted for by any other fuppofition, which did not contradict all the principles we poffefs of knowledge; the principles according to which, things do, as often as they can be brought to the test of experience, turn out to be true or falfe. Its coats and humours, conftructed, as the lenfes of a telescope are constructed, for the refraction of rays of light to a point, which forms the proper action of the organ; the provifion in its mufcular tendons for turning its pupil to the object, fimilar to that which is given to the telescope by fcrews, and upon which power of direction in the eye, the exercife of its office as an optical inftrument depends; the further provifion for its defence,

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for its conftant lubricity and moisture, which we fee in its focket and its lids, in its gland for the fecretion of the matter of tears, its outlet or communication with the nose for carrying off the liquid after the eye is washed with it; these provifions compofe altogether an apparatus, a fyftem of parts, a preparation of means, fo manifest in their defign, fo exquifite in their contrivance, fo fuccefsful in their iffue, so precious and fo infinitely beneficial in their use, as, in my opinion, to bear down all doubt that can be raised upon the fubject. And what I wish, under the title of the prefent chapter, to obferve, is, that, if other parts of nature were inacceffible to our enquiries, or even if other parts of nature prefented nothing to our examination but diforder and confufion, the validity of this example would remain the fame...If there were but one watch in the world, it would not be lefs certain that it had a maker. If we had never in our lives feen any but one fingle kind of hydraulic machine; yet, if of that one kind we understood the mechanifm and ufe, we should be as perfectly affured that it proceeded from the hand, and thought, and skill of a work, man, as if we vifited a mufeum of the arts,

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and faw collected there twenty different kinds of machines for drawing water, or a thousand different kinds for other purposes. Of this point each machine is a proof, independently of all the reft. So it is with the evidences of a divine agency. The proof is not a conclufion, which lies at the end of a chain of reafoning, of which chain each inftance of contrivance is only a link, and of which, if one link fail, the whole falls; but it is an argument feparately supplied by every separate example. An error in stating an example affects only that example. The argument is cumulative in the fulleft fenfe of that term. The eye proves it without the ear; the ear without the eye. The proof in each example is complete ;"for when the defign of the part, and the conducivenefs of its structure to that defign, is fhewn, the mind may fet itself at rest: no future confideration can detract any thing from the force of the example.

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