Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub
[merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

NATURAL THEOLOGY;

OR,

EVIDENCES OF THE EXISTENCE AND ATTRIBUTES OF THE DEITY, COLLECTED FROM THE APPEARANCES

OF NATURE.

CHAPTER I.

N

STATE OF THE ARGUMENT.

In croffing a heath, fuppofe I pitched my foot against a stone, and were asked how the ftone came to be there, I might poffibly anfwer, that, for any thing I knew to the contrary, it had lain there for ever: nor would it perhaps be very easy to shew the abfurdity of this answer. But fuppofe I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should be enquired how the watch happened to be in that place, I should hardly think of the answer which I had before given, that, for any thing I knew, the watch might have always

B

always been there. Yet why should not this anfwer ferve for the watch, as well as for the ftone? Why is it not as admissible in the fecond cafe, as in the firft? For this reafon, and for no other, viz. that, when we come to inspect the watch, we perceive (what we could not discover in the ftone) that its feveral parts are framed and put together for a purpose, e. g. that they are so formed and adjufted as to produce motion, and that motion fo regulated as to point out the hour of the day; that, if the feveral parts had been differently shaped from what they are, of a different fize 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 anfwered the use, that is now ferved by it. To reckon up a few of the plaineft of these parts, and of their offices, all tending to one refult:We fee a cylindrical box containing a coiled elastic spring, which, by its endeavour to relax itfelf, turns round the box. We next obferve a flexible chain (artificially wrought for the fake of flexure) communicating the action of the fpring from the box to the fusee.

We

We then find a feries of wheels, the teeth of which catch in, and apply to, each other, conducting the motion from the fufee to the balance, and from the balance to the pointer; and at the fame time, by the size and shape of those wheels, fo regulating that motion, as to terminate in caufing an index, by an equable and measured progreffion, 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 ruft; the fprings of steel, no other metal being fo 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 cafe. This mechanism being observed (it requires indeed an examination of the inftrument, and perhaps fome previous knowledge of the fubject, to perceive and understand it; but being once, as we have faid, obferved and understood), the inference, we think, is inevitable; that the watch muft have had a maker; that there must have exifted, at some time and at fome place or other, an artificer or artificers who formed it for the purpose

B 2

« VorigeDoorgaan »