Natural Theology: Or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity, Collected from the Appearances of Nature

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Hilliard and Brown, 1830 - 281 pagina's

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Pagina 248 - If he had been indifferent about our happiness or misery, we must impute to our good fortune (as all design by this supposition is excluded) both the capacity of our senses to receive pleasure, and the supply of external objects fitted to produce it.
Pagina 246 - that, in a vast plurality of instances in which contrivance is perceived, the design of the contrivance is beneficial.' The second, ' that the Deity has superadded pleasure to animal sensations, beyond what was necessary for any other purpose, or when the purpose, so far as it was necessary, might have been effected by the operation of pain.
Pagina 16 - ... and curiosity of the mechanism ; and still more, if possible, do they go beyond them in number and variety ; yet in a multitude of cases, are not less evidently mechanical, not less evidently contrivances, not less evidently accommodated to their end, or suited to their office, than are the most perfect productions of human ingenuity.
Pagina 239 - No anatomist ever discovered a system of organization calculated to produce pain and disease; or, in explaining the parts of the human body, ever said : This is to irritate, this to inflame...
Pagina 7 - I knew to the contrary, it had lain there for ever ; 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.
Pagina 235 - Walking by the sea-side, in a calm evening, upon a sandy shore, and with an ebbing tide I have frequently remarked the appearance of a dark cloud, or rather, very thick mist, hanging over the edge of the water, to the height, perhaps, of half a yard, and of the breadth of two or three yards, stretching along the coast as far as the eye could reach, and always returning with the water. When this cloud came to be examined, it proved to be nothing else than so much space, filled with young shrimps...
Pagina 8 - ... 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.
Pagina 13 - ... 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, &c. we make not the smallest approach, we observe not the smallest tendency, towards self-support.
Pagina 237 - One great cause of our insensibility to the goodness of the Creator is, the very extensiveness of his bounty. We prize but little what we share only in common with the rest, or with the generality of our species. When we hear of blessings, we think forthwith of successes, of prosperous fortunes, of...
Pagina 13 - Nor is any thing gained by running the difficulty farther back, ie 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.

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