And whilst there is undeniably one great
objection to his whole argument, namely that the Creator is represented
as an Artificer rather than a Creator, as overcoming difficulties which
stood in His way rather than as an Almighty Being fashioning things
according to His Will, yet the argument thus drawn from evidence of
design remains exceedingly powerful, and it has always been considered a
strong corroboration of the voice within which bids us believe in a God.
Now it certainly seems at first as if this argument were altogether
destroyed. If animals were not made as we see them, but evolved by
natural law, still more if it appear that their wonderful adaptation to
their surroundings is due to the influence of those surroundings, it
might seem as if we could no longer speak of design as exhibited in
their various organs; the organs we might say grow of themselves, some
suitable, and some unsuitable to the life of the creatures to which they
belonged, and the unsuitable have perished and the suitable have
survived.
But Paley has supplied the clue to the answer. In his well-known
illustration of the watch picked up on the heath by the passing
traveller, he points out that the evidence of design is certainly not
lessened if it be found that the watch was so constructed that, in
course of time, it produced another watch like itself.
Pages:
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104