SHUTE BARRINGTON, LL. D. LORD BISHOP OF DURHAM. MY LORD, THE following work was undertaken at your Lordship's recommendation, and, amongst other motives, for the purpose of making the most acceptable return that I could, for a great and important benefit conferred upon me. It may be unnecessary, yet not perhaps quite impertinent, to state to your Lordship, and to the reader, the several inducements that have led me once more to the press. The favour of my first and ever-honoured Patron had put me in possession of so liberal a provision in the Church, as abundantly to satisfy my wants, and much to exceed my pretensions. Your Lordship's munificence, in conjunction with that of some other excellent Prelates, who regarded my services with the partiality with which your Lordship was pleased to consider them, hath since placed me in ecclesiastical situations, more than adequate to every object of reasonable ambition. In the mean time, a weak, and, of late, a painful state of health, deprived me of the power of discharging the duties of my station in a manner at all suitable, either to my sense of those duties, or to my most anxious wishes concerning them. My inability for the public functions of my profession, amongst other consequences, left me much at leisure. That leisure was not to be lost. It was only in my study that I could repair my deficiencies in the church; it was only through the press that I could speak. These circumstances entitled your Lordship, in particular, to call upon me for the only species of exertion of which I was capable, and disposed me without hesitation to obey the call in the best manner that I could. In the choice of a subject, I had no place left for doubt: in saying which, I do not so much refer, either to the supreme importance of the subject, or to any scepticism concerning it with which the present times are charged, as I do to its connexion with the subjects treated of in my former publications. The following discussion alone was wanted to make up my works into a system in which works, such as they are, the public have now before them, the evidences of Natural Religion,the evidences of Revealed Religion, and an account of the duties that result from both. It is of small importance that they have been written in an order the very reverse of that in which they ought to be read. I commend, therefore, the present volume to your Lordship's protection, not only as, in all probability, my last labour, but as the completion of a regular and comprehensive design. Hitherto, my Lord, I have been speaking of myself, and not of my Patron. Your Lordship wants not the testimony of a Dedication; nor any testimony from me: I consult therefore the impulse of my own mind alone when I declare, that in no respect has my intercourse with your Lordship been more gratifying to me, than in the opportunities which it has afforded me, of observing your earnest, active, and unwearied solicitude, for the advancement of substantial Christianity; a solicitude, nevertheless, accompanied with that candour of mind, which suffers no subordinate differences of opinion, when there is a co-incidence in the main intention and object, to produce any alienation of esteem, or diminution of favour. It is fortunate for a country, and honourable to its government, when qualities and dispositions like these are placed in high and influencing stations. Such is the sincere judgment which I have formed of your Lordship's character and of its public value: my personal obligations I can never forget. Under a due sense of both these considerations, beg leave to subscribe myself, with great respect and gratitude, MY LORD, Your Lordship's faithful and most devoted servant, Bishop Wearmouth, July, 1802. NATURAL THEOLOGY. CHAPTER I. STATE OF THE ARGUMENT. IN crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone, and were asked how the stone came to be there; I might possibly answer, that, for any thing 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 any thing I knew, the watch might have always been there. Yet why should not this answer serve for the watch as well as for the stone? why is it not as admissible in the second case, as in the first? For this reason, and for no other, viz. that, when we come to inspect the watch, we perceive (what we could not discover in the stone) that its several parts are framed and put together for a purpose, e. g. that they are so formed and adjusted as to produce motion, and that motion so regulated as to point out the hour of the day; that, if the different parts had been differently shaped from what they are, of 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. To reckon up a few of the plainest of these parts, and of their offices, all tending to one result: We see a cylindrical box containing a coiled elastic spring, which by its endeavour to relax itself, turns round the box. We next observe a flexible chain (artificially wrought for the sake of flexure) communicating the action of the spring from the box to the fusee. We then find a series of wheels, the teeth of which catch in, and apply to, each other, conducting the motion from the fusee to the balance, and from the balance to the pointer: and at the same time, by the size and shape of those wheels, so regulating that motion, as to terminate in causing an index, by an equable and measured progression, 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 rust; the springs of steel, no other metal being so 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 case. This mechanism being observed (it requires indeed an examination of the instrument, and perhaps some previous knowledge of the subject, to perceive and understand it; but being once, as we have | posed, namely, that there were parts which said, observed and understood,) the inference might be spared, without prejudice to the we think is inevitable, that the watch must movement of the watch, and that we had prohave had a maker; that there must have ex-ved this by experiment, these superfluous isted, at some time, and at some place or other, parts, even if we were completely assured that an artificer or artificers who formed it for the they were such, would not vacate the reasonpurpose which we find it actually to answer; ing which we had instituted concerning other who comprehended its construction, and de- parts. The indication of contrivance remainsigned its use. ed, with respect to them, nearly as it was before. I. Nor would it, I apprehend, weaken the conclusion, that we had never seen a watch made; that we had never known an artist capable of making one; that we were altogether incapable of executing such a piece of workmanship ourselves, or of understanding in what manner it was performed; all this being no more than what is true of some exquisite remains of ancient art, of some lost arts, and, to the generality of mankind, of the more curious productions of modern manufacture. Does one man in a million know how oval frames are turned? Ignorance of this kind exalts our V. Nor, fifthly, would it yield his inquiry opinion of the unseen and unknown artist's more satisfaction, to be answered, that there skill, if he be unseen and unknown, but raises existed in things a principle of order, which no doubt in our minds of the existence and had disposed the parts of the watch into their agency of such an artist, at some former time, present form and situation. He never knew and in some place or other. Nor can I per- a watch made by the principle of order; nor ceive that it varies at all the inference, whe- can he even form to himself an idea of what is ther the question arise concerning a human meant by a principle of order, distinct from agent, or concerning an agent of a different the intelligence of the watchmaker. species, or an agent possessing, in some respects, a different nature. IV. Nor, fourthly, would any man in his senses think the existence of the watch, with its various machinery, accounted for, by being told that it was one out of possible combina. tions of material forms; that whatever he had found in the place where he found the watch, must have contained some internal configuration or other; and that this configuration might be the structure now exhibited, viz. of the works of a watch, as well as a different structure. II. Neither, secondly, would it invalidate our conclusion, that the watch sometimes went wrong, or that it seldom went exactly right. The purpose of the machinery, the design, and the designer, might be evident, and in the case supposed would be evident, in whatever way we accounted for the irregularity of the movement, or whether we could account for it or not. It is not necessary that a machine be perfect, in order to show with what design it was made: still less necessary, where the only question is, whether it were made with any design at all. VI. Sixthly, he would be surprised to hear that the mechanism of the watch was no proof of contrivance, only a motive to induce the mind to think so: VII. And not less surprised to be inform ed, that the watch in his hand was nothing more than the result of the laws of metallic nature. It is a perversion of language to assign any law, as the efficient, operative cause of any thing. A law presupposes an agent; for it is only the mode, according to which an agent proceeds: it implies a power; for it is the order, according to which that power acts. Without this agent, without this power, which are both distinct from itself, the law does noIII. Nor, thirdly, would it bring any un-thing, is nothing. The expression," the law certainty into the argument, if there were a of metallic nature," may sound strange and few parts of the watch, concerning which we harsh to a philosophic ear; but it seems quite could not discover, or had not yet discovered, as justifiable as some others which are more in what manner they conduced to the general familiar to him, such as "the law of vegeta effect; or even some parts, concerning which ble nature," "the law of animal nature," or we could not ascertain, whether they conduc- indeed as "the law of nature," in general, ed to that effect in any manner whatever. For, when assigned as the cause of phenomena, in as to the first branch of the case; if by the exclusion of agency and power; or when it is loss, or disorder, or decay of the parts in ques-substituted into the place of these. tion, the movement of the watch were found VIII. Neither, lastly, would our observer in fact to be stopped, or disturbed, or retard-be driven out of his conclusion, or from his ed, no doubt would remain in our minds as to confidence in its truth, by being told that he the utility or intention of these parts, although knew nothing at all about the matter. He we should be unable to investigate the man- knows enough for his argument: he knows ner according to which, or the connexion by the utility of the end: he knows the subserwhich, the ultimate effect depended upon their viency and adaptation of the means to the end. action or assistance; and the more complex is These points being known, his ignorance of the machine, the more likely is this obscurity other points, his doubts concerning other to arise. Then, as to the second thing sup- points, affect not the certainty of his reason ་ ing. The consciousness of knowing little, need gence, an effect is produced, viz. the corn is not beget a distrust of that which he does ground. But the effect results from the ar know. CHAPTER II. STATE OF THE ARGUMENT CONTINUED. rangement. The force of the stream cannot be said to be the cause or author of the effect, still less of the arrangement. Understanding and plan in the formation of the mill were not the less necessary, for any share which the water has in grinding the corn; yet is this share the same, as that which the watch would have contributed to the production of the new watch, upon the supposition assumed in the SUPPOSE, in the next place, that the person who found the watch, should, after some time, discover, that in addition to all the pro-last section. Therefore, perties which he had hitherto observed in it, III. Though it be now no longer probable, it possessed the unexpected property of produ- that the individual watch, which our observer cing, in the course of its movement, another had found, was made immediately by the hand watch like itself (the thing is conceivable ;) of an artificer, yet doth not this alteration in that it contained within it a mechanism, a anywise affect the inference, that an artificer system of parts, a mould for instance, or a com- had been originally employed and concerned plex adjustment of laths, files, and other tools, in the production. The argument from deevidently and separately calculated for this pur- sign remains as it was. Marks of design and pose; let us inquire, what effect ought such a contrivance are no more accounted for now, discovery to have upon his former conclusion. than they were before. In the same thing, I. The first effect would be to increase his we may ask for the cause of different properadmiration of the contrivance, and his con- ties. We may ask for the cause of the colour viction of the consummate skill of the contri- of a body, of its hardness, of its heat; and ver. Whether he regarded the object of the these causes may be all different. We are now contrivance, the distinct apparatus, the intri- asking for the cause of that subserviency to a cate, yet in many parts intelligible mechanism, use, that relation to an end, which we have by which it was carried on, he would perceive, remarked, in the watch before us. No anin this new observation, nothing but an addi-swer is given to this question, by telling us tional reason for doing what he had already that a preceding watch produced it. There done, for referring the construction of the watch to design, and to supreme art. If that construction without this property, or, which is the same thing, before this property had been noticed, proved intention and art to have been employed about it; still more strong would the proof appear, when he came to the knowledge of this farther property, the crown and -perfection of all the rest. cannot be design without a designer; contrivance, without a contriver; order, without choice; arrangement, without any thing cacable of arranging; subserviency and relation to a purpose, without that which could intend a purpose; means suitable to an end, and executing their office in accomplishing that end, without the end ever having been contemplated, or the means accommodated to it. II. He would reflect, that though the watch Arrangement, disposition of parts, subservienbefore him were, in some sense, the maker of cy of means to an end, relation of instruments the watch, which was fabricated in the course to a use, imply the presence of intelligence and of its movements, yet it was in a very differ-mind. No one, therefore, can rationally beent sense from that, in which a carpenter, for lieve, that the insensible, inanimate watch, instance, is the maker of a chair; the author from which the watch before us issued, was of its contrivance, the cause of the relation of the proper cause of the mechanism we so much its parts to their use. With respect to these, admire in it ;-could be truly said to have conthe first watch was no cause at all to the se- structed the instrument, disposed its parts, ascond; in no such sense as this was it the au- signed their office, determined their order, acthor of the constitution and order, either of tion, and mutual dependency, combined their the parts which the new watch contained, or of several motions into one result, and that also the parts by the aid and instrumentality of a result connected with the utilities of other which it was produced. We might possibly beings. All these properties, therefore, are as say, but with great latitude of expression, that much unaccounted for as they were before. a stream of water ground corn; but no lati- IV. Nor is any thing gained by running the tude of expression would allow us to say, no difficulty farther back, i. e. by supposing the stretch of conjecture could lead us to think, watch before us to have been produced from that the stream of water built the mill, though another watch, that from a former, and so on it were too ancient for us to know who the indefinitely. Our going back ever so far, builder was. What the stream of water does brings us no nearer to the least degree of sain the affair, is neither more nor less than this; tisfaction upon the subject. Contrivance is by the application of an unintelligent impulse still unaccounted for. We still want a conto a mechanism previously arranged, arranged triver. A designing mind is neither supplied independently of it, and arranged by intelli-by this supposition, nor dispensed with. If |