aw, law moulding structure and
structure utilising law. Afar off we descry systems upon systems, solar
and sidereal, like sand upon the sea-shore for multitude, and every
individual orb thereof rotating or revolving in strictest accordance
with inflexible mathematical principles, and evidently owing to the
previous influence of those same principles its characteristic
configuration. Near at hand we discern organic forms innumerable, each
with its own special arrangement of component parts admirably apt for
the performance in ordinary circumstances of special functions,
admirably, as circumstances change, accommodating itself by
corresponding changes for continuing the same or undertaking other and
equally appropriate functions, nor merely performing them all in despite
of the restraints imposed by law, but availing itself of those very
restraints as means and aids for their performance. Where so much
aptness is, adaptation surely must have been: where arrangement is so
plainly conducive to ends, the ends must surely have been foreseen, and
the arrangement effected by design and according to preconceived plan.
And there cannot have been design without a designer or designers: the
plan cannot but have had its author or authors: nor could the plan have
been executed without an artificer or artificers. Author or authors,
too, artificer or artificers, be the same singular or plural, must have
possessed, individually or collectively, not less of wisdom, power, and
goodness than are displayed by the finished work. Now of each of these
attributes, the amount to which the aspect of the universe bears
witness, albeit not infinite, inasmuch as the universe is not without
imperfections, is yet indefinite; as plainly without measure as the
universe is without bounds. Wherefore, not only must the universe have
had an author or authors, an artificer or artificers, but his or their
wisdom, power, and goodness, must, whether infinite or not, have been at
least illimitable.

Such is the argument from design, and such, to my thinking, the only
absolute certainties legitimately deducible from it; and although these,
in comparison with the numerous probabilities ordinarily associated with
them, may appear somewhat meagre, yet are they intrinsically of
exceeding moment. They constitute the only basis on which any rational
religion, any that appeals to the intellect as well as to the feelings,
can rest securely. Whoever accepts them, by whate