founded on the right assortment and disposition of many parts, or even of many principles; yet, on reflection will it be found that the materials even of this peculiar argument lie abundantly within the province of this contemplation. For beside the mental constitution of man, we can view the adaptation of that constitution to external nature. We might demonstrate, not only that the mind is rightly constituted in itself, but that the mind is rightly placed in a befitting theatre for the exercise of its powers. We might prove of the world and its various objects that they are suited to the various capacities of this inhabitant-this moral and intelligent creature, of whom it is palpable that the things which are around him bear a fit relation to the laws or the properties which are within him. There is ample room here for the evidence of collocation. Yet there remains this distinction between the mental and coporeal economy of man, that whereas the evidence arising from collocation is more rich and manifold in the bodily structure itself, than even in its complex and numerous adaptations to the outer world;* the like evidence in the mental department, is meagre, as afforded by the subjective mind, when compared with the evidence of its various adjustments and fitnesses to the objective universe around it, whether of man's moral constitution to the state of human society, or of his intellectual to the various objects of physical investigation.

Yet Paley has a most interesting chapter on the adaptations of external nature to the human framework, though the main strength and copiousness of his argument lie in the anatomy of the framework itself.

12. The great object of philosophy is to ascertain the simple or ultimate principles, into which all the phenomena of nature may by analysis be resolved. But it often happens that in this attempt she stops short at a secondary law, which might be demonstrated by further analysis to be itself a complex derivative of the primitive or elementary laws. Until this work of analysis be completed, we shall often mistake what is compound for what is simple, both in the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of matter being frequently exposed to intractable substances or intractable phenomena in both, which long withstand every effort that science makes for their decomposition. It is thus that the time is not yet come, and may never come, when we shall fully understand what be all the simple elements or simple laws of matter; and what be all the distinct elementary laws, or, as they have sometimes been termed, the ultimate facts in the constitution of the human mind. But we do not need to wait for this communication, ere we can trace, in either department, the wisdom and beneficence of a Deity-for many are both the material and mental processes which might be recognised as pregnant with utility, and so, pregnant with evidence for a God, long before the processes themselves are analyzed. The truth is, that a secondary law, if it do not exhibit any additional proof of design in a distinct useful principle, exhibits that proof in a distinct and useful disposition of parts-for, generally speaking, a secondary law is the result of an operation by some primitive law, in peculiar and new circumstances. For example, the law of the tides

is a secondary law, resolvable into one more general and elementary-even the law of gravitation. But we might imagine a state of things, in which the discovery of this connexion would have been impossible, as a sky perpetually mantled with a cloudy envelopment, which, while it did not intercept the light either of the sun or moon, still hid these bodies from our direct observation. In these circumstances, the law of the tides and the law of gravitation, though identical in themselves, could not have been identified by us; and so, we might have ascribed this wholesome agitation of the sea and of the atmosphere to a distinct power or principle in nature-affording the distinct indication of both a kind and intelligent Creator. Now this inference is not annihilated-it is not even enfeebled by the discovery in question; for although the good arising from tides in the ocean and tides in the air, is not referable to a peculiar law-it is at least referable to a peculiar collocation. And this holds of all the useful secondary laws in the material world. If they cannot be alleged in evidence for the number of beneficial principles in naturethey can at least be alleged in evidence for the number of nature's beneficial arrangements. If they do not attest the multitude of useful properties, they at least attest the multitude of useful parts in nature; and the skill guided by benevolence which has been put forth in the distribution of them. that long ere the philosophy of matter is perfected, or all its phenomena and its secondary laws have been resolved into their original and constituent principles-may we, in their obvious and immediate

So

utility alone, detect as many separate evidences in nature as there are separate facts in nature, for a wise and benevolent Deity.

13. And the same will be found true of the secondary laws in the mental world, which, if not as many distinct beneficial principles in the constitution of the mind, are the effect of as many distinct and beneficial arrangements in the objects or circumstances by which it is surrounded. We have not to wait the completion of its still more subtle and difficult analysis, ere we come within sight of those varied indications of benevolent design which are so abundantly to be met with, both in the constitution of the mind itself, and in the adaptation thereto of external nature. Some there are, for example, who contend that the laws of taste are not primitive but secondary; that our admiration of beauty in material objects is resolvable into other and original emotions, and, more especially, by means of the associating principle, into our admiration of moral excellence. Let the justness of this doctrine be admitted; and its only effect on our peculiar argument is, that the benevolence of God in thus multiplying our enjoyments, instead of being indicated by a distinct law for suiting the human mind to the objects which surround it, is indicated both by the distribution of these objects and by their investment with such qualities as suit them to the previous constitution of the mind that He hath pencilled them with the very colours, or moulded them into the very shapes which suggest either the graceful or the noble of human character; that He hath imparted to the

violet its hue of modesty, and clothed the lily in its robe of purest innocence, and given to the trees of the forest their respective attitudes of strength or delicacy, and made the whole face of nature one bright reflection of those virtues which the mind and character of man had originally radiated. If it be not by the implantation of a peculiar law in mind, it is at least by a peculiar disposition of tints and forms in external nature, that He hath spread so diversified a loveliness over the panorama of visible things; and thrown so many walks of enchantment around us; and turned the sights and the sounds of rural scenery into the ministers of so much and such exquisite enjoyment; and caused the outer world of matter to image forth in such prófusion those various qualities, which at first had pleased or powerfully affected us in the inner world of consciousness and thought. It is by the modifying operation of circumstances that a primary is transmuted into a secondary law; and if the blessings which we enjoy under it cannot be ascribed to the insertion of a distinct principle in the nature of man, they can at least be ascribed to a useful disposition of circumstances in the theatre around him.

14. In like manner there are some who would resolve our sense of property into an original instinct, an ultimate fact in the mental constitution; and then quote it as the distinct instance of a wise and beneficial ordination-connecting with it, as we have a right to do, all the advantages which accrue to society from the desire of property and from the respect for it which exists among men. Others