every effect has a cause (though he knows nothing of their connexion),
and that effects which bear marks of design have a designing cause. This
principle is so familiar that if he were to affect to doubt it in any
practical case in human life, he would only be laughed at as a fool, or
pitied as insane. The evidence, then, which substantiates the greatest
and first of truths mainly depends on a principle perfectly familiar and
perfectly recognised. Man can estimate the nature of that evidence; and
the amount of it, in this instance, he sees to be as vast as the sum of
created objects;--nay, far more, for it is as vast as the sum of their
relations. So that if (as is apt to be the case) the difficulties of
realising this tremendous truth are in proportion to the extent of
knowledge and the powers of reflection, the evidence we can perfectly
appreciate is cumulative in an equal or still higher proportion. Obvious
as are the marks of design in each individual object, the sum of proof
is not merely the sum of such indications, but that sum infinitely
multiplied by the relations established and preserved amongst all these
objects; by the adjustment which harmonises them all into one system,
and impresses on all the parts of the universe a palpable order and
subordination. While even in a single part of an organised being (as a
hand or an eye) the traces of design are not to be mistaken, these are
indefinitely multiplied by similar proofs of contrivance in the
many individual organs of one such being--as of an entire animal or
vegetable. These are yet to be multiplied by the harmonious relations
which are established of mutual proportion and subserviency amongst all
the organs of any one such being: And as many beings even of that one
species or class as there are, so many multiples are there of the same
proofs. Similar indications yield similar proofs of design in each
individual part, and in the whole individual of all the individuals
of every other class of beings; and this sum of proof is again to
be multiplied by the proofs of design in the adjustment and mutual