or, indeed, than the existence of our own bodies. But, like the belief
in them, the belief in Him has become an article of our common sense. And
that this designing mind is, in some respects, similar to the human mind,
is proved to us--as Sir John Herschel well puts it--by the mere fact that
we can discover and comprehend the processes of nature.

But here again, if we be contradicted, we can only reassert. If the old
words, "He that made the eye, shall he not see? he that planted the ear,
shall he not hear?" do not at once commend themselves to the intellect of
any person, we shall never convince that person by any arguments drawn
from the absurdity of conceiving the invention of optics by a blind man,
or of music by a deaf one.

So we will assert our own old-fashioned notion boldly: and more; we will
say, in spite of ridicule--That if such a God exists, final causes must
exist also. That the whole universe must be one chain of final causes.
That if there be a Supreme Reason, he must have reason, and that a good
reason, for every physical phenomenon.

We will tell the modern scientific man--You are nervously afraid of the
mention of final causes. You quote against them Bacon's saying, that
they are barren virgins; that no physical fact was ever discovered or
explained by them. You are right: as far as regards yourselves. You
have no business with final causes; because final causes are moral
causes: and you are physical students only. We, the natural Theologians,
have business with them. Your duty is to find out the How of things:
ours, to find out the Why. If you rejoin that we shall never find out
the Why, unless we first learn something of the How, we shall not deny
that. It may be most useful, I had almost said necessary, that the
clergy should have some scientific training. It may be most useful--I