Obrazy na stronie
PDF
ePub
[ocr errors]

tivals in many churches: and therefore the celebration of the Communion upon those days even in Lent was allowed. Still I cannot find that during paffion week, much lefs upon Good Friday, the practice of adminiftering the Eucharift ever prevailed either in the churches of the East or the Weft.

[blocks in formation]

Tthe introductory ffate of the argument, has been often

HE opening of Dr. Paley's "Natural Theology," or

admired and juftly commended; yet I apprehend, without wifhing to leffen the merit of that ingenious man, he was indebted for the whole illuftration to a work lefs known and esteemed than it deferves. I allude to Sir Matthew Hale's "Primitive Origination of Mankind," published in 1677 in one volume folio.

That your readers may judge for themselves, whether the coincidence between these two excellent writers was not fomething more than cafual, I have extracted both paffages, beginning with that of Paley.

"In croffing a heath, fuppofe I pitched my foot against a ftone, and were asked how the ftone came to be there, I might poffibly answer, that, for any thing I knew to the contrary, it had lain there for ever; nor would it perhaps be very eafy to fhew the abfurdity of this anfwer. But fuppofe I had found a watch upon the ground, and it fhould be enquired how the watch happened to be in that place, I fhould 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 fhould not this answer ferve for the watch, as well as for the stone? Why is it not as admiffible in the fecond

VOL. XIV.

Chm. Mag. June 1808.

3 K

fecond cafe, as in the firft? For this reason, and for no other, viz. that, when we come to infpect the watch, we perceive (what we could not discover in the ftone) that its feveral parts are framed and put together for a purpose, e. g. that they are fo formed and adjufted as to produce motion, and that motion fo regulated as to point out the hour of the day; that, if the feveral parts had been differently shaped from what they are, of a different fize 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 ferved by it. To reckon up a few of the plaineft of thefe parts, and of their offices, all tending to one refult:-we fee a cylindrical box containing a coiled elaftic fpring, which by its endeavour to relax itself, turns round the box. We next observe a flexible chain (artificially wrought for the fake of flexure) communicating the action of the fpring from the box to the fufee. We then find a feries of wheels, the teeth of which catch in, and apply to, each other, conducting the motion from the fufee to the balance, and from the balance to the pointer; and at the fame time, by the fize and shape of those wheels, fo regulating that motion, as to terminate in caufing an index, by an equable and measured progreffion, to pafs over a given space in a given time. We take notice that the wheels are made of brafs, in order to keep them from rust; the fprings of fteel, no other metal being fo elaftic; that over the face there is placed a glafs, a material employed in no other part of the work, but in the room of which, if there had been any other than a tranfparent fubftance, the hour could not be feen without opening the cafe. This mechanifm being observed (it requires indeed an examination of the inftrument, and perhaps fome previous knowledge of the fubject, to perceiye and understand it; but being once, as we have faid, obferved and understood,) the inference we think is inevitable, that the watch must have had a maker: that there must have exifted, at fome time, and at fome place or other, an artificer or artificers who formed it for the purpafe which we find it actually to anfwer; who comprehended its construction, and defigned its ufe." After a few obfervations, the doctor proceeds to confider what opinions might be alleged to account for fuch a piece of machinery by thofe who were ignorant of the principles on which it was conftructed. "No man in his fenfes" fays he "would think the existence of the watch, with its various machinery,

accounted

accounted for, by being told that it was one out of poffible combinations of material forms; that whatever he had found in the place where he had found the watch, must have contained fome internal configuration or other; and that this configuration might be the ftructure now exhibited, viz. of the works of a watch, as well as a different ftructure.-Nor would it yield his inquiry more fatisfaction to be answered, that there exifted in things a principle of order, which had difpofed the parts of the watch into their present form and fituation. He never knew a watch inade by the principle of order; nor can he even form to himself an idea of what is meant by a principle of order, diftinct from the intelligence of the watchmaker."-Again," he would be furprised to hear, that the mechanism of the watch was no proof of contrivance, only a motive to induce the mind to think fo. And not lefs furprised to be informed, that the watch in his hand, was nothing more than the result of the laws of metallic nature. It is a perverfion of language to affign any law, as the efficient, operative caufe of any thing. A law prefupposes 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 diftinct from itself, the law does nothing; is nothing. The expreffion, the law of metallic nature,' may found ftrange and harsh to a philofophic ear, but it feems quite as juftifiable as fome others which are more familiar to him," fuch as the law of vegetable nature,'-the law of animal nature,' or indeed as the law of nature' in general when affigned as the caufe of phenomena, in exclufion of agency and power; or when it is substituted into the place of thefe." *

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

Such is the general ftate of the argument contained in the introduction to Dr. Paley's valuable work; the subject of illuftration is continued at ftill greater length in the fe-cond chapter, and an admirable application made of it in what follows.

Let us now confider, and compare with it the equally forcible though homely parabolical reprefentation drawn by Sir Matthew Hale for the purpose of exposing the abfurdity of Philofophical fcepticism.

"That

* Paley's Natural Theology, p. 1-8. eighth edition.

"That which may illuftrate my meaning" fays the judge, "in this preference of the revealed light of the Holy Scriptures, touching this matter above the effays of a philofophical imagination, may be this. Suppofe that Greece, being unacquainted with the curiofity of mechanical engines, though known in fome remote region of the world, an excellent artist had fecretly brought and depofited in some field or foreft fome excellent watch or clock, which had been fo formed, that the original of its motion was hidden and involved in fome clofe contrived piece of mechanism ; that this watch was fo framed, that the motion thereof might have lafted a year, or some such time as might give a reasonable period for philofophical conjectures concerning it, and that in the plain table there had not been only the defcription and indication of hours, but the configurations and indications of the various phafes of the moon, the motion and place of the fun in the ecliptic, and divers other curious indications of celeftial motions; and that the scholars of the feveral schools of Epicurus, of Ariftotle, of Plato, and the reft of thofe philofophical fects, had cafually in their walk found this admirable automaton; what kind of work would there have been made by every fect, in giving an account of this phenomenon? We fhould have had the Epicurean fect have told the by-ftanders, according to their preconceived hypothefis, that this was nothing else but an accidental concretion of atoms, that haply fallen together, had made up the index, wheels, the balances, and that being haply fallen into this pofture, they were put into motion. Then the Cartefian falls in with him, as to the main of their fuppofition, but tells him that he does not fufficiently expli cate how this engine is put into motion; and therefore to furnish this motion, there is a certain materia fubtilis, that pervades this engine; and the moveable parts confifting of certain globular atoms apt for motion. They are thereby, and by the mobility of the globular atoms, put into motion. A third, finding fault with the two former, because these motions are fo regular, and do exprefs the various phenomena of the diftribution of time, and of the heavenly motions; therefore it seems to him, that this engine and motion also, fo analogical to the motions of the heavens, was wrought by fome admirable conjunction of the heavenly bodies, which formed this inftrument and its motions in fuch an admirable correfpondency to its own exiftence. A fourth, difliking the fuppofitions of the three former, tells the reft, that he hath a more plain and evident folution of the phenomenon, namely,

the

the univerfal foul of the world, or fpirit of nature, that formed fo many forts of infects with fo many organs, facul ties, and fuch congruity of their whole compofition, and fuch curious and various motions as we may obferve in them, hath formed and fet into motion this admirable automaton, and regulated and ordered it with all thefe congruities we fee in it. Then steps in an Ariftotelian, and, being diffatisfied with all the former folutions, tells them, Gentlemen, you are all miftaken, your folutions are inexplicable and unfatisfactory; you have taken up certain precarious hypothefes, and being prepoffeffed with thefe creatures of your own fancies, and in love with them, right or wrong, you form conceptions of things according to thofe fancied and preconceived imaginations. The fhort of the bufinefs is, this machina is eternal, and fo are all the motions of it; and inasmuch as the circular motion hath no beginning or end, this motion that you fee both in the wheels and index, and the fucceffive indications of the celeftial motions, is eternal, and without beginning. And this is a ready and expedite way of folving the phenomenon, without fo much ado as you have made about it.

And while all the mafters were thus controverfing the folution of the phenomenon in the hearing of the artift that made it, and when they had all spent their philofophizing upon it, the artift that made this engine, and all this while liftened to their admirable fancies, tells them, "Gentlemen, you have discovered very much excellency of invention touching this piece of work that is here before you, but you are all miferably mistaken, for it was I that made this watch and brought it hither; and I will fhew you how I made it: first, I wrought the fpring, and the fufee, and the wheels, and the balance, and the cafe, and table; I fitted them one to another, and placed these feveral axes that are to direct the motions of the index to difcover the hour of the day, of the figure that discovers the phafes of the moon, and the other various motions that you fee; and then I put it together, and wound up the fpring, which hath given all these motions that you fee in this curious piece of work: and that you may be fure I tell you true, I will tell you the whole order and progrefs of my making, difpofing, and ordering of this piece of work, the feveral materials of it, the manner of the forming every individual part of it, and how long I was about it." This plain and evident difcovery renders all these excogitated hypothefes of these philofophical enthusiasts

« PoprzedniaDalej »