These proofs
of design in each fragment of the universe, and in all combined, are
continually further multiplied by every fresh discovery, whether in the
minute or the vast--by the microscope or the telescope; for every fresh
law that is discovered, being in harmony with all that has previously
been discovered, not only yields its own proof of design, but infinitely
more, by all the relations in which it stands to other laws: it yields,
in fact, as many as there are adjustments which have been effected
between itself and all besides. Each new proof of design, therefore, is
not a solitary fact; but one which entering as another element into a
most complex machinery, indefinitely multiplies the combinations, in any
one of which chance might have gone astray. From this infinite array
of proofs of design, it seems to man's reason, in ordinary moods, stark
madness to account for the phenomena of the universe upon any other
supposition than that which docs account, and can alone account, for
them all,--the supposition of a Presiding Intelligence, illimitable
alike in power and in wisdom.
The only difficulty is justly to appreciate such an argument to obtain a
sufficiently vivid impression of such an accumulation of probabilities.
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