Passing on now to the evidence of design, this is of the most varied kind, especially throughout organic nature, where we find countless objects, which seem to point to the foresight of the Cause which produced them. The evidence is indeed so vast that it is difficult to deal with it satisfactorily. Perhaps the best way will be to follow the well-known _watch_ argument of Paley, first showing by the example of a watch what it is that constitutes marks of design; next, how a single organ, say the human eye, possesses these marks; and then, the cumulative nature of the evidence.
Now, when we examine a watch, we see that it has marks of design, because the several parts are put together for a _purpose_. They are so shaped and arranged as to produce motion, and this motion is so regulated as to point out the hour of the day. While, if they had been differently shaped or differently arranged, either no motion at all would have been produced, or none which would have answered the same purpose. And from this, we may infer two things. The first is that the watch had a _maker_ somewhere and at some time; and the second is that this maker understood its construction, and _designed_ it for the purpose which it actually serves.
These conclusions, it will be noticed, would not be altered by the fact that we had never seen a watch made; never knew a man capable of making one; and had no idea how the work could be done. All this would only exalt our opinion of the unknown watchmaker's skill, but would raise no doubt in our minds either as to his existence, or as to his having made the watch for the purpose of telling the time.
Nor should we feel that the watch was explained by being told that every part of it worked in strict accordance with natural laws, and could not possibly move otherwise than it did; in fact, that there was no design to account for. We should feel that, though the action of every part might be in strict accordance with law, yet the fact that all these parts agreed in this one particular, that they all helped to enable the watch to tell the time, did show design somewhere. In other words, we should feel that the properties of matter could only partly account for the watch, and that it required a skilful watchmaker as well, who made use of these properties so as to enable the watch to tell the time.
