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ceptible . It is quite as ridiculous for a man to refuse his assent to a fact , because it cannot be demonstrated by scientific reasoning " , or is incapable of mathematical proof , as to deny sound , because it cannot be seen , or smell , because it cannot be touched . It is on moral evidence on which the question rests , the sources of which we shall now briefly explain . " —Vol . I . pp . 351
—364 . After treating of the sources of Moral Evidence , and shewing that no process of abstract reasoning has been instituted to evince the existence of an Intelligent First Cause , which may not be either evaded by an opponent , or in which may not be detected the circular sophism , or a pelitio principii , the author proceeds to unfold the evidence by which the most important of all facts is established .
Wherever we find order and regularity obtaining either uniformly , or in a vast majority of instances , where the possibilities of disorder are indefinitely numerous , we are justified in inferring from this fact an intelligent cause . If it be inquired , " Whence this inference ? " it is replied , that " it is intuitively obvious that out of any given number of equally possible results , the chance of one taking place in exclusion of the rest , must be as 1 to the number of the others . Our belief , therefore , that a given one will not take
p lace by accident , must be more or less strong , as the others are more or less numerous ; and where an indefinite number on one side is opposed to unity on the other , to believe that unity will , not only in one instance , but in an indefinite number of similar instances , be accidentally the result , is much the same as to believe that unity is equal to infinity . " Not that it is to be imagined that the inference usually depends on any nice calculation of chances , or that scientific computation is necessary to the conclusion . A person who knows his letters , and little beyond , perceives intuitively that
the chances in favour of the alphabet being laid in regular order by design prodigiously overbalance those which exclude intelligence , though he may be unable to calculate their relative proportions . A like inference is deducible from an obvious suitability of means to ends ; a concurrence of causes , various and complicated , towards a production of effects . These furnish conclusive evidence of design ; and design necessarily implies the existence of intelligence . From whatever principle this conviction is supposed to originate , —from the clear evidence of mathematical probability ,
from the Dercention of analoffv . from an instinrtivp nrinrinlp . or n nrnrpss from the perception of analogy , from an instinctive principle , or a process of association , it matters not to the argument to decide . It is sufficient that it is universally admitted in theory , and acted upon in common life . Mr . Hume himself always proceeded on the belief that books were printed by types , that houses were made to live in , and flowers and fruits to be smelled and eaten .
The species of evidence being thus unfolded , we are next led to the inquiry , whether the phenomena of the universe present such indications of order , beauty , and harmony , as justify us in attributing their origin to a Designing Cause . Our author has added some valuable and interesting facts to the number collected by Vince , Paley , and many other writers in support
of Theism . The evidence of an Intelligent Cause which he educes from the intellectual and moral constitution of man is peculiarly striking . Our disagreement with him on some minor points of his philosophy ( which , however , we have no room to notice ) rather enhances than impairs the p leasure which we feel in adopting his conclusions , and sympathising with his admiration of the wisdom which originated the powers of thought , and
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152 Ctombie ^ t Natural Theology ,
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1830, page 152, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2582/page/8/
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