The theologian says order, harmony, and adaptation are evidence of a designing intelligence that produced them. The earth and its productions show order, harmony, and adaptation. Therefore, the earth and its productions have been produced by an intelligent designer. Just as the Hindoo stopped reasoning when he imagined the earth on an elephant, and the elephant on a tortoise, so the theologian stops reasoning when he says, God made the world. But as surely as from the premise that whatever exists must have some support, follows the conclusion that the tortoise rests on something, as rests on it the elephant, does it follow from the proposition that order, harmony, and adaptation are proof of an intelligent designer, that the order, harmony, and adaptation in the Deity to produce the effects ascribed to him are evidence of an intelligent designer who made him, as the various parts of nature, adapted to one another, are evidence of an intelligent designer that produced them. This reasoning leads to the conclusion that there has been an infinite succession of creative and created Gods, which is inconsistent with the idea of a First Cause, the creator of the universe. Then why attempt to explain the mysteries of the universe by imagining a God who produced everything but himself, and why argue from the order and fitness in the world the existence of a designer. It reminds me of the ostrich, that having buried its head in the sand, so as to render invisible its pursuers, fancies there is no further need of exertion to escape from the dangers and difficulties which surround it. "Design represented as a search after final cause, until we come to a first cause, and then stop," says F. N. Newman, "is an argument I confess which in itself brings me no satisfaction." "The attempt," says Buckle, "which Paley and others have made to solve this mystery by rising from the laws to the cause are evidently futile, because to the eye of reason the solution is as incomprehensible as the problem, and the arguments of the natural theologian, in so far as they are arguments, must depend on reason." Design implies the use of means for the attainment of ends. Man designs, plans, contrives and uses secondary agencies to accomplish his purposes, because unable to attain his ends directly. But how absurd to speak of contrivance and design in a being of infinite power and knowledge. Man, to build steamships has to fell trees and hew them into various shapes, get iron from the earth and smelt it in furnaces, and work it into bolts, braces, nails, etc., hundreds of workmen, carpenters, joiners, blacksmiths, cabinet-makers, painters, caulkers, riggers, etc., labor for months before the vessel can be launched. If man possessed the power to speak into existence a steamship, would he contrive, plan and use means to construct it? On the contrary, would it not come instantly into existence as a complete, perfect whole?