This is inevitably the mode in which such a conviction is acquired; and that it is so, we may the more readily believe, when we consider that it is the case with the design and will which we ascribe to man, no less than in that which we believe to exist in God. At first sight we might perhaps be tempted to say, that we infer design and purpose from the works of man in one case, because we have known these attributes in other cases produce effects in some measure similar. But to this we must reply, by asking how we come to know the existence of human design and purpose _at first_, and _at all_? What we see around us are certain appearances, things, successions of events; how come we ever to ascribe to other men the thought and will of which we are conscious ourselves? How do we come to believe that there are other men? How are we led to elevate, in our conceptions, some of the _objects_ which we perceive into _persons_? No doubt their actions, their words induce us to do this. We see that the manifestations which we observe must be so understood, and not otherwise. We feel that such actions, such events must be connected by consciousness and personality; that the actions are not the actions of things, but of persons; not necessary and without significance, like the falling of a stone, but voluntary and with purpose like what we do ourselves. But this is not a result of reasoning: we do not infer this from any similar case which we have known; since we are now speaking of the _first_ conception of a will and purpose different from our own. In arriving at such knowledge, we are aided only by our own consciousness of what thought, purpose, will, are: and possessing this regulative principle, we so decipher and interpret the complex appearances which surround us, that we receive irresistibly the persuasion of the existence of other men, with thought and will and purpose like our own. And just in the same manner, when we examine attentively the adjustment of the parts of the human frame to each other and to the elements, the relation of the properties of the earth to those of its inhabitants, or of the physical to the moral nature of man, the thought must arise and cling to our perceptions, however little it be encouraged, that this system, every where so full of wonderful combinations, suited to the preservation, and well-being of living creatures, is also the expression of the intention, wisdom, and goodness of a personal creator and governor.