"If I deny a providential plan in the creation and government of the world, and attribute to brute matter a nature that, by its own inherent force, spontaneously develops into all these contrivances of use and beauty, I see that the wisdom of the whole universe is concentrated in the nature of matter, and, if it be possible, infinite subtlety of design is doubly manifest. To create a machine which, upon its elements being thrown into an indiscriminate pile, shall arrange itself, adapt part to part, and set itself in motion; which shall repair all its breaks, produce other machines as curious as itself, and thus reproduce itself and perpetuate its existence for ever--that would certainly be the acme of intelligent design. "Or if I go farther and deny a Creator, ascribing to the universe an eternal, uncreated existence, I see that I only entangle myself in a complication of difficulties. I find myself standing face to face with the best-established facts of geology. If the fact that the animal tribes which inhabit the earth, and especially the human race, had a beginning be not well established, then no fact in geological science can be reckoned as fixed. Geology has overturned the idea of an infinite series of generations of animals and men. Nor do I see that I gain any advantage or give any explanation of the universe by attributing to matter everything which others refer to an intelligent and almighty Creator. The distinction between mind and matter is that mind is endowed with intelligence and will, while matter has neither intelligence nor will, but only blind forces, blind attractions and repulsions. If I attribute the order, beauty, design, and benevolence of the universe to mere matter, I clothe matter with the attributes of spirit. In fact, I only set up another God and ascribe to the universe a true divinity. I make myself a kind of pantheist, investing all matter with the attributes of mind and spirit. All this I have pondered over for many a day, and I cannot deny that a belief in an intelligent Creator of the universe is logically more satisfactory. But there is one question which confronts me at every turn. I suppose that I might at length work out an answer for myself and that I should now see the explanation if all my thinking for so many years had not been upon the other side."