"Paley, indeed, says that if the construction of a watch be an undeniable evidence of design, it would be a still more wonderful manifestation of skill if a watch could be made to produce other watches, and, it may be added, not only other watches, but all kinds of timepieces, in endless variety. So it has been asked, If a man can make a telescope, why cannot God make a telescope which produces others like itself? This is simply asking whether matter can be made to do the work of mind. The idea involves a contradiction. For a telescope to make a telescope supposes it to select copper and zinc in due proportions, and fuse them into brass; to fashion that brass into inter-entering tubes; to collect and combine the requisite materials for the different kinds of glass needed; to melt them, grind, fashion, and polish them, adjust their densities, focal distances, etc., etc. A man who can believe that brass can do all this might as well believe in God" (pp. 45, 46). If Dr. Hodge's meaning is, that matter unconstructed cannot do the work of mind, he misses the point altogether; for original construction by an intelligent mind is given in the premises. If he means that the machine cannot originate the power that operates it, this is conceded by all except believers in perpetual motion, and it equally misses the point; for the operating power is given in the case of the watch, and implied in that of the reproductive telescope. But if he means that matter cannot be made to do the work of mind in constructions, machines, or organisms, he is surely wrong. "Sovitur ambulando," vel scribendo; he confuted his argument in the act of writing the sentence. That is just what machines and organisms are for; and a consistent Christian theist should maintain that is what all matter is for. Finally, if, as we freely suppose, he means none of these, he must mean (unless we are much mistaken) that organisms originated by the Almighty Creator could not be endowed with the power of producing similar organisms, or slightly dissimilar organisms, without successive interventions. Then he begs the very question in dispute, and that, too, in the face of the primal command, "Be fruitful and multiply," and its consequences in every natural birth. If the actual facts could be ignored, how nicely the parallel would run! "The idea involves a contradiction." For an animal to make an animal, or a plant to make a plant, supposes it to select carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, to combine these into cellulose and protoplasm, to join with these some phosphorus, lime, etc., to build them into structures and usefully-adjusted organs. A man who can believe that plants and animals can do this (not, indeed, in the crude way suggested, but in the appointed way) "might as well believe in God." Yes, verily, and so he probably will, in spite of all that atheistical philosophers have to offer, if not harassed and confused by such arguments and statements as these.