To argue, that because we can by analysis and research, discover and demonstrate the physical conditions or antecedents, that, apparently automatically, bring about a manifest contrivance, therefore, we have excluded the possibility of any universal primal design, is a mode of reasoning, the fallacy of which, surely, needs no great logical acumen to lay bare. Because we discover the molecular shapes and movements that determine the structure of a beautiful crystal, it would be surely illogical and unwarranted to say that there was no design, no arrangement in the primary order of things, out of which these very conditions arose. It is conceivable that there may be infinitely more mind in the origination of that which automatically gives rise to a manifest ‘contrivance,’ than in directly originating it. An ordinary watch is, as a rule, a good timekeeper, under a fixed, say a temperate meridian; but take it to the arctic circle, and it goes too fast; or to the torrid zone, and it goes too slow. But in a chronometer, delicate compensations are made, of a beautiful kind, so contrived as to counteract the thermal changes. Would it be logical to think of the more complex contrivance as devoid of design because it is self-acting? I grant that there may not be absolute parity of reasoning in the human as compared with the natural instance; but I only desire the reasoning to apply to one essential point. If primarily the methods of nature, which by their rhythmic action automatically produce contrivances, living or otherwise, took their origin in mind, the contrivances so produced were so designed to be produced; and this is contrivance of an infinitely higher order than the self-compensating balance of the chronometer. It is contrivances brought about by arrangements that are infinitely complex, transcending all thought; and which include in their vast sweep, all time, all space, all matter, all motion, and all their relations, from the most inconceivably minute phenomenon to the most stupendous that ever has happened, or can happen, as a product of nature. We may easily reduce this to a practical form by illustration. The arm or fore-limb of all mammals is constructed essentially on the same type. The forearm of the horse is most highly specialized. In the forearm there is, as in the human skeleton, the _radius_ and the _ulna_. But the ulna has lost its function, and is fused with the radius. What we call the knee in the horse’s fore-limb is really the wrist. There are eight bones in the human wrist. The horse has only seven. Now, immediately succeeding the wrist bones in the human hand, are the five bones that form the palm; and these are followed by the five digits or fingers.