The answer suggested by this last paragraph has its value, and the principle involved in it will occur for our scrutiny further on. But at present this train of thought, if pursued, might be likened to the weed we spoke of,--it would not be altogether in place here. The truth is that the whole objection thus parried appears more out of place still, and is therefore itself not a flower, but a weed of popular rhetoric. And the reason of its irrelevancy is plain. Paley's argument does not really turn upon the similitude of any two objects of simple apprehension, but upon an analogical comparison; the discovery, that is, of the likeness between two ratios, a process known in common life under the name of Proportion. Hence it is from the illative force of analogy that this topic of Design derives its value. The analogy does, in fact, serve a double purpose,--- _first_ to explain, and _secondly_ to prove. We had better look at it from both points of view. The easiest method for making an _illustrative_ analogy intelligible is to state it in old-fashioned style as a rule of three sum; the fourth term being the conclusion which completes it. "As a watch is to the watchmaker, so is creation, (exemplified by such and such a specimen,) to its Creator." That is to say, there exists some ratio or relation connecting the watch and the watchmaker, which exists also between the world and its Creator. To see its _illative_ force used as an argument, we need only alter the position of the four terms, and state our proportion as is more usual in modern day. "As the watch is to such and such specimens of creation, so is the watchmaker to the Author of any and all of these things." In the _first_ statement Paley's similitude is displayed in full as an asserted illustration of Design. The watch is a thing contrived--that is, a design realized, and the maker is its contriver. Just so, is the world a Design realized by its Creator. And it appears plainly implied in the assertion, that even as the little watch shows the limited power and intelligence of its maker, so the vast and unfathomable universe illustrates the infinite power and wisdom of its incomprehensible Author. The _second_ mode of statement displays the force of Paley's analogy viewed as a chain of reasoning. The watch is _not like_ the world, but there is something in common between them, and this something it is Paley's purpose, and the purpose of his various continuators, to show at the greatest convenient length. Now such community of character must be sufficient to establish a further community still. When we see a watch we are sure it had a designer,--the watchmaker; and here, again, Paley means to argue that from every example of contrivance which we can adduce and examine, the same inference ensues, and always must ensue. Therefore (he concludes) from the immeasurable designed world we infer the world's omnipotent Designer.