Page:Gods Glory in the Heavens.djvu/317

Rh, met this by virtually maintaining that, if the nebular hypothesis be true, the stability of the system must cease to be an argument for a DesigningMind. They have accordingly applied themselves to the task of disproving the hypothesis.

But granting the hypothesis proved, and that the successive abandoning of rings by the revolving mass, explained the circular character of the orbits, and the fact of their moving nearly in the same plane and in the same direction; this, so far from leading us to dispense with the necessity of a Designing Mind, would only enhance the wonder, by shewing the simplicity of the mode employed by the Divine Architect in rearing the celestial structure. It is of no consequence, as far as concerns the proof of design, whether the machine is executed mediately or immediately by the contriver. A watch may be executed by a watch-making machine, but this does not dispense with the idea of an intelligent watchmaker. Nay, the ingenuity is only increased by the ingenuity of the instrument employed. In the case of the bee, it has been attempted to explain away the intelligence involved in the construction of its cell, by shewing that its organs are so formed as to produce the requisite angles, and thus solve the problem of maxima and minima. But granting this, it is only proved that the intelligence in question works by means of tools. The employment of tools by no means lessens the ingenuity displayed in any piece of mechanism.