living being, and yet he might have no difficulty in discovering the use of the various parts of the works in producing this motion.
Let us apply this to the celestial mechanism. Suppose a spirit, wandering through space, came across our system, would he not, in pausing to contemplate its arrangements, discover proof of intelligence, though ignorant as to the existence of planetary inhabitants? Paley would hesitate to admit such a conclusion. He would maintain that you must shew the advantage of the stability of the system to living beings before you can draw a proof of intelligent design. But, as in the case of the watch, though no idea might be formed as to the use of the stability to any being, design might be clearly traced in the mode by which the stability is secured. It would be seen that planets are admirably arranged for this purpose. And the inquiring spirit would be forced, altogether apart from the idea of planetary inhabitants, to acknowledge the hand of the Divine Mechanician. Paley would insist that there would be no use in the stability if there were no beings to benefit by it, and that the planets might as well be arranged in any random order. He would be inclined to abandon the heavens as furnishing an argument per se for the existence of a Designing Mind.
All this arises from the limited range of the argument which Paley prescribed to himself. He restricted the term use to the bearing of material laws upon life.
