The next principle of common sense is that by which we gain a knowledge of the natural attributes of the Creator. It is this:
Design or contrivance to secure a given end, is proof [pg 048] of an intelligent designer, and the nature of a design proves the intention and character of its author.
The mind, as has been shown, is so formed that it can not believe that any existence can commence without some antecedent cause. The existence of unorganized matter, however, would be no proof that the cause was an intelligent mind.
But when any existence is discovered where there is an adjustment of parts, all conducing to accomplish some determinate end, no person can examine and understand its nature and adaptations without the accompanying belief that the cause of that contrivance was a mind endowed with the capacity of adjusting means to accomplish an end, and thus an intelligent mind.
Nor is it possible, when the object which any design is fitted to accomplish is clearly discovered, to doubt the intention of the designer. We can not help believing that it was the intention of the contriver to accomplish the end for which his contrivance is fitted.
As an example to illustrate the existence of these principles, even in the simplest minds, if a savage should find in the desert a gold watch, nothing could lead him to believe that it sprang into existence there without any cause. If he should open it and perceive the nice adjustment of the wheels and all its beautiful indications of contrivance, he could not believe that the mind of an animal, or that any but an intelligent mind constructed its machinery. If he should have all its movements explained to him, and learn how exactly all were fitted to mark the passage of time, it would be equally impossible to convince him that the contriver did not design it for such a purpose.
Very early childhood gives evidence of the existence [pg 049] of these principles. An interesting instance of this is recorded by a celebrated philosopher, who, to test the existence of these principles in the mind of his child, planted a bed with seeds arranged in the form of the letters which spelled the child's name. When the green symbols had sprung from the ground and were discovered by the delighted child, the father in vain endeavored to force his belief that the letters came without a cause and without a design. “No, father. Somebody planted them; somebody intended to have them come up and spell my name!” And thus infancy itself maintains the principles which are our guide to the Great Source of all finite existences.
Another principle of common sense lends us still further aid in arriving at the natural attributes of the Creator. It is this:
Things are and will continue according to our past experience till there is evidence of a change.
All the business of life rests on a belief of this truth. Our confidence that the sun will rise, the seasons return, the ocean and rivers flow, the mountains remain; and in thousands of other things that regulate our plans and conduct, all depends on this implanted belief that things will continue according to our past experience till there is evidence of a change. A man who acted as if he disbelieved this principle would be regarded as having “lost his reason.”