This position is finely illustrated by Paley. He describes a savage finding a watch in a desert, who is made to comprehend all its curious contrivances for marking time. This savage, he claims, would inevitably conclude that some intelligent person made the watch, and that it was his design to have it keep time.
In like manner, should the residence of a person be inspected, and be found filled with contrivances for producing mischief and for torturing men and animals, the result would be a belief that the author of these things was cruel and malignant. On the other hand, were these contrivances calculated to produce only comfort and happiness, the inevitable belief would follow that the contriver was benevolent.
Again, if these designs were found to involve powerful and magnificent results, the immediate belief would follow that the author was wise and powerful as well as benevolent.
This illustrates the method by which this implanted principle of reason enables us to learn the design and character of the Author of the universe by the works of creation.
The fifth intuitive truth is, that NO RATIONAL MIND WILL CHOOSE EVIL WITHOUT ANY HOPE OF COMPENSATING GOOD.
The fact that any person was seeking pain and evil without hope of compensating good would prove to all that "reason was lost." No sane mind ever acts thus.
It is by the aid of this intuitive truth that we rely on human testimony. The surest mode of establishing the reliability of a witness is to show that by false testimony he would knowingly incur evil and gain no good. In such circumstances no one would believe that a witness would be false.
The sixth intuitive truth is, that THINGS WILL CONTINUE AS THEY ARE AND HAVE BEEN TILL THERE IS EVIDENCE OF A CHANGE OR OF A CAUSE FOR A CHANGE.
All the business of this life rests on a belief in this implanted truth, and equally so do our inferences in regard to the immortality of the soul and a future state.
The belief that the sun will continue to rise, or that the seasons will return, rests solely on the fact that these events have been uniform in past time, and that we know of no cause for a change from this uniformity. And were any person to talk and act as if destitute of this belief, he would be deemed insane.