The moral of this anecdote is no mystery.  Our clickmitoadist had never seen watches, knew nothing about watches, and hearing as well as seeing one for the first time, naturally judged it must be an animal.  Readers who may feel inclined to laugh at his simplicity, should ask themselves whether, if accustomed to see watches growing upon watch trees, they would feel more astonished than they usually do when observing crystals in process of formation, or cocoa-nuts growing upon cocoa-nut trees; and if as inexperienced with respect to watches, or works of art, more or less analogous to watches, they would not under his circumstances have acted very much as he did.  Admirably is it said in the unpublished work before referred to, that the analogy which theologians attempt to establish between the contrivances of human art and the various existences of the universe is inadmissable.  We attribute these effects to human intelligence, because we know beforehand that human intelligence is capable of producing them.  Take away this knowledge, and the grounds of our reasoning will be destroyed.  Our entire ignorance therefore of the Divine Nature leaves this analogy defective in its most essential point of comparison.

Supposing, however, that theologians were to succeed in establishing an analogy between ’the contrivances of human art and the various existences of the universe,’ is it not evident that Spinoza’s axiom—­of things which having nothing in common one cannot be the cause of the others—­is incompatible with belief in the Deity of our Thirty-Nine Articles, or, indeed, belief in any unnatural Designer or Causer of Material Nature.  Only existence can have anything in common with existence.

Now an existence, properly so called, must have at least two attributes, and whatever exhibits two or more attributes is matter.  The two attributes necessary to existence are solidity and extension.  Take from matter these attributes, and matter itself vanishes.  This fact was specially testified to by Priestley, who acknowledged the primary truths of Materialism though averse to the legitimate consequences flowing from their recognition.

According to this argument, then, nothing exists which has not solidity and extension, and nothing is extended and solid but matter, which in one state forms a crystal, in another a blade of grass, in a third a butterfly, and in other states other forms.  The essence of grass, or the essence of crystal, in other words, those native energies of their several forms constituting and keeping them what they are, can no more be explained than can the essentiality of human nature.

But the Atheist, because he finds it impossible to explain the action of matter, because unable to state why it exhibits such vast and various energies as it is seen to exhibit, is none the less assured it naturally and therefore necessarily acts thus energetically.  No Atheist pretends to understand how bread nourishes his frame, but of the fact that bread does nourish it he is well assured.  He understands not how or why two beings should by conjunction give vitality to a third being more or less analogous to themselves, but the fact stares him in the face.