Every individual is perpetually changing, and every part of every individual; and yet the whole remains, in appearance, the same.

May we not hope for such a position, or rather be assured of it, from the eternal revolutions of unguided matter; and may not this account for all the appearing wisdom and contrivance which is in the universe?
Let us contemplate the subject a little, and we shall find, that this adjustment, if attained by matter of a seeming stability in the forms, with a real and perpetual revolution or motion of parts, affords a plausible, if not a true solution of the difficulty.
It is in vain, therefore, to insist upon the uses of the parts in animals or vegetables, and their curious adjustment to each other.

I would fain know, how an animal could subsist, unless its parts were so adjusted?
Do we not find, that it immediately perishes whenever this adjustment ceases, and that its matter corrupting tries some new form?
It happens indeed, that the parts of the world are so well adjusted, that some regular form immediately lays claim to this corrupted matter: and if it were not so, could the world subsist?
Must it not dissolve as well as the animal, and pass through new positions and situations, till in great, but finite succession, it falls at last into the present or some such order?
It is well, replied CLEANTHES, you told us, that this hypothesis was suggested on a sudden, in the course of the argument.

Had you had leisure to examine it, you would soon have perceived the insuperable objections to which it is exposed.

No form, you say, can subsist, unless it possess those powers and organs requisite for its subsistence: some new order or economy must be tried, and so on, without intermission; till at last some order, which can support and maintain itself, is fallen upon.