SECT.  VI.  Second Comparison, drawn from the Sound of Instruments.

If we heard in a room, from behind a curtain, a soft and harmonious instrument, should we believe that chance, without the help of any human hand, could have formed such an instrument?  Should we say that the strings of a violin, for instance, had of their own accord ranged and extended themselves on a wooden frame, whose several parts had glued themselves together to form a cavity with regular apertures?  Should we maintain that the bow formed without art should be pushed by the wind to touch every string so variously, and with such nice justness?  What rational man could seriously entertain a doubt whether a human hand touched such an instrument with so much harmony?  Would he not cry out, “It is a masterly hand that plays upon it?”  Let us proceed to inculcate the same truth.