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 PALEY'S 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY 
 
 Slltultratrtr. 
 PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE, 
 
 HY 
 
 LORD BROUGHAM.
 
 DISCOURSE 
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY, 
 
 THE NATURE OF THE EVIDENCE AND THE 
 ADVANTAGES OF THE STUDY. 
 
 HENRY LORD BROUGHAM, F.R.S., 
 
 AND MEMBER OF THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF FRANCE. 
 
 LONDON: 
 CHARLES KNIGHT, 22, LUDGATE STREET. 
 
 MDCCCXXXV.
 
 LONDON: 
 
 Printed by WILLIAM CLOWES and SONS, 
 ' Stamford Street.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 DEDICATION 1 
 
 INTRODUCTION Arrangement of Subjects and Explanation 
 
 of Terms 5 
 
 ANALYSIS of the Work . . . . 11 
 
 PART I. 
 
 NATURK OF THE SCIENCE AND OF ITS EVIDENCES. 
 
 SECTION I. Introductory View of the Method of Investi- 
 gation pursued in the Physical and Psychological 
 Sciences . . . . . . . . 15 
 
 SECTION II. Comparison of the Physical Branch of Natu- 
 ral Theology with Physics 28 
 
 SECTION III. Comparison of the Psychological Branch of 
 
 Natural Theology with Psychology ... 52 
 
 SECTION IV. Of the Argument a priori ... 81 
 
 SECTION V. Moral or Ethical Branch of Natural Theo- 
 
 logy .....' '." . . 93 
 
 20908G8
 
 yi CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 SECTION VI. Lord Bacon's Doctrine of Final Causes . 138 
 SECTION VII. Of Scientific Arrangement, and the Me- 
 
 thods of Analysis and Synthesis . . . .152 
 
 PART II. 
 
 OF THE ADVANTAGES OF THE STUDY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 
 
 SECTION I. Of the Pleasures of Science . . .175 
 SECTION II. Of the Pleasure and Improvement peculiar to 
 
 NaturalTheology 187 
 
 SECTION III. Of the Connexion between Natural and Re- 
 vealed Religion . . .... . . . 199 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 NOTE I. Of the Classification of the Sciences .. .217 
 II. Of the Psychological Argument from Final 
 
 Causes 221 
 
 III. Of the Doctrine of Cause and Effect . . 227 
 IV. Of the " Systeme de la Nature," and the Hypo- 
 thesis of Materialism .... 232 
 V Of Mr. Hume's Sceptical Writings, and the Ar- 
 gument respecting Providence . . . 248
 
 CONTENTS. vii 
 
 Page 
 
 NOTE VI. Of the Ancient Doctrine respecting Mind . 263 
 VII. Of the Ancient Doctrine respecting the Deity and 
 
 Matter 266 
 
 VIII. Of the ancient Doctrine of the Immortality of 
 
 the Soul 273 
 
 IX. Of Bishop Warburton's Theory concerning the 
 
 Ancient Doctrine of a Future State . " . 231 
 
 X. Of Lord Bacon's Character . . . . 296
 
 A DISCOURSE 
 
 OF 
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 
 
 TO 
 
 JOHN CHARLES EARL SPENCER. 
 
 THE composition of this Discourse was undertaken in 
 consequence of an observation which I had often made, 
 that scientific men were apt to regard the study of 
 Natural Religion as little connected with philosophical 
 pursuits. Many of the persons to whom I allude were 
 men of religious habits of thinking; others were free 
 from any disposition towards scepticism, rather because 
 they had not much discussed the subject, than because 
 they had formed fixed opinions upon it after inquiry. 
 But the bulk of them relied little upon Natural Theo- 
 logy, which they seemed to regard as a speculation 
 built rather on fancy than on argument ; or, at any 
 rate, as a kind of knowledge quite different from 
 either physical or moral science. It therefore ap- 
 peared to me desirable to define, more precisely than 
 
 B
 
 2 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 had yet been done, the place and the claims of 
 Natural Theology among the various branches of 
 human knowledge. 
 
 About the same time our Society,* as you may 
 recollect, was strongly urged to publish an edition 
 of Dr. Paley's popular work, with copious and scien- 
 tific illustrations. We both favoured this plan; but 
 some of our colleagues justly apprehended that the 
 adoption of it might open the door to the introduction 
 of religious controversy among us, against our funda- 
 mental principles; and the scheme was abandoned. 
 I regarded it, however, as expedient to carry this 
 plan into execution by individual exertion; and our 
 worthy and accomplished colleague, Sir C. Bell whose 
 admirable treatise on Animal Mechanics pointed him 
 out as the fellow-labourer I should most desire for- 
 tunately agreed to share the work of the illustrations. 
 In these we have made a very considerable progress ; 
 and I now inscribe this publication, but particularly 
 the Preliminary Discourse, to you. It was, with the 
 exception of the Third Section of Part I., and the 
 greater portion of the Notes, written at the end of 
 1830, in 1831, and the latter part of 1833, and a 
 * For the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 3 
 
 portion was added in the autumn of 1834. In those 
 days I held the Great Seal of this kingdom ; and it 
 was impossible to finish the work while many cares 
 of another kind pressed upon me. But the first leisure 
 that could be obtained was devoted to this object, 
 and to a careful revision of what had been written 
 in a season less auspicious for such speculations. 
 
 I inscribe the fruits of those studies to you, not 
 merely as a token of ancient friendship for that you 
 do not require; nor because I always have found 
 you, whether in possession or in resistance of power, a 
 fellow-labourer to maintain our common principles, alike 
 firm, faithful, disinterested for your known public 
 character wants no testimony from me ; nor yet 
 because a work on such a subject needs the patronage 
 of a great name for it would be affectation in me to 
 pretend any such motive ; but because you have de- 
 voted much of your time to such inquiries are beyond 
 most men sensible of their importance concur gene- 
 rally in the opinions which I profess to maintain and 
 had even formed the design of giving to the world your 
 thoughts upon the subject, as I hope and trust you now 
 will be moved to do all the more for the present address. 
 In this view, your authority will prove of great value to 
 
 B 2
 
 4 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 the cause of truth, however superfluous the patronage 
 of even your name might be to recommend the most 
 important of all studies. 
 
 Had our lamented friend Romilly lived, you are aware 
 that not even these considerations would have made me 
 address any one but him, with whom I had oftentimes 
 speculated upon this ground. Both of us have been 
 visited with the most severe afflictions, of a far nearer 
 and more lasting kind than even his removal, and we are 
 now left with few things to care for ; yet ever since the 
 time I followed him to the grave, I question if either 
 of us has read, without meditating upon the irreparable 
 loss we and all men then sustained, the words of the 
 ancient philosopher best imbued with religious opi- 
 nions " Proficiscar enim non ad eos solum viros de 
 quibus ante dixi, sed etiam ad Catonem meum, quo 
 nemo vir melior natus est, nemo pietate prsestantior ; 
 cujus a me corpus crematum est, animus vero non me 
 deserens sed respectans, in ea profecto loca discessit quo 
 mihi ipsi cernebat esse veniendum; quern ego meum 
 casum fortiter ferre visus sum, non quod sequo animo 
 ferrem ; sed me ipse consolabar, existimans, non longin- 
 quum inter nos digressum et discessum fore."* 
 * De Senect.
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 ARRANGEMENT OF SUBJECTS AND EXPLANATION 
 OF TERMS. 
 
 THE words Theology and Religion are often used 
 as synonymous. Thus Natural Theology and 
 Natural Religion are by many confounded toge- 
 ther. But the more accurate use of the words is 
 that which makes Theology the science, and Reli- 
 gion its subject; and in this manner are they 
 distinguished when we speak of a " professor of 
 theology," and a " sense of religion." 
 
 There is, however, as regards Natural Theology, 
 a more limited use of the word, which confines it 
 to the knowledge and attributes of the Deity, 
 and regards the speculation concerning his will, 
 and our own hopes from and duties towards him, 
 as another branch of the science, termed Natural 
 Religion, in contradistinction to the former. Dr. 
 Paley hardly touches on this latter branch in his 
 book, there being only about one -sixtieth part 
 devoted to it, and that incidentally in treating of 
 the attributes. Indeed, though in the dedication
 
 6 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 he uses the word Religion as synonymous with 
 Theology, the title and the arrangement of his 
 discourse show that he generally employed the 
 term Natural Theology in its restricted sense. 
 Bishop Butler, on the other hand, seems to 
 have used Natural Religion in a sense equally 
 restricted, but certainly little warranted by cus- 
 tom; for that portion of his work which treats of 
 Natural Religion is confined to a future state and 
 the moral government of God, as if he either held 
 Natural Religion and Natural Theology to be two 
 branches of one subject, or Natural Religion to 
 be a branch of Natural Theology. The older 
 writers, Clarke, Bentley, Derham, seem to have 
 sometimes used the words indifferently, but never 
 to have regarded Natural Religion in the re- 
 stricted acceptation. The ancients generally used 
 Religion in a qualified sense, either as connected 
 with an obligation, or as synonymous with super- 
 stition. 
 
 This Discourse is not a treatise of Natural 
 Theology : it has not for its design an exposition 
 of the doctrines whereof Natural Theology con- 
 sists. But its object is, first, to explain the na- 
 ture of the evidence upon which it rpsts to show
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 7 
 
 that it is a science, the truths of which are disco- 
 vered by induction, like the truths of Natural and 
 Moral Philosophy that it is a branch of science 
 partaking of the nature of each of those great 
 divisions of human knowledge, and not merely 
 closely allied to them both. Secondly, the object 
 of the Discourse is to explain the advantages 
 attending this study. The work, therefore, is a 
 Logical one. 
 
 We have commented upon the use of the terms 
 Theology and Religion. As it is highly desirable 
 to keep scientific language precise, and always to 
 use the same terms in the same sense, we shall 
 now further observe upon the word " moral" in 
 relation to science or faculties. It is sometimes 
 used to denote the whole of our mental faculties, 
 and in opposition to natural and physical, as when 
 we speak of " moral science," " moral truths" 
 " moral philosophy" But it is also used in con- 
 tradistinction to "intellectual" or "mental," and 
 in connexion with or in reference to obligation ; 
 and then it relates to rights and duties, and is 
 synonymous with ethical It seems advisable to 
 use it always in this sense, and to employ the 
 words spiritual and mental in opposition to na-
 
 8 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 tural and material and psychological, as applied 
 to the science of mind, in opposition to physical. 
 Again, a distinction is sometimes made between 
 the intellectual and moral powers or faculties 
 the former being directly those of the under- 
 standing, the latter those of the will, or, as they 
 are often called, the "active powers," that is, 
 the passions and feelings. It seems better to 
 use the word active for this purpose as opposed 
 to intellectual. Thus we shall have these general 
 terms, spiritual or mental, as applied to the im- 
 material part of the creation, and psychological, as 
 applied to the science which treats of it. We 
 shall next have a subdivision of the mental facul- 
 ties into intellectual and active; both form the 
 subjects of psychological science. Moral science, 
 in its restricted sense, and properly so called, 
 will then denote that branch which treats of du- 
 ties, and of what is implied in those duties, their 
 correlative rights; it will, in short, be ethical 
 science. 
 
 Thus the science of mind say Metaphysical 
 science may be said to consist of two great 
 branches, the one of which treats of existences, 
 the other of duties. The one accordingly has been
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 9 
 
 termed, with great accuracy, Ontology, speaking 
 of that which is ; the other, Deontology, speaking 
 of that which ought to be. The former, however, 
 comprehends properly all physical as well as men- 
 tal science. The division which appears upon the 
 whole most convenient is this : That metaphysical 
 science, as contradistinguished from physical, is 
 cither psychological, which treats of the faculties 
 both intellectual and active, but treats of exist- 
 ences only ; or moral, which treats of rights and 
 duties, and is distinguishable from psychologi- 
 cal, though plainly cpnnected with it nearly as 
 corollaries are with the propositions from whence 
 they flow. Then physical truths, in one respect, 
 come under the same head with the first branch of 
 metaphysical truths. . Physical as well as psycho- 
 logical science treats of existences, while moral 
 science alone treats of duties. 
 
 According to a like arrangement, Natural Theo- 
 logy consists of two great branches, one resem- 
 bling Ontology, the other analogous to Deontology. 
 The former comprehends the discovery of the 
 existence and attributes of a Creator, by investi- 
 gating the evidences of design in the works of the 
 creation, material as well as spiritual. The latter 
 
 B3
 
 10 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 relates to the discovery of his will and probable 
 intentions with regard to his creatures, their con- 
 duct, and their duty. The former resembles the 
 physical and psychological sciences, and treats of 
 the evidences of design, wisdom, and goodness 
 exhibited both in the natural and spiritual worlds. 
 The latter resembles rather the department of 
 moral science, as distinguished from both physical 
 and psychological. We may thus consider the 
 science of Natural Theology as consisting, like 
 all inductive science, of three compartments, Na- 
 tural, Mental, and Moral ; or, taking the Greek 
 terms, Physical, Psychological, and Ethical. 
 
 This classification is convenient, and its grounds 
 are very fit to be premised at the same time 
 that we must admit the question to be one only 
 of classification and technology. Having so stated 
 the divisions of the subject and the meaning of 
 the terms used in relation to those divisions, I 
 shall assume this arrangement and adhere to this 
 phraseology, as convenient, though far from repre- 
 senting it to be the best. In such discussions it 
 is far more important to employ one uniform and 
 previously explained language or arrangement, 
 than to be very curious in adopting the best.
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 11 
 
 No classification, indeed, can, from the nature of 
 things, be rigorously exact. All the branches of 
 science, even of natural philosophy, much more of 
 metaphysical, run into each other, and are sepa- 
 rated by gradations rather than by lines of de- 
 marcation. Nor could any scientific language we 
 possess help breaking doAvn under us in an 
 attempt to maintain a perfectly logical arrange- 
 ment.* 
 
 ANALYSIS OF THE WORK. 
 
 THE order of this Discourse is thus set out : 
 
 The FIRST PART treats of the nature of the 
 subject, and the kind of evidence upon which 
 Natural Theology rests. 
 
 The SECOND PART treats of the advantages 
 derived from the study of the science. 
 
 The former Part is divided into seven sections. 
 The first is introductory, and treats of the kind of 
 evidence by which the truths of Physical and Psy- 
 chological science are investigated, and shows that 
 there is as great an appearance of diversity be- 
 tween the manner in which we arrive at the know- 
 * Note I.
 
 12 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 ledge of different truths in those inductive sciences, 
 as there is between the nature of any such induc- 
 tive investigation and the proofs of the ontological 
 branches of Natural Theology. But that diversity 
 is proved to be only apparent ; and hence it is in- 
 ferred, that the supposed difference of the proofs 
 of Natural Theology may also be only apparent. 
 
 The second section continues the application 
 of this argument to the Physical branch of 
 Natural Theology, and shows further proofs 
 that the first branch of Natural Theology is as 
 much an inductive science as Physics or Na- 
 tural Philosophy. The first section compared 
 the ontological branches of Natural Theology 
 with all inductive science, physical as well as 
 psychological. The second compares the physical 
 branch of Natural Theology with physical science 
 only. 
 
 The third section compares the psychological 
 branch of Natural Theology with psychological 
 science, and shows that both rest alike upon 
 induction. 
 
 The fourth section shows that the argumentum 
 a priori is unsound in a great degree that it is
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 13 
 
 insufficient for the purpose to which it is applied 
 that it serves only to a limited extent and that 
 to this extent it is in reality not distinguishable 
 from induction, or the aryumentum a posteriori. 
 
 Theffth section treats of the second or Moral, 
 the deontological branch of Natural Theology, 
 and shows that it rests upon the same kind of 
 evidence with moral science, and is, strictly speak- 
 ing, as much a branch of inductive knowledge. 
 
 The sixth section examines the doctrines of 
 Lord Bacon respecting Final Causes, and shows 
 that he was not adverse to the speculation when 
 kept within due bounds. 
 
 The seventh section examines the true nature of 
 inductive analysis and synthesis, and shows some 
 important errors prevailing on this subject. 
 
 In treating of the proofs of design displayed by 
 the mental constitution of living creatures, and in 
 treating of the Soul's Immortality, it becomes 
 necessary to enter more at large into the sub- 
 ject, and therefore the third and the sixth sections 
 are not, like the others, mere logical discourses in 
 which the doctrines of Natural Theology are as- 
 sumed rather than explained. The subjects of
 
 14 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 those two sections have not been sufficiently 
 handled in professed treatises upon Natural Theo- 
 logy, which have been almost wholly confined to 
 the first branch of the science the proofs of the 
 Deity's existence and attributes and to the phy- 
 sical portion of that branch. This defect I have 
 endeavoured to supply. 
 
 The Second Part, which treats of the advantages 
 of the study, consists of three sections. 
 
 The first shows that the precise kind of plea- 
 sure derived from the investigation of scientific 
 truths is derived from this study. 
 
 The second treats of the pleasures which are 
 peculiar to this study. 
 
 The third treats of the connexion of Natural 
 with Revealed Religion.
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 15 
 
 PAET THE FIRST. 
 
 NATURE OF THE SCIENCE, AND OF ITS EVIDENCES. 
 SECTION I. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY VIEW OF THE METHOD OF INVESTI- 
 GATION PURSUED IN THE PHYSICAL AND PSYCHO- 
 LOGICAL SCIENCES. 
 
 THE faculties, as well as the feelings of the human 
 mind, its intellectual, as well as its active powers, 
 are employed without any intermission, although 
 with varying degrees of exertion, in one of two 
 ways either in regard to some object imme- 
 diately connected with the supply of our wants, 
 or in regard to subjects of mere contemplation. 
 The first class of exertions relates to all the 
 objects of necessity, of comfort, or of physical 
 enjoyment : in the pursuit of these, the powers 
 of the understanding, or the passions, or both 
 together, are with nearly the whole of mankind 
 employed during the greater portion of their 
 existence, and with the bulk of mankind, during
 
 16 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 almost the whole of their existence. The other 
 class of mental exertions, which engrosses but a 
 very few men for the greater part of their lives, 
 and occupies the majority only occasionally and 
 at considerable intervals, comprehends within its 
 scope all the subjects of meditation and reflection 
 of merely speculative reasoning and discussion : it 
 is composed of all the efforts which our under- 
 standing can make, and all the desires which we 
 can feel upon subjects of mere science or taste, 
 matters which begin and end in intellectual or 
 moral gratification. 
 
 It is unquestionably true that these two grand 
 branches of exertion have an intimate connexion 
 with each other. The pursuits of science lend 
 constant assistance to those of active life ; and 
 the practical exercise of the mental powers con- 
 stantly furthers the progress of science merely 
 speculative. But the two provinces are never- 
 theless perfectly distinguishable, and ought not 
 to be confounded. The corollary from a scientific 
 discovery may be the improvement of a very ordi- 
 nary machine or a common working tool ; yet the 
 establishment of the speculative truth may have 
 been the primary object of the philosopher who
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 17 
 
 discovered it ; and to learn that truth is the im- 
 mediate purpose of him who studies the philo- 
 sopher's system. So, the better regulation of the 
 affections or the more entire control of the passions 
 may be the result of an acquaintance with our men- 
 tal constitution ; but the object of him who studies 
 the laws of mind is merely to become acquainted 
 with the spiritual part of our nature. In like 
 manner, it is very possible that the knowledge of 
 a scientific truth may force itself upon one whose 
 faculties or feelings are primarily engaged in 
 some active exertion. Some physical law, or some 
 psychological truth, may be discovered by one only 
 intent upon supplying a physical want, or obtaining 
 a mental enjoyment. But here, as in the former 
 case, the scientific or speculative object is inci- 
 dental to the main pursuit : the matter of con- 
 templation is the corollary, the matter of action 
 the proposition. 
 
 The merely contemplative pursuits, which thus 
 form one of the great branches of mental exertion, 
 seem again to be divisible into two classes, by a line 
 that, to a careless observer, appears sufficiently 
 defined. The objects of our inquiry and meditation 
 appear to be either those things in the physical
 
 18 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 and spiritual worlds, with which we arc conversant 
 through our senses, or by means of our internal 
 consciousness ; or those things with which we are 
 made acquainted only by reasoning by the evi- 
 dence of things unseen and unfelt. We either dis- 
 cuss the properties and relations of actually per- 
 ceived and conceived beings, physical and mental 
 that is, the objects of sense and of consciousness 
 or we carry our inquiries beyond those things which 
 we see and feel ; we investigate the origin of them 
 and of ourselves ; we rise from the contemplation 
 of nature and of the spirit within us, to the first 
 cause of all, both of body and of mind. To the 
 one class of speculation belong the inquiries how 
 matter and mind are framed, and how they act; 
 to the other class belong the inquiries whence 
 they proceed, and whither they tend. In a 
 word, the structure and relations of the universe 
 form the subject of the one branch of philosophy, 
 and may be termed Human Science ; the origin 
 and destiny of the universe forms the subject of 
 its other branch, and is termed Divine Science, or 
 Theology. 
 
 It is not to be denied that this classification 
 may be convenient ; indeed, it rests upon some
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 19 
 
 real foundation, for the speculations which com- 
 pose these two branches have certain common dif- 
 ferences and common resemblances. Yet it is 
 equally certain, that nothing but an imperfect 
 knowledge of the subject, or a superficial atten- 
 tion to it, can permit us to think that there is any 
 well-defined boundary which separates the two 
 kinds of philosophy ; that the methods of investi- 
 gation are different in each ; and that the kind of 
 evidence varies by which the truths of the one and 
 of the other class are demonstrated. The error is 
 far more extensive in its consequences than a mere 
 inaccuracy of classification, for it materially im- 
 pairs the force of the proofs upon which Natural 
 Theology rests. The proposition which we would 
 place in its stead is, That this science is strictly a 
 branch of inductive philosophy, formed and sup- 
 ported by the same kind of reasoning upon 
 which the Physical and Psychological sciences are 
 founded. This important point will be established 
 by a fuller explanation ; and we shall best set 
 about this task by shewing, in the first place, that 
 the same apparent diversity of evidence exists in 
 the different subjects or departments of the branch 
 which we have termed Human science. It seems
 
 20 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 to exist there on a superficial examination : if 
 a closer scrutiny puts that appearance to flight, 
 the inference is legitimate, that there may be 
 no better ground for admitting an essential dif- 
 ference between the foundations of Human Science 
 and Divine. 
 
 The careless inquirer into physical truth would 
 certainly think he had seized on a sound princi- 
 ple of classification, if he should divide the objects 
 with which philosophy, Natural and Mental, is con- 
 versant, into two classes those objects of which 
 we know the existence by our senses or our con- 
 sciousness; that is, external objects which we see, 
 touch, taste, and smell, internal ideas which we 
 conceive or remember, or emotions which we feel 
 and those objects of which we only know the ex- 
 istence by a process of reasoning, founded upon 
 something originally presented by the senses or 
 by consciousness. This superficial reasoner would 
 range under the first of these heads the members of 
 the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms ; the 
 heavenly bodies ; the mind for we are supposing 
 him to be so far capable of reflection, as to know 
 that the proof of the mind's separate existence is, 
 at the least, as short, plain, and direct, as that
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 21 
 
 of the body, or of external objects. Under the 
 second head he would range generally whatever 
 objects of examination are not directly perceived 
 by the senses, or felt by consciousness. 
 
 But a moment's reflection will shew both how 
 very short a way this classification would carry our 
 inaccurate logician, and how entirely his principle 
 fails to support him even during that little part 
 of the journey. Thus the examination of cer- 
 tain visible objects and appearances enables us 
 to ascertain the laws of light and of vision. 
 Our senses teach us that colours differ, and 
 that their mixture forms other hues; that their 
 absence is black, their combination in certain 
 proportions white. We are in the same way 
 enabled to understand that the organ of vision 
 performs its functions by a natural apparatus re- 
 sembling, though far surpassing, certain instru- 
 ments of our own constructing, and that there- 
 fore it works on the same principles. But that 
 light, which can be perceived directly by none 
 of our senses, exists, as a separate body, we only 
 infer by a process of reasoning from things which 
 our senses do perceive. So we are acquainted 
 with the effects of heat ; we know that it extends
 
 22 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 the dimensions of whatever matter it penetrates ; 
 we feel its effects upon our own nerves when sub- 
 jected to its operation ; and we see its effects in 
 augmenting, liquefying, and decomposing other 
 bodies ; but its existence as a separate substance 
 we do not know, except by reasoning and by 
 analogy. Again, to which of the two classes must 
 we refer the air ? Its existence is not made known 
 by the sight, the smell, the taste ; but is it by the 
 touch ? Assuredly a stream of it blown upon the 
 nerves of touch produces a certain effect ; but to 
 infer from thence the existence of a rare, light, 
 invisible, and impalpable fluid, is clearly an ope- 
 ration of reasoning, as much as that which 
 enables us to infer the existence of light or heat 
 from their perceptible effects. But furthermore, 
 we are accustomed to speak of seeing motion ; and 
 the reasoner whom w r e are supposing would cer- 
 tainly class the phenomena of mechanics, and pos- 
 sibly of dynamics generally, including astronomy, 
 under his first head, of things known immediately 
 by the senses. Yet assuredly nothing can be 
 more certain than that the knowledge of motion 
 is a deduction of reasoning, not a perception of 
 sense ; it is derived from the comparison of two
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 23 
 
 positions ; the idea of a change of place is the 
 result of that comparison attained by a short 
 process of reasoning ; and the estimate of velocity 
 is the result of another process of reasoning and 
 of recollection. Thus, then, there is at once ex- 
 cluded from the first class almost the whole range 
 of natural philosophy. But are we quite sure 
 that anything remains which when severely ex- 
 amined will stand the test ? Let us attend a 
 little more closely to the things which we have 
 passed over hastily, as if admitting that they 
 belonged to the first class. 
 
 It is said that we do not see light, and we cer- 
 tainly can know its existence directly by no other 
 sense but that of sight, but that we see objects 
 variously illuminated, and therefore that the exist- 
 ence of light is an inference of reason, and the di- 
 versity of colour an object of sense. But the very 
 idea of diversity implies reasoning, for it is the 
 result of a comparison, and when we affirm that 
 white light is composed of the seven primary co- 
 lours in certain proportions, we state a proposition 
 which is the result of much reasoning reasoning, 
 it is true, founded upon sensations or impressions 
 upon the senses ; but not less founded upon such
 
 24 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 sensations is the reasoning which makes us believe 
 in the existence of a body called light. The 
 same may be said of heat, and the phenomena of 
 heated bodies. The existence of heat is an in- 
 ference from certain phenomena, that is, certain 
 effects produced on our external senses by certain 
 bodies or certain changes which those senses un- 
 dergo in the neighbourhood of those bodies ; but 
 it is not more an inference of reason than the 
 proposition that heat extends or liquefies bodies, 
 for that is merely a conclusion drawn from com- 
 paring our sensations occasioned by the external 
 objects placed in varying circumstances. 
 
 But can we say that there is no process of 
 reasoning even in the simplest case which we 
 have supposed our reasoner to put the existence 
 of the three kingdoms, of nature, of the heavenly 
 bodies, of the mind ? It is certain that there is in 
 every one of these cases a process of reasoning. 
 A certain sensation is excited in the mind through 
 the sense of vision ; it is an inference of reason 
 that this must have been excited by something, 
 or must have had a cause. That the cause must 
 have been external, may possibly be allowed to be" 
 another inference which reason could make un-
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 25 
 
 aided by the evidence of any other sense. But 
 to discover that the cause was at any the least 
 distance from the organ of vision,, clearly required 
 a new process of reasoning, considerable expe- 
 rience, and the indications of other senses ; for 
 the young man whom Mr. Cheselden couched for 
 a cataract at first believed that every thing he 
 saw touched his eye. Experience and reasoning, 
 therefore, are required to teach us the existence 
 of external objects ; and all that relates to their 
 relations of size, colour, motion, habits, in a word, 
 the whole philosophy of them, must of course be 
 the result of still longer and more complicated 
 processes of reasoning. So of the existence of 
 the mind : although undoubtedly the process of 
 reasoning is here the shortest of all, and the least 
 liable to deception, yet so connected are all its 
 phenomena with those of the body, that it re- 
 quires a process of abstraction alien from the 
 ordinary habits of most men, to be persuaded that 
 we have a more undeniable evidence of its sepa- 
 rate existence than we even have of the separate 
 existence of the body. 
 
 It thus clearly appears that we have been 
 justified in calling the classifier whose case we 
 
 c
 
 26 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 have been supposing, a careless inquirer,, a super- 
 ficial reasoner, an imperfect logician; that there 
 is no real foundation for the distinction which 
 we have supposed him to take between the dif- 
 ferent objects of scientific investigation ; that the 
 evidence upon which our assent to both classes 
 of truths reposes is of the same kind, namely, the 
 inferences drawn by reasoning from sensations or 
 ideas, originally presented by the external senses, 
 or by our inward consciousness. 
 
 If, then, the distinction which at first appeared 
 solid, is found to be without any warrant in the dif- 
 ferent kinds of Human Science, has it any better 
 grounds when we apply it to draw the line be- 
 tween that branch of philosophy itself, and the 
 other which has been termed Divine, or Theology ? 
 In other words, is there any real, any specific dif- 
 ference between the method of investigation, the 
 nature of the evidence, in the two departments of 
 speculation ? Although this Preliminary Dis- 
 course, and indeed the work itself which it intro- 
 duces, and all the illustrations of it, are calcu- 
 lated throughout to furnish the answer to the 
 question, we shall yet add a few particulars in 
 this place, in order to show how precisely the
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 27 
 
 same fallacy which we have been exposing, in 
 regard to the classification of objects in ordi- 
 nary scientific research, gives rise to the more 
 general classification or separation of all science 
 into two distinct branches, Human and Divine, 
 and how erroneous it is to suppose that these 
 two branches rest upon different foundations. 
 
 c2
 
 28 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 COMPARISON OF THE PHYSICAL BRANCH OF NATURAL 
 THEOLOGY WITH PHYSICS. 
 
 THE two inquiries that into the nature and con- 
 stitution of the universe, and that into the evi- 
 dence of design which it displays in a word, 
 physics and psychology, philosophy whether na- 
 tural or mental, and the fundamental branch of 
 Natural Theology, are not only closely allied 
 one to the other, but are to a very considerable ex- 
 tent identical. The two .paths of investigation for 
 a great part of the way completely coincide. The 
 same induction of facts which leads us to a know- 
 ledge of the structure of the eye, and its functions 
 in the animal economy, leads us to the knowledge 
 of its adaptation to the properties of light. It is 
 a truth of physics, in the strictest sense of the 
 word, that vision is performed by the eye refract- 
 ing light, and making it converge to a focus upon 
 the retina ; and that the peculiar combination of 
 its lenses, and the different materials they are 
 composed of, correct the indistinctness which
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 29 
 
 would otherwise arise from the different refrangi- 
 bility of light ; in other words, make the eye an 
 achromatic instrument. But if this is not also a 
 truth in Natural Theology, it is a position from 
 which, by the shortest possible process of reason- 
 ing, we arrive at a Theological truth namely, that 
 the instrument so successfully performing a given 
 service by means of this curious structure, must 
 have been formed with a knowledge of the pro- 
 perties of light. The position from which so easy 
 a step brings us to this doctrine of Natural Theo- 
 logy was gained by strict induction. Upon the 
 same evidence which all natural science rests on, 
 reposes the knowledge that the eye is an optical 
 instrument : this is a truth common to both Phy- 
 sics and Theology. Before the days of Sir Isaac 
 Newton, men knew that they saAvby means of the 
 eye, and that the eye was constructed upon opti- 
 cal principles ; but the reason of its peculiar con- 
 formation they knew not, because they were ig- 
 norant of the different refrangibility of light. 
 When his discoveries taught this truth, it was 
 found to have been acted upon, and consequently 
 known, by the Being who created the eye. Still 
 our knowledge was imperfect ; and it was re-
 
 30 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 served for Mr. Dollond to discover another law 
 of nature the different dispersive powers of dif- 
 ferent substances which enabled him to com- 
 pound an object-glass that more effectually cor- 
 rected the various refrangibility of the rays. 
 It was now observed that this truth also must 
 have been known to the maker of the eye ; for 
 upon its basis is that instrument, far more 
 perfect than the achromatic glass of Dollond, 
 framed. These things are truths in both physics 
 and theology ; they are truths taught us by the 
 self-same process of investigation, and resting 
 upon the self-same kind of evidence. 
 
 When we extend our inquiries, and observe the 
 varieties of this perfect instrument, we mark the 
 adaptation of changes to the diversity of cir- 
 cumstances ; and the truths thus learnt are in 
 like manner common to Physical and Theological 
 science; that is, to Natural History, or Compa- 
 rative Anatomy, and Natural Theology. 
 
 That beautiful instrument, so artistly contrived 
 that the most ingenious workman could not 
 imagine an improvement of it, becomes still more 
 interesting and more wonderful, when we find 
 that its conformation is varied with the different
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 31 
 
 necessities of each animal. If the animal prowls 
 by night, we see the opening of the pupil, and 
 the power of concentration in the eye increased. 
 If an amphibious animal has occasionally to dive 
 into the water, with the change of the medium 
 through which the rays pass, there is an accom- 
 modation in the condition of the humours, and 
 the eye partakes of the eye both of the quadru- 
 ped and the fish. 
 
 So, having contemplated the apparatus for 
 protection in the human eye, we find that in the 
 lower animals, who want both the accessory means 
 of cleaning the eye and the ingenuity to accom- 
 plish it by other modes than the eyelids, an addi- 
 tional eyelid, a new apparatus, is provided for 
 this purpose. 
 
 Again, in fishes, whose eye is washed by the 
 element in which they move, all the exterior appa- 
 ratus is unnecessary, and is dismissed ; but in the 
 crab, and especially in that species which lies in 
 mud, the very peculiar and horny prominent eye, 
 which everybody must have observed, would be 
 quite obscured were it not for a particular provi- 
 sion. There is a little brush of hair above the 
 eye, against which the eye is occasionally raised
 
 32 
 
 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 to wipe off what may adhere to it. The form of 
 the eye, the particular mode in which it is moved, 
 and, we may say, the coarseness of the instrument 
 compared Avith the parts of the same organ in the 
 higher class of animals, make the mechanism of 
 eyelids and of lachrymal glands unsuitable. The 
 mechanism used for this purpose is discovered by 
 observation and reasoning; that it is contrived 
 for this purpose is equally a discovery of obser- 
 vation and reasoning. Both propositions are 
 strictly propositions of physical science. 
 
 The same remarks apply to every part of the 
 animal body. The use to which each member is 
 subservient, and the manner in which it is enabled 
 so to perform its functions as to serve that ap- 
 pointed use, is learnt by an induction of the strict- 
 est kind. But it is impossible to deny, that what 
 induction thus teaches forms the great bulk of all 
 Natural Theology. The question which the theo- 
 logian always puts upon each discovery of a pur- 
 pose manifestly accomplished is this : " Suppose 
 I had this operation to perform by mechanical 
 means, and were acquainted with the laws regu- 
 lating the action of matter, should I attempt it in 
 any other way than I here see practised ?" If the
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 33 
 
 answer is in the negative, the consequence is irre- 
 sistible that some power, capable of acting with 
 design, and possessing the supposed knowledge, 
 employed the means which we see used. But this 
 negative answer is the result of reasoning founded 
 upon induction, and rests upon the same evidence 
 whereon the doctrines of all physical science are 
 discovered and believed. And the inference to 
 which that negative answer so inevitably leads is a 
 truth in Natural Theology ; for it is only another 
 way of asserting that design and knowledge are 
 evinced in the works and functions of nature. 
 
 It may further illustrate the argument to take 
 one or two other examples. When a bird's egg 
 is examined, it is found to consist of three parts ; 
 the chick, the yolk in which the chick is placed, 
 and the white in which the yolk swims. The yolk 
 is lighter than the white ; and it is attached to it 
 at two points, joined by a line, or rather plane, 
 below the centre of gravity of the yolk. From this 
 arrangement it must follow that the chick is 
 always uppermost, roll the egg how you will ; 
 consequently, the chick is always kept nearest to the 
 breast or belly of the mother while she is sitting. 
 Suppose, then, that any one acquainted with the 
 
 c3
 
 34 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 laws of motion had to contrive things so as to secure 
 this position for the little speck or sac in question, 
 in order to its receiving the necessary heat from 
 the hen could he proceed otherwise than by 
 placing it in the lighter liquid, and suspending 
 that liquid in the heavier, so that its centre of 
 gravity should be above the line or plane of sus- 
 pension? Assuredly not; for in no other way 
 could his purpose be accomplished. This position 
 is attained by a strict induction ; it is supported 
 by the same kind of evidence on which all physi- 
 cal truths rest. But it leads by a single step to 
 another truth in Natural Theology ; that the egg 
 must have been formed by some hand skilful in 
 mechanism, and acting under the knowledge of 
 dynamics. 
 
 The forms of the bones and joints, and the 
 tendons or cords which play over them, afford a 
 variety of instances of the most perfect mechani- 
 cal adjustment. Sometimes the power is sacri- 
 ficed for rapidity of motion, and sometimes ra- 
 pidity is sacrificed for power. Our knee-pan, or 
 patella, throws off the tendon which is attached to 
 it from the centre of motion, and therefore adds to 
 the power of the muscles of the thigh, which
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 35 
 
 enable us to rise or to leap. We have a mecha- 
 nism of precisely the same kind in the lesser joints, 
 where the bones, answering the purposes of the 
 patella, are formed of a diminutive size.* In the 
 toes of the ostrich, the material is different, but 
 the mechanism is the same. An elastic cushion is 
 placed between the tendon and the joint, which, 
 whilst it throws off the tendon from the centre of 
 motion, and therefore adds to the power of the 
 flexor muscle, gives elasticity to the bottom of the 
 foot. And we recognise the intention of this when 
 we remember that this bird does not fly, but runs 
 with great swiftness, and that the whole weight 
 rests upon the foot, which has but little rela- 
 tive breadth ; these elastic cushions serving in 
 some degree the same office as the elastic frog 
 of the horse's hoof, or the cushion in the bottom 
 of the camel's foot. 
 
 The web-foot of a water-fowl is an inimitable 
 paddle ; and all the ingenuity of the present day 
 exerted to improve our steam-boats makes no- 
 thing to approach it. The flexor tendon of the 
 toes of the duck is so directed over the heads of 
 the bones of the thigh and leg, that it is made 
 
 * Hence called Sesamoid from Sesawym, a kind of grain.
 
 36 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 tight when the creature bends its leg, and is re- 
 laxed when the leg is stretched out. When the 
 bird draws its foot up, the toes are drawn together, 
 in consequence of the bent position of the bones 
 of the leg pressing on the tendon. When, on the 
 contrary, it pushes the leg out straight, in. making 
 the stroke, the tendons are relieved from the pres- 
 sure of the heel-bone, and the toes are permitted 
 to be fully extended and at the same time ex- 
 panded, so that the web between them meets the 
 resistance of a large volume of water. 
 
 In another class of birds, those which roost 
 upon the branch of a tree, the same mechanism 
 answers another purpose. The great length of 
 the toes of these birds enables them to grasp the 
 branch ; yet were they supported by voluntary 
 effort alone, and were there no other provision 
 made, their grasp would relax in sleep. But, on 
 the contrary, we know that they roost on one foot, 
 and maintain a firm attitude. Borelli has taken 
 pains to explain how this is. The muscle which 
 bends the toes lies on the fore part of the thigh, 
 and runs over the joint which corresponds with 
 our knee-joint; from the fore part its tendon 
 passes to the back part of the leg, and over the
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 37 
 
 joint equivalent to our heel-bone ; it then splits, 
 and extends in the bottom of the foot to the toes. 
 The consequence of this singular course of the 
 tendon is, that when the mere weight of the bird 
 causes these two joints to bend under it, the ten- 
 don is stretched, or would be stretched, were it 
 not that its divided extremities, inserted into the 
 last bones of the toes, draw these toes, so that 
 they contract, and grasp the branch on which the 
 bird roosts, without any effort Avhatever on its part. 
 
 These are facts learnt by induction ; the induc- 
 tive science of dynamics shows us that such me- 
 chanism is calculated to answer the end which, in 
 point of fact, is attained. To conclude from 
 thence that the mechanist contrived the means 
 with the intention of producing this end, and 
 with the knowledge of the science, is also strictly 
 an inference of induction. 
 
 Examine now, in land animals, the structure of 
 the larynx, the upper part of which is so con- 
 trived as to keep the windpipe closely shut by 
 the valve thrown over its orifice, while the food 
 is passing into the stomach, as it were, over a 
 drawbridge, and, but for that valve, would fall 
 into the lungs. No one can hesitate in ascrib-
 
 38 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 ing this curious mechanism to the intention that 
 the same opening of the throat and mouth 
 should serve for conveying food to the stomach 
 and air to the lungs, without any interference of 
 the two operations. But that structure would not 
 be sufficient for animals which live in the water, 
 and must therefore, while they breathe at the 
 surface, carry down their food to devour it below. 
 In them accordingly, as in the whale and the por- 
 poise, we find the valve is not flat, but promi- 
 nent and somewhat conical, rising towards the 
 back of the nose, and the continuation of the 
 nostril by means of a ring (or sphyncter} muscle 
 embraces the top of the windpipe so as to com- 
 plete the communication between the lungs and 
 the blow-hole, while it cuts off all communication 
 between those lungs and the mouth. 
 
 Again, if we examine the structure of a por- 
 poise's head., we find its cavities capable of great 
 distention, and such that he can fill them at 
 pleasure with air or with water, according as he 
 would mount, float, or sink. By closing the blow- 
 hole, he shuts out the water ; by letting in the 
 water, he can sink ; by blowing from the lungs 
 against the cavities, he can force out the water
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 39 
 
 and fill the hollows with air, in order to rise. No 
 one can doubt that such facts afford direct evidence 
 of an apt contrivance directed towards a specific 
 object, and adopted by some power thoroughly ac- 
 quainted with the laws of hydrostatics, as well as 
 perfectly skilful in workmanship. 
 
 To draw an example from a very different 
 source, let us observe the structure of the Pla- 
 netary System. There is one particular arrange- 
 ment which produces a certain effect namely, 
 the stability of the system, produces it in a 
 manner peculiarly adapted for perpetual duration, 
 and produces it through the agency of an influ- 
 ence quite universal, pervading all space, and 
 equally regulating 1 the motions of the smallest 
 particles of matter and of its most prodigious 
 masses. This arrangement consists in making 
 the planets move in orbits more or less elliptical, 
 but none differing materially from circles, with 
 the sun near the centre, revolving almost in one 
 plane of motion, and moving in the same direction 
 those whose eccentricity is the most considerable 
 having the smallest masses, and the larger ones 
 deviating hardly at all from the circular path. 
 The influence of gravitation, which is inseparably
 
 40 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 connected with all matter as far as we know, ex- 
 tends over the whole of this system ; so that all 
 those bodies which move round the sun twenty- 
 three planets including their satellites, and six or 
 seven comets are continually acted upon each by 
 two kinds of force, the original projection which 
 sends them forward, and is accompanied with a 
 similar and probably a coeval rotatory motion in 
 some of them round their axis, and the attraction 
 of each towards every other body, which attraction 
 produces three several effects consolidating the 
 mass of each, and, in conjunction with the rotatory 
 motion, moulding their forms retaining each 
 planet in its orbit round the sun, and each sa- 
 tellite in its orbit round the planet altering or 
 disturbing Avhat would be the motion of each 
 round the sun if there were no other bodies 
 in the system to attract and disturb. Now 
 it is demonstrated by the strictest process of 
 mathematical reasoning, that the result of the 
 whole of these mutual actions, proceeding from 
 the v universal influence of gravitation, must neces- 
 sarily, in consequence of the peculiar arrangement 
 which has been described of the orbits and masses, 
 and in consequence of the law by which gravita-
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 41 
 
 tion acts, produce a constant alteration in the 
 orbit of each body, which alteration goes on for 
 thousands of years, very slowly making that orbit 
 bulge, as it were, until it reaches a certain shape, 
 when the alteration begins to take the opposite 
 direction, and for an equal number of years goes 
 on constantly, as it were, flattening the orbit, till 
 it reaches a certain shape, when it stops, and then 
 the bulging again begins ; and that this alternate 
 change of bulging and flattening must go on for 
 ever by the same law, without ever exceeding on 
 either side a certain point. All changes in the 
 system are thus periodical, and its perpetual sta- 
 bility is completely secured. It is manifest that 
 such an arrangement, so conducive to such a pur- 
 pose, and so certainly accomplishing that pur- 
 pose, could only have been made with the express 
 design of attaining such an end that some power 
 exists capable of thus producing such wonderful 
 order, so marvellous and Avholly admirable a har- 
 mony, out of such numberless disturbances and 
 that this power was actuated by the intention of 
 producing this effect.* The reasoning upon this 
 
 * Earum autem perennes cursus atque perpetui cum admirabili 
 incredibilique constantia, declarant in his vim et mei.tem esse 
 divinam, tit hsec ipsa qui non sentiat deorum vim habere, is nihil 
 omniuo sensurus esse videatur. Cicero De Kid. Deo. II. 21.
 
 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 subject, I have observed, is purely mathematical ; 
 but the facts respecting the system on which all 
 the reasoning rests are known to us by induction 
 alone: consequently the grand truth respecting 
 the secular disturbance, or the periodicity of the 
 changes in the system that discovery which 
 makes the glory of Lagrange and Laplace, and 
 constitutes the triumph of the Integral Calculus, 
 whereof it is the fruit, and of the most patient 
 course of astronomical observation whereon the 
 analysis is grounded may most justly be classed 
 as a truth both of the Mixed Mathematics and 
 of Natural Theology for the theologian only 
 adds a single short link to the chain of the 
 physical astronomer's demonstration, in order to 
 reach the great Artificer from the phenomena of 
 his system. 
 
 But let us examine further this matter. The 
 position which we reach by a strict process of 
 induction, is common to Natural Philosophy and 
 Natural Theology namely, that a given organ 
 performs a given function, or a given arrange- 
 ment possesses a certain stability, by its adapta- 
 tion to mechanical laws. We have said that 
 the process of reasoning is short and easy, by 
 which we arrive at the doctrine more peculiar
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 43 
 
 to Natural Theology namely, that some power 
 acquainted with and acting upon the knowledge 
 of those laws, fashioned the organ with the inten- 
 tion of having the function performed, or con- 
 structed the system so that it might endure. Is 
 not this last process as much one- of strict induc- 
 tion as the other ? It is plainly only a generalization 
 of many particular facts ; a reasoning from things 
 known to things unknown ; an inference of a new 
 or unknown relation from other relations formerly 
 observed and known. If, to take Dr. Paley's ex- 
 ample, we pass over a common and strike the foot 
 against a stone, we do not stop to ask who placed 
 it there ; but if we find that our foot has struck 
 on a watch, we at once conclude that some me- 
 chanic made it, and that some one dropt it on the 
 ground. Why do we draw this inference ? Because 
 all our former experience had told us that such 
 machinery is the result of human skill and labour, 
 and that it nowhere grows wild about, or is found 
 in the earth. When we see that a certain effect, 
 namely, distinct vision, is performed by an achro- 
 matic instrument, the eye, why do we infer that 
 some one must have made it ? Because w r e no- 
 where and at no time have had any experience of
 
 44 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 any one thing fashioning itself, and indeed cannot 
 form to ourselves any distinct idea of what such 
 a process as self-creation means ; and further, 
 because when we ourselves would produce a simi- 
 lar result, we have recourse to like means. Again, 
 when we perceive the adaptation of natural objects 
 and operations to a perceived end, and from 
 thence infer design in the maker of these objects 
 and supcrintcnder of these operations, why do we 
 draw tin's conclusion? Because we know by ex- 
 perience that if we ourselves desired to accomplish 
 a similar purpose, we should do so by the like 
 adaptation ; we know by experience that this is de- 
 sign in vis, and that our proceedings are the result 
 of such design ; we know that if some of our works 
 were seen by others, who neither were aware of 
 our having made them, nor of the intention with 
 which we made them, they would be right should 
 they, from seeing and examining them, both infer 
 that we had made them, and conjecture why 
 we had made them. The same reasoning, by the 
 help of experience, from what we know to what 
 we cannot know, is manifestly the foundation of 
 the inference, that the members of the body were 
 fashioned for certain uses by a maker acquainted
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 45 
 
 with their operations, and willing that those uses 
 should be served. 
 
 Let us consider a branch of science which, if 
 not wholly of modern introduction, has received 
 of late years such vast additions that it may really 
 be said to have its rise in our own times I 
 allude to the sublime speculations in Osteology 
 prosecuted by Cuvier, Buckland, and others, in 
 its connexion with Zoological and Geological re- 
 searches. 
 
 A comparative anatomist, of profound learn- 
 ing and marvellous sagacity, has presented to 
 him what to common eyes would seem a piece 
 of half-decayed bone, found in a wild, in a forest, 
 or in a cave. By accurately examining its shape, 
 particularly the form of its extremity or ex- 
 tremities (if both ends happen to be entire), by 
 close inspection of the texture of its surface, and 
 by admeasurement of its proportions, he can with 
 certainty discover the general form of the animal 
 to which it belonged, its size as well as its shape, 
 the economy of its viscera, and its general habits. 
 Sometimes the investigation in such cases proceeds 
 upon chains of reasoning where all the links are 
 seen and understood ; where the connexion of the
 
 46 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 parts found with other parts and with habitudes is 
 perceived, and the reason understood, as that the 
 animal had a trunk because the neck was short com- 
 pared with its height ; or that it ruminated because 
 its teeth were imperfect for complete mastication. 
 But, frequently, the inquiry is as certain in its re- 
 sults, although some links of the chain are con- 
 cealed from our view, and the conclusion wears a 
 more empirical aspect as gathering that the ani- 
 mal ruminated from observing the print of a 
 cloven hoof, or that he had horns from his want- 
 ing certain teeth, or that he wanted . the collar- 
 bone from his having cloven hoofs. Limited ex- 
 perience having already shown such connexions 
 as facts, more extended experience will assuredly 
 one day enable us to comprehend the reason of 
 the connexion. 
 
 The discoveries already made in this branch of 
 science are truly wonderful, and they proceed 
 upon the strictest rules of induction. It is 
 shown that animals formerly existed on the 
 globe, being unknown varieties of species still 
 known ; but it also appears that species existed, 
 and even genera, wholly unknown for the last 
 five thousand years. These peopled the earth.
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 47 
 
 as it was, not before the general deluge, but 
 before some convulsion long prior to that event 
 had overwhelmed the countries then dry, and 
 raised others from the bottom of the sea. In 
 these curious inquiries, we are conversant not 
 merely with the world before the flood, but with 
 a world which, before the flood, was covered 
 with water, and which, in far earlier ages, had 
 been the habitation of birds, and beasts, and 
 reptiles. We are carried, as it were, several 
 worlds back, and we reach a period when all 
 was water, and slime, and mud, and the waste, 
 without either man or plants, gave resting place 
 to enormous beasts like lions and elephants and 
 river-horses, while the water was tenanted by 
 lizards, the size of a whale, sixty or seventy 
 feet long, and by others with huge eyes having 
 shields of solid bone to protect them, and glaring 
 from a neck ten feet in length, and the air was 
 darkened by flying reptiles covered with scales, 
 opening the jaws of the crocodile, and expanding 
 wings, armed at the tips with the claws of the 
 leopard. 
 
 No less strange, and yet no less proceeding 
 from induction, are the discoveries made re-
 
 48 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 specting the former state of the earth ; the man- 
 ner in which those animals, whether of known 
 or unknown tribes, occupied it; and the period 
 when, or, at least, the way, in which they ceased 
 to exist. Professor Buckland has demonstrated 
 the identity with the hyaena's of the animal's 
 habits that cracked the bones which fill some of 
 the caves, in order to come at the marrow ; but 
 he has also satisfactorily shown that it inhabited 
 the neighbourhood, and must have been sud- 
 denly exterminated by drowning. His researches 
 have been conducted by experiments with living 
 animals, as well as by observation upon the fossil 
 remains.* 
 
 * The researches both of Cuvier and Buckland, far from 
 impugning the testimony to the great fact of a deluge borne 
 by the Mosaic writings, rather fortify it ; and bring additional 
 proofs of the fallacy which, for some time, had led philosophers 
 to ascribe a very high antiquity to the world we now live in. 
 
 The extraordinary sagacity of Cuvier is, perhaps, in no instance 
 more shown, nor the singular nature of the science better illus- 
 trated, than in the correction which it enabled him to give the 
 speculation of President Jefferson upon the Megalonyx an animal 
 which the President, from the size of a bone discovered, supposed 
 to have existed, four times the size of an ox, and with the 
 form and habits of the lion. Cuvier has irrefragably shown, 
 by an acute and learned induction, that the animal was a sloth, 
 living entirely upon vegetable food, but of enormous size, like 
 a rhinoceros, and whose paws could tear up huge trees.
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 49 
 
 That this branch of scientific inquiry is singu- 
 larly attractive all will allow. Nor will any one 
 dispute that its cultivation demands great know- 
 ledge and skill. But this is not our chief pur- 
 pose in referring to it. There can be as little 
 doubt that the investigation,, in the strictest sense 
 of the term, forms a branch of physical science, 
 and that this branch sprang legitimately from 
 the grand root of the whole, induction ; in a word, 
 that the process of reasoning employed to inves- 
 tigate the kind 'of evidence used to demonstrate 
 its truths, is the modern analysis or induction 
 taught by Bacon and practised by Newton. Now 
 wherein, with reference to its nature and foun- 
 dations, does it vary from the inquiries and illus- 
 trations of Natural Theology ? When from ex- 
 amining a few bones, or it may be a single 
 fragment of a bone, we infer that, in the wilds 
 where we found it, there lived and ranged, some 
 thousands of years ago, an animal wholly dif- 
 ferent from any we ever saw, and from any of 
 which any account, any tradition, written or 
 oral, has reached us, nay, from any that ever 
 was seen by any person of whose existence we 
 ever heard, we assuredly are led to this remote 
 conclusion, by a strict and rigorous process of
 
 50 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 reasoning; but, as certainly, we come through 
 that process to the knowledge and belief of 
 things unseen, both of us and of all men things 
 respecting which we have not, and cannot have, 
 a single particle of evidence, either by sense or 
 by testimony. Yet we harbour no doubt of the 
 fact; we go farther, and not only implicitly be- 
 lieve the existence of this creature, for which we 
 are forced to invent a name, but clothe it with 
 attributes, till, reasoning step by step, we come 
 at so accurate a notion of its form and habits, 
 that we can represent the one, and describe the 
 other, with unerring accuracy; picturing to our- 
 selves how it looked, what it fed on, and how it 
 continued its kind. 
 
 Now, the question is this : What perceiv- 
 able difference is there between the kind of 
 investigations we have just been consider- 
 ing, and those of Natural Theology except, 
 indeed, that the latter are far more sublime in 
 themselves, and incomparably more interesting 
 to us? Where is the logical precision of the 
 arrangement, which would draw a broad line of 
 demarcation between the two speculations, giving 
 to the one the name and the rank of a science, 
 and refusing it to the other, and affirming that
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 51 
 
 the one rested upon induction, but not the other ? 
 We have, it is true, no experience directly of that 
 Great Being's existence in whom we believe as 
 our Creator ; nor have we the testimony of any 
 man relating such experience of his own. But 
 so, neither we, nor any witnesses in any age, 
 have ever seen those works of that Being, the 
 lost animals that once peopled the earth; and 
 yet the lights of inductive science have conducted 
 us to a full knowledge of their nature, as well 
 as a perfect belief in their existence. Without 
 any evidence from our senses, or from the testi- 
 mony of eye-witnesses, we believe in the existence 
 and qualities of those animals, because we infer 
 by the induction of facts that they once lived, 
 and were endowed with a certain nature. This is 
 called a doctrine of inductive philosophy. Is i 
 less a doctrine of the same philosophy, that the 
 eye could not have been made without a know- 
 ledge of optics, and as it could not make itself 
 and as no human artist, though possessed of the 
 knowledge, has the skill and pOAvcr to fashion it 
 by his handy-work, that there must exist some 
 being of knowledge, skill, and power, superior to 
 our own, and sufficient to create it ? 
 
 D2
 
 52 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 SECTION III. 
 
 COMPARISON OF THE PSYCHOLOGICAL BRANCH OF 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY WITH PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 HITHERTO, our argument has rested upon a com- 
 parison of the truths of Natural Theology with 
 those of Physical Science. But the evidences of 
 design presented by the universe are not merely 
 those which the material world affords ; the in- 
 tellectual system is equally fruitful in proofs of 
 an intelligent cause, although these have occupied 
 little of the philosopher's attention, and may, 
 indeed, be said never to have found a place 
 among the speculations of the Natural Theologian. 
 Nothing is more remarkable than the care with 
 which all the writers upon this subject, at least 
 among the moderns, have confined themselves 
 to the proofs afforded by the visible and sensible 
 works of nature, while the evidence furnished by 
 the mind and its operations has been wholly 
 neglected.* The celebrated book of Ray on the 
 Wonders of the Creation seems to assume that 
 the human soul has no separate existence that 
 it forms no part of the created system. Derham 
 * Note II.
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 53 
 
 has written upon Astro-theology and Physico- 
 theology as if the heavens alone proclaimed the 
 glory of God, and the earth only showed forth 
 his handy-work ; for his only mention of intel- 
 lectual nature is in the single chapter of the 
 Physico-theology on the soul, in which he is con- 
 tent with two observations : one, on the variety of 
 man's inclinations, and another, on his inventive 
 powers giving nothing which precisely proves 
 design. Dr. Paley, whose work is chiefly taken 
 from the writings of Derham, deriving from them 
 its whole plan and much of its substance, but 
 clothing the harsher statements of his original 
 in an attractive and popular style,* had so little 
 of scientific habits, so moderate a power of 
 generalising, that he never once mentions the 
 mind, or any of the intellectual phenomena, nor 
 ever appears to consider them as forming a por- 
 tion of the works or operations of nature. Thus, 
 all these authors view the revolutions of the 
 
 * This observation in nowise diminishes the peculiar merit of 
 the style, and also of the homely, but close and logical, manner in 
 which the argument is put ; nor does it deny the praise of bringing 
 down the facts of former writers, and adapting them to the im- 
 proved state of physical science a merit the more remarkable, 
 that Paley wrote his Natural Theology at the close of his life.
 
 5-1 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 heavenly bodies, the structure of animals, the 
 organization of plants, and the various operations 
 of the material world which we see carried on 
 around us, as indicating the existence of design, 
 and leading to a knowledge of the Creator. But 
 they pass over in silence, unaccountably enough, 
 by far the most singular work of divine wisdom 
 and power the mind itself. Is there any reason 
 whatever to draw this line ; to narrow within these 
 circles the field of Natural Theology; to draw from 
 the constitution and habits of matter alone the 
 proof that one Intelligent Cause formed and sup- 
 ports the universe ? Ought we not rather to con- 
 sider the phenomena of the mind as more pecu- 
 liarly adapted to help this inquiry, and as bearing 
 a nearer relation to the Great Intelligence which 
 created and which maintains the system ? 
 
 There cannot be a doubt that this extraor- 
 dinary omission had its origin in the douhis 
 which men are prone to entertain of the mind's 
 existence independent of matter. The eminent 
 persons above named* were not materialists, that 
 
 * Some have thought, unjustly, that the language of Paley 
 rather savours of materialism; but it may be doubted whether he 
 was fully impressed with the evidence of mental existence. His 
 limited and unexercised powers of abstract discussion, and the
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 55 
 
 is to say, if you had asked them the question, 
 they would have answered in the negative ; they 
 would have gone farther, and asserted their be- 
 lief in the separate existence of the soul inde- 
 pendent of the body. But they never felt this as 
 strongly as they were persuaded of the natural 
 world's existence. Their habits of thinking led 
 them to consider matter as the only certain exist- 
 ence as that which composed the universe as 
 alone forming the subject of our contemplations 
 as furnishing the only materials for our in- 
 quiries, whether respecting structure or habits and 
 operations. They had no firm, definite, abiding, 
 precise idea of any other existence respecting 
 which they could reason and speculate. They 
 saw and they felt external objects; they could 
 examine the lenses of the eye, the valves of the 
 veins and arteries, the ligaments and the sockets 
 of the joints, the bones and the drum of the ear ; 
 but though they now and then made mention of 
 the mind, and, when forced to the point, would 
 acknowledge a belief in it, they never were fully 
 and intimately persuaded of its separate existence. 
 
 natural predilection for what he handled so well a practical argu- 
 ment level to all comprehensions appear not to have given him 
 any taste for metaphysical speculations.
 
 56 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 They thought of it and of matter very differently ; 
 they gave its structure, and its habits, and its ope- 
 rations., no place in their inquiries ; their contem- 
 plations never rested upon it with any steadiness., 
 and indeed scarcely ever even glanced upon it at all. 
 That this is a very great omission, proceeding, 
 if not upon mere carelessness, upon a grievous 
 fallacy, there can be no doubt whatever. 
 
 The evidence for the existence of mind is to 
 the full as complete as that upon which we believe 
 in the existence of matter. Indeed it is more 
 certain and more irrefragable. The consciousness 
 of existence, the perpetual sense that we are 
 thinking, and that we are performing the opera- 
 tion quite independently of all material objects, 
 proves to us the existence of a being different 
 from our bodies, with a degree of evidence higher 
 than any we can have for the existence of those 
 bodies themselves, or of any other part of the ma- 
 terial world. It is certain proved, indeed, to 
 demonstration that many of the perceptions of 
 matter which we derive through the senses are 
 deceitful, and seem to indicate that which has no 
 reality at all. Some inferences which we draw re- 
 specting it are confounded with direct sensation or
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 57 
 
 perception, for example, the idea of motion; other 
 ideas, as those of hardness and solidity, are equally 
 the result of reasoning, and often mislead. Thus 
 we never doubt, on the testimony of our senses, that 
 the parts of matter touch that different bodies 
 come in contact with one another, and with our 
 organs of sense ; and yet nothing is more certain 
 than that there still is some small distance between 
 the bodies which we think we perceive to touch. 
 Indeed it is barely possible that all the sensations 
 and perceptions which we have of the material 
 Avorld may be only ideas in our own minds : it is 
 barely possible, therefore, that matter should have 
 no existence. But that mind that the sentient 
 principle that the thing or the being which we 
 call "/" and "we" and which thinks, feels, rea- 
 sons should have no existence, is a contradiction 
 in terms. Of the two existences, then, that of 
 mind as independent of matter is more certain 
 than that of matter apart from mind. In a sub- 
 sequent branch of this discourse,* we shall have 
 occasion to treat again of this question, when the 
 constitution of the soul with reference to its future 
 existence becomes the subject of discussion. At 
 
 * Sect. V. and Note IV. 
 
 D3
 
 58 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 present we have only to keep steadily in view the 
 undoubted fact, that mind is quite as much an 
 integral part of the universe as matter. 
 
 It follows that the constitution and functions of 
 the mind are as much the subjects of inductive 
 reasoning and investigation,, as the structure and 
 actions of matter. The mind equally with matter 
 is the proper subject of observation, by means of 
 consciousness, which enables us to arrest and exa- 
 mine our own thoughts : it is even the subject of 
 experiment, by the power which we have, through 
 the efforts of abstraction and attention, of turning 
 those thoughts into courses not natural to them, 
 not spontaneous, and watching the results.* Now 
 the phenomena of mind, at the knowledge of 
 which we arrive by this inductive process, the 
 only legitimate intellectual philosophy, afford as 
 decisive proofs of design as do the phenomena of 
 matter, and they furnish those proofs by the strict 
 method of induction. In other words, we study 
 the nature and operations of the mind, and gather 
 from them evidences of design, by one and the 
 
 * An instance will occur in the Fifth Section of this Part, in 
 which experiments upon the course of our thoughts in sleep are 
 described.
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 59 
 
 same species of reasoning, the induction of facts. 
 A few illustrations of these positions may be use- 
 iul, because this branch of the science has, as we 
 have seen, been unaccountably neglected by phi- 
 losophers and theologians. 
 
 First . The structure of the mind, in every way 
 in which we can regard it, affords evidences of the 
 most skilful contrivance. All that adapts it so 
 admirably to the operations which it performs, all 
 its faculties, are plainly means working to an 
 end. Among the most remarkable of these is 
 the power of reasoning, or first comparing ideas 
 and drawing conclusions from the comparison, 
 and then comparing together those conclusions or 
 judgments. In this process, the great instrument 
 is attention, as indeed it is the most important of 
 all the mental faculties. It is the power by which 
 the mind fixes itself vipon a subject, and its opera- 
 tions are facilitated by many contrivances of na- 
 ture, without which the effort would be painful, if 
 not impossible voluntary attention being the 
 most difficult of all acts of the understanding. 
 
 Observe, then, in the second place, the helps 
 which are provided for the exertion of this faculty. 
 Curiosity, or the thirst of knowledge, is one of the
 
 60 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 chief of these. This desire renders any new idea 
 the source of attraction, and makes the mind al- 
 most involuntarily, and with gratification rather 
 than pain, bend and apply itself to whatever has 
 the quality of novelty to rouse it. But association 
 gives additional facilities of the same kind, and 
 makes us attend with satisfaction to ideas which 
 formerly were present and familiar, and the revival 
 of which gives pleasure oftentimes as sensible as 
 that of novelty, though of an opposite kind. 
 Then, again, habit, in this, as in all other opera- 
 tions of our faculties, has the most powerful influ- 
 ence, and enables us to undergo intellectual labour 
 with ease and comfort. 
 
 Thirdly. Consider the phenomena of memory. 
 This important faculty, without which no intellec- 
 tual progress whatever could be made, is singu- 
 larly adapted to its uses. The tenacity of our 
 recollection is in proportion to the attention which 
 has been exercised upon the several objects of con- 
 templation at the time they were submitted to the 
 mind. Hence it follows, that by exerting a more 
 vigorous attention, by detaining ideas for some 
 time under our view, as it were, wliile they pass 
 through the mind or before it, we cause them to
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 61 
 
 make a deeper impression upon the memory, and 
 are thus enabled to recollect those things the 
 longest which we most desire to keep in mind. 
 Hence, too, whatever facilitates attention, whatever 
 excites it, as we sometimes say, helps the memory ; 
 so that we recollect those things the longest which 
 were most striking at the time. But those things 
 are, generally speaking, most striking, and most 
 excite the attention, which are in themselves most 
 important. In proportion, therefore, as anything 
 is most useful, or for any reason most desirable to 
 be remembered, it is most easily stored up in our 
 memory. 
 
 We may observe, however, in the fourth place, 
 that readiness of memory is almost as useful as 
 tenacity quickness of bringing out as power of 
 retention. Habit enables us to tax our recollec- 
 tion with surprising facility and certainty ; as any 
 one must be aware who has remarked the extra- 
 ordinary feats performed by boys trained to learn 
 things by heart, and especially to recollect num- 
 bers in calculating. From the same force of 
 habit we derive the important power of forming 
 artificial or conventional associations between 
 ideas of tacking, as it were, one to the other, in
 
 62 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 order to have them more under our control ; and 
 hence the relation between arbitrary signs and 
 the things signified, and the whole use of lan- 
 guage, whether ordinary or algebraical : hence, 
 too, the formation of what is called artificial 
 memory, and of all the other helps to recol- 
 lection. But a help is provided for quickness 
 of memory, independent of any habit or train- 
 ing, in what may be termed the natural asso- 
 ciation of ideas, whereby one thing suggests 
 another from various relations of likeness, con- 
 trast, contiguity, and so forth. The same associa- 
 tion of ideas is of constant use in the exercise of 
 the inventive faculty, which mainly depends upon 
 it, and which is the great instrument not only in 
 works of imagination, but in conducting all pro- 
 cesses of original investigation by pure reasoning. 
 Fifthly. The effect of habit upon our whole 
 intellectual system deserves to be further consi- 
 dered, though we have already adverted to it. 
 It is a law of our nature that any exertion be- 
 comes more easy the more frequently it is re- 
 peated. This might have been otherwise : it 
 might have been just the contrary, so that each 
 successive operation should have been more diffi-
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 63 
 
 cult ; and it is needless to dwell upon the slowness 
 of our progress, as well as the painfulness of all 
 our exertions, say, rather, the impossibility of our 
 making any advances in learning, which must 
 have been the result of such an intellectual con- 
 formation. But the influence of habit upon the 
 exercise of all our faculties is valuable beyond 
 expression. It is indeed the great means of our 
 improvement both intellectual and moral, and it 
 furnishes us with the chief, almost the only, power 
 we possess of making the different faculties of 
 the mind obedient to the will. Whoever has ob- 
 served the extraordinary feats performed by cal- 
 culators, orators, rhymers, musicians, nay, by artists 
 of all descriptions, can want no further proof of 
 the power that man derives from the contrivances 
 by which habits are formed in all mental exer- 
 tions. The performances of the Italian Improvvi- 
 satori, or makers of poetry off-hand upon any pre- 
 sented subject, and in almost any kind of stanza, 
 are generally cited as the most surprising efforts 
 in this kind. But the power of extempore speaking 
 is not less singular, though more frequently dis- 
 played, at least in this country. A practised ora- 
 tor will declaim in measured and in various pe-
 
 64 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 riods will weave his discourse into one texture 
 form parenthesis within parenthesis excite the 
 passions, or move to laughter take a turn in his 
 discourse from an accidental interruption, making 
 it the topic of his rhetoric for five minutes to 
 come, and pursuing in like manner the new illus- 
 trations to which it gives rise mould his diction 
 with a view to attain or to shun an epigrammatic 
 point, or an alliteration, or a discord ; and all 
 this with so much assured reliance on his own 
 powers, and with such perfect ease to himself, 
 that he shall even plan the next sentence while 
 he is pronouncing off-hand the one he is engaged 
 with, adapting each to the other, and shall look 
 forward to the topic which is to follow and fit in 
 the close of the one he is handling to be its 
 introducer ; nor shall any auditor be able to dis- 
 cover the least difference between all this and the 
 portion of his speech which he has got by heart, 
 or tell the transition from the one to the other. 
 
 Sixth. The feelings and the passions with 
 which we are moved or agitated are devised for 
 purposes apparent enough, and to effect which 
 their adaptation is undeniable. That of love 
 tends to the continuance of the species the affcc-
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 65 
 
 tions, to the rearing of the young ; and the former 
 are fitted to the difference of sex, as the latter 
 are to that of age. Generally, there are feelings 
 of sympathy excited by distress and by weakness, 
 and these beget attachment towards their objects, 
 and a disposition to relieve them or to support. 
 Both individuals and societies at large gain by 
 the effects thence arising of union and connexion, 
 and mutual help. So hope, of which the seeds 
 are indigenous in all bosoms, and which springs 
 up like certain plants in the soil as often as it is 
 allowed to repose, encourages all our labours, 
 and sustains us in every vicissitude of fortune, as 
 well as under all the toils of our being. Fear, 
 again, is the teacher of caution, prudence, cir- 
 cumspection, and preserves us from danger. 
 Even anger, generally so painful, is not without 
 its use : for it stimulates to defence, and it often- 
 times assuages the pain given to our more tender 
 feelings by the harshness, or ingratitude, or injus- 
 tice, or treachery of those upon whom our claims 
 were the strongest, and whose cruelty or whose 
 baseness would enter like steel into the soul, were 
 
 no reaction excited to deaden and to protect it. 
 
 Contempt, or even pity, is calculated to exercise
 
 66 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 the same healing influence.* Then, to go no 
 further, curiosity is implanted in all minds to 
 a greater or a less degree; it is proportioned 
 to the novelty of objects, and consequently to 
 our ignorance, and its immediate effects are to 
 fix our attention to stimulate our apprehensive 
 powers by deepening the impressions of all 
 ideas on our minds, to give the memory a hold 
 over them to make all intellectual exertion easy, 
 and convert into a pleasure the toil that would 
 otherwise be a pain. Can anything be more per- 
 fectly contrived as an instrument of instruction, 
 and an instrument precisely adapted to the want 
 of knowledge, by being more powerful in propor- 
 tion to the ignorance in which we are ? Hence 
 it is the great means by which, above all in early 
 infancy, we are taught every thing most necessary 
 for our physical as well as moral existence. In 
 riper years it smooths the way for further ac- 
 quirements to most men ; to some in whom it is 
 
 * " Atque illi (Crantor et Panaetius) quidem etiam utiliter a 
 natura dicebant permotioiies istas animis nostris datas, metum 
 cavendi causa ; misericordiam segritudinemque clementiee ; ipsam 
 iracundiam fortitudinis quasi cotem esse dicebant." Acad. 
 Qucest. iv. 44.
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 67 
 
 strongest, it opens the paths of science ; but in all, 
 without any exception, it prevails at the beginning 
 of life so powerfully as to make them learn the 
 faculties of their own bodies, and the general 
 properties of those around them an amount of 
 knowledge which, for its extent and its practical 
 usefulness, very far exceeds, though the most 
 ignorant possess it, whatever additions the greatest 
 philosophers are enabled to build upon it in the 
 longest course of the most successful investi- 
 gations. 
 
 Nor is it the curiosity natural to us all that 
 alone tends to the acquirement of knowledge ; 
 the desire of communicating it is a strong pro- 
 pensity of our nature, and conduces to the same 
 important end. There is a positive pleasure as 
 well in teaching others what they knew not before, 
 as in learning what we did not know ourselves ; 
 and it is undeniable that all this might havo been 
 differently arranged without a material alteration 
 of our intellectual and moral constitution in other 
 respects. The propensity might have been, like 
 the perverted desires of the miser, to retain what 
 we know without communication, as it might have 
 been made painful instead of pleasurable to ac-
 
 68 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 quire new ideas, by novelty being rendered re- 
 pulsive and not agreeable. The stagnation of 
 our faculties, the suspension of mental exertion, 
 the obscuration of the intellectual world, would 
 have followed as certainly as universal darkness 
 would veil the universe on the extinction of the 
 sun. 
 
 Thus far we have been considering the uses to 
 which the mental faculties and feelings are subser- 
 vient, and their admirable adaptation to these ends. 
 But view the intellectual world as a whole, and 
 surely it is impossible to contemplate without 
 amazement the extraordinary spectacle which the 
 mind of man displays, and the immense progress 
 which it has been able to make in consequence of 
 its structure, its capacity, and its propensities, such 
 as we have just been describing them. If the 
 brightness of the heavenly bodies, the prodigious 
 velocity of their motions, their vast distances and 
 mighty bulk, fill the imagination with awe, there 
 is the same wonder excited by the brilliancy of 
 the intellectual powers the inconceivable swift- 
 ness of thought the boundless range which our 
 fancy can take the vast objects which our reason 
 can embrace. That we should have been able to
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 69 
 
 resolve the elements into their more simple con- 
 stituents to analyse the subtle light which fills 
 all space to penetrate from that remote particle 
 in the universe, of which we occupy a speck, into 
 regions infinitely remote ascertain the weight of 
 bodies at the surface of the most distant worlds 
 investigate the laws that govern their motions, 
 or mould their forms and calculate to a second 
 of time the periods of their re-appearance during 
 the revolution of centuries, all this is in the last 
 degree amazing, and affords much more food for 
 admiration than any of the phenomena of the 
 material creation. Then what shall we say of 
 that incredible power of generalization which has 
 enabled some even to anticipate by ages the dis- 
 covery of truths the farthest removed above or- 
 dinary apprehension, and the most savouring of 
 improbability and fiction not merely of a Clairaut 
 conjecturing the existence of a seventh planet, 
 and the position of its orbit, but of a Newton 
 learnedly and sagaciously inferring, from the re- 
 fraction of light, the inflammable quality of 
 the diamond, the composition of apparently the 
 simplest of the elements, and the opposite nature 
 of the two ingredients, unknown for a century
 
 70 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 after, of which it is composed ? * Yet there is 
 something more marvellous still in the processes 
 of thought, by which such prodigies have been per- 
 formed, and in the force of the mind itself, when it 
 acts wholly without external aid, borrowing no- 
 thing whatever from matter, and relying on its OAvn 
 powers alone. The most abstruse investigations 
 of the mathematician are conducted without any 
 regard to sensible objects ; and the helps he de- 
 rives in his reasonings from material things at 
 all, are absolutely insignificant, compared with the 
 portion of his work which is altogether of an 
 abstract kind the aid of figures and letters being 
 only to facilitate and abridge his labour, and not 
 at all essential to his progress. Nay, strictly 
 speaking, there are no truths in the whole range 
 of the pure mathematics which might not, by pos- 
 sibility, have been discovered and systematized 
 by one deprived of sight and touch, or immured 
 in a dark chamber, without the use of a single 
 material object. The instrument of Newton's 
 
 * Further induction may add to the list of these wonderful con- 
 jectures, the thin ether, of which he eveu calculated the density 
 and the effects upon planetary motion. Certainly the acceleration 
 of Encke's comet does seem to render this by no means improbable.
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 71 
 
 most sublime speculations, the calculus which 
 he invented, and the astonishing systems 
 reared by its means, which have given immor- 
 tality to the names of Euler, Lagrange, Laplace, 
 all are the creatures of pure abstract thought, and 
 all might, by possibility, have existed in their pre- 
 sent magnificence and splendour, without owing to 
 material agency any help whatever, except such 
 as might be necessary for their recording and 
 communication. These are, surely, the greatest 
 of all the wonders of nature, when justly consi- 
 dered, although they speak to the understanding 
 and not to the sense. Shall we, then, deny that 
 the eye could be made without skill in optics, and 
 yet admit that the mind could be fashioned and 
 endowed without the most exquisite of all skill, 
 or could proceed from any but an intellect of 
 infinite power ? 
 
 At first sight, it may be deemed that there is 
 an essential difference between the evidence from 
 mental and from physical phenomena. It may 
 be thought that mind is of a nature more removed 
 beyond our power than matter that over the 
 masses of matter man can himself exercise some 
 control that, to a certain degree, he has a plastic
 
 72 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 power that into some forms he can mould them, 
 and can combine into a certain machinery that 
 he can begin and can continue motion, and can 
 produce a mechanism by Avhich it may be begun, 
 and maintained, and regulated while mind, it 
 may be supposed, is wholly beyond his reach; 
 over it he has no grasp; its existence alone is 
 known to him, and the laws by which it is regu- 
 lated ; and thus, it may be said, the great First 
 Cause, which alone can call both matter and 
 mind into existence, has alone the power of 
 modulating intellectual nature. But, when the 
 subject is well considered, this difference between 
 the two branches of science disappears with all 
 the rest. It is admitted, of course, that we 
 can no more create matter than we can mind ; 
 and we can influence mind in a way altogether 
 analogous to our power of modulating matter. 
 By means of the properties of matter we can form 
 instruments, machines, and figures. So, by avail- 
 ing ourselves of the properties of mind, we can 
 affect the intellectual faculties exercising them, 
 training them, improving them, producing, as it 
 were, new forms of the understanding. Nor is 
 there a greater difference between the mass of
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 73 
 
 rude iron from which we make steel, and the 
 thousands of watch-springs into which that steel 
 is cut, or the chronometer which we form of 
 this and other masses equally inert than there 
 is between the untutored indocile faculties of a 
 rustic, who has grown up to manhood without 
 education, and the skill of the artist who invented 
 that chronometer, and of the mathematician who 
 uses it to trace the motions of the heavenly 
 bodies. 
 
 Although writers on Natural Theology have 
 altogether neglected, at least in modern times, 
 that branch of the subject at large with which 
 we have now been occupied, there is one portion 
 of it which has always attracted their attention- 
 the Instincts of animals. These are unquestion- 
 ably mental faculties, which we discover by ob- 
 servation and consciousness, but which are them- 
 selves wholly unconnected with any exercise of 
 reason. They exhibit, however, the most striking 
 proofs of design, for they all tend immediately to 
 the preservation or to the comfort of the animals 
 endowed with them. The lower animals are pro- 
 vided with a far greater variety of instincts, and 
 of a more singular kind than man, because they
 
 74 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 have only the most circumscribed range and 
 feeblest powers of reason, while to reason man is 
 in almost every thing indebted. Yet it would be 
 as erroneous to deny that we are endowed with 
 any instincts, because so much is accomplished by 
 reason, as it would be rash to conclude that other 
 animals are wholly destitute of reasoning, because 
 they owe so much to instinct. Granting that 
 infants learn almost all those animal functions 
 which are of a voluntary nature, by an early exer- 
 cise of reason, it is plain that instinct alone 
 guides them in others which are necessary to con- 
 tinue their life, as well as to begin their instruc- 
 tion : for example, they suck, and even swallow 
 by instinct, and by instinct they grasp what is 
 presented to their hands. So, allowing that the 
 brutes exercise but very rarely, and in a limited 
 extent, the reasoning powers, it seems impossible 
 to distinguish from the operations of reason those 
 instances of sagacity which some dogs exhibit in 
 obeying the directions of their master, and indeed 
 generally the docility shown by them and other 
 animals ; not to mention the ingenuity of birds in 
 breaking hard substances by letting them drop 
 from a height, and in bringing the w r ater of a deep
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 75 
 
 pitcher nearer their beaks by throwing in pebbles: 
 These are different from the operations of instinct, 
 because they are acts which vary with circum- 
 stances novel and unexpectedly varying; they 
 imply therefore the adaptation of means to an 
 end, and the power of varying those means when 
 obstacles arise : we can have no evidence of de- 
 sign, that is of reason, in other men, which is not 
 similar to the proof of reason in animals afforded 
 by such facts as these. 
 
 But the operations of pure instinct, by far the 
 greater portion of the exertions of brutes, have 
 never been supposed by any one to result from 
 reasoning, and certainly they do afford the most 
 striking proofs of an intelligent cause, as weH. 
 as of a unity of design in the world. The work 
 of bees is among the most remarkable of all facts 
 in both these respects. The form is in every 
 country the same the proportions accurately 
 alike the size the very same to the fraction 
 of. a line, go where you will ; and the form is 
 proved to be that which the most refined analysis 
 has enabled mathematicians to discover as of all 
 others the best adapted for the purposes of saving 
 room, and work, and materials. This discovery 
 
 E2
 
 76 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 was only made about a century ago ; nay, the in- 
 strument that enabled us to find it out the 
 fluxianal calculus was unknown half a century 
 before that application of its powers. And yet 
 the bee had been for thousands of years, in all 
 countries, unerringly working according to this 
 fixed rule, choosing the same exact angle of 
 120 degrees for the inclination of the sides of its 
 little room, which every one had for ages known 
 to be the best possible angle, but also choosing the 
 same exact angles of 110 and 70 degrees, for the 
 inclinations of the roof, which no one had ever 
 discovered till the 18th century, when Maclaurin 
 solved that most curious problem of maxima and 
 minima, the means of investigating which had not 
 existed till the century before, when Newton in- 
 vented the calculus whereby such problems can now 
 be easily worked. It is impossible to conceive any 
 thing more striking as a proof of refined skill than 
 the creation of such instincts, and it is a skill 
 altogether applied to the formation of intellectual 
 existence. 
 
 Now, all the inferences drawn from the exami- 
 nation which we have just gone through of psy- 
 chological phenomena are drawn according to the
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 77 
 
 strict rules of inductive science. The facts re- 
 lating to the velocity of mental operations to 
 the exercise of attention to its connexion with 
 memory to the helps derived from curiosity and 
 from habit to the association of ideas to the 
 desires, feelings, and passions and to the 
 adjoining provinces of reason and instinct are 
 all discovered by consciousness or by observa- 
 tion; and we even can make experiments upon 
 the subject by varying the circumstances in which 
 the mental powers are exercised by ourselves and 
 others, and marking the results. The facts thus 
 collected and compared together we are enabled 
 to generalize, and thus to shew that certain effects 
 are produced by an agency calculated to produce 
 them. Aware that if we desired to produce them, 
 and had the power to employ this agency, we 
 should resort to it for accomplishing our purpose, 
 we infer both that some being exists capable of 
 creating this agency, and that he employs it for 
 this end. The process of reasoning is not like, 
 but identical with, that by which we infer the 
 existence of design in others (than ourselves) with 
 whom we have daily intercourse. The kind of 
 evidence is not like, but identical with, that by
 
 <S A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 which we conduct all the investigations of intel- 
 lectual and of natural science. 
 
 Such is the process of reasoning by which we 
 infer the existence of design in the natural and 
 moral world. To this abstract argument an 
 addition of great importance remains to be made. 
 The whole reasoning proceeds necessarily upon the 
 assumption that there exists a being or thing sepa- 
 rate from, and independent of, matter, and con- 
 scious of its own existence, which we call mind. For 
 the argument is " Had I to accomplish this pur- 
 pose, I should have used some such means ;" or, 
 " Had I used these means, I should have thought 
 I was accomplishing some such purpose." Per- 
 ceiving the adaptation of the means to the end, 
 the inference is, that some being has acted as we 
 should ourselves act, and with the same views. 
 But when we so speak, and so reason, we are all 
 the while referring to an intelligent principle or 
 existence; we are referring to our mind, and 
 not to our bodily frame. The agency which we 
 infer from this reasoning is, therefore, a spiritual 
 and immaterial agency the working of something 
 like our own mind an intelligence like our own, 
 though incomparably more powerful and more
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 79 
 
 skilful. The being of whom we thus acquire a 
 knowledge, and whose operations as well as exist- 
 ence we thus deduce from a process of inductive 
 reasoning, must be a spirit, and wholly immaterial. 
 But his being such is only inferred, because we set 
 out with assuming the separate existence of our 
 own mind, independently of matter. Without that 
 we never could conclude that superior intelligence 
 existed or acted. The belief that mind exists is 
 essential to the whole argument by which we infer 
 that the Deity exists. This belief we have shown 
 to be perfectly well grounded, and further occa- 
 sions of confirming the truth of it will occur under 
 another head of discourse.* But at any rate it 
 is the foundation of Natural Theology in all its 
 branches ; and upon the scheme of materialism 
 no rational, indeed no intelligible, account can be 
 given of a first cause, or of the creation or govern- 
 ment of the universe, f 
 
 * Sect. V., and Note IV. 
 
 f It is worthy of observation, that not the least allusion is made 
 in Dr. Paley's work to the argument here stated, although it is 
 the foundation of the whole of Natural Theology. Not only does 
 this author leave entirely untouched the argument ti priori (as it is 
 called), and also all the inductive arguments derived from the phe- 
 nomena of mind, but he does not even advert to the argument upon
 
 60 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 The preceding observations have been directed 
 to the inquiries respecting the design exhibited 
 in the universe. But the other parts of the first 
 great branch of natural theology come strictly 
 within the scope of the same reasoning. Thus, 
 all the proofs of the Deity's personality, that is, his 
 individuality, his unity; all the evidence which 
 we have of his works, showing throughout not 
 only that they proceeded from design, but that 
 the design is of one distinctive kind that they 
 come from the hand not only of an intelligent 
 being, but of a being whose intellect is specifically 
 peculiar, and always of the same character; all 
 these proofs are in the most rigorous sense in- 
 ductive. 
 
 which the inference of design must of necessity rest that design 
 which is the whole subject of his book. Nothing can more evince 
 his distaste or incapacity for metaphysical researches. He assumes 
 the very position which alone sceptics dispute. In combating him 
 they would assert that he begged the whole question; for cer- 
 tainly they do not deny, at least in modern times, the/ac/ of adap- 
 tation. As to the fundamental doctrine of causation, not the 
 least allusion is ever made to it in any of his writings, even in his 
 Moral Philosophy. This doctrine is discussed in Note III.
 
 Js 7 ATURAL THEOLOGY. 81 
 
 SECTION IV. 
 
 OF THE ARGUMENT A PRIORI. 
 
 HITHERTO we have confined our attention to the 
 evidences of Natural Religion afforded by the 
 phenomena of the universe what is commonly 
 termed the argument a posteriori. But some in- 
 genious men, conceiving that the existence and 
 attributes of a Deity are discoverable by reasoning 
 merely, and without reference to facts, have de- 
 vised what they term the argument a priori, of 
 which it is necessary now to speak. 
 
 The first thing that strikes us on this subject 
 is the consequence which must inevitably follow 
 from admitting the possibility of discerning the 
 existence of the Deity and his attributes a priori, 
 or wholly independent of facts. It would follow 
 that this is a necessary, not a contingent truth, 
 and that it is not only as impossible for the Deity 
 not to exist, as for the whole to be greater than 
 the sum of its parts, but that it is equally impos- 
 sible for his attributes to be other than the argu- 
 
 E 5
 
 82 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 ment is supposed to prove they are. Thus the 
 reasoners in question show, by the argument a 
 priori, that he is a being of perfect wisdom,, and 
 perfect benevolence. Dr. Clarke is as clear of 
 this as he is clear that his existence is proved by 
 the same argument. Now, first, it is impossible 
 that any such truths can be necessary ; for their 
 contraries are not things wholly inconceivable, 
 inasmuch as there is nothing at all inconceivable 
 -in the Maker of the universe existing as a being 
 .of limited power and of mixed goodness, nay of 
 malevolence. We never, before all experience, 
 could pronounce it mathematically impossible 
 that such a being should exist, and should have 
 created the universe. But next, the facts, when 
 we came to examine them, might disprove the 
 conclusions drawn a priori. The universe might 
 by possibility be so constructed that every con- 
 trivance might fail to produce the desired effect 
 the eye might be chromatic and give indistinct 
 images the joints might be so unhinged as to 
 impede motion every smell, as Paley has it, 
 might be a stink, and every touch a sting. 
 -Indeed, we know that, perfect as the frame of 
 things actually is, a few apparent exceptions to
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. CW 
 
 the general beauty of the system have made many 
 disbelieve the perfect power and perfect goodness 
 of the Deity, and invent Manichean theories to 
 account for the existence of evil. Nothing can 
 more clearly show the absurdity of those argu- 
 ments by which it is attempted to demonstrate 
 the truths of this science as mathematical or 
 necessary, and cognizable a priori. 
 
 But, secondly, let us see whether the argument 
 in question be really one a priori, or only a very 
 imperfect process of induction an induction from 
 a limited number of facts. 
 
 Dr. Clarke is the chief patron of this kind of 
 demonstration,, as he terms it ; and though his 
 book contains it more at large, the statement of 
 his fundamental argument is perhaps to be found 
 most distinctly given in the letters subjoined to 
 that celebrated work. The fundamental propo- 
 sitions in the discourse itself are, That something 
 must have existed from all eternity, and that this 
 something must have been a being independent 
 and self- existent. In the letters he condenses, 
 perhaps explains, certainly illustrates, these posi- 
 tions, (see Answers to Letters 3, 4, and 5,) by 
 arguing that the existence of space and time (or,
 
 84 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 as he terms it, duration) proves the existence of 
 something whereof these are qualities, for they 
 are not themselves substances ; he cites the cele- 
 brated Scholium Generate of the Principia ; and 
 he concludes that the Deity must be the infinite 
 being of whom they are qualities. 
 
 But to argue from the existence of space and 
 time to the existence of any thing else, is assuming 
 that those two things have a real being indepen- 
 dent of our conceptions of them : for the existence 
 of certain ideas in our minds cannot be the founda- 
 tion on which to build a conclusion that any thing 
 external to our minds exists. To infer that 
 space and time are qualities of an infinite and 
 eternal being is surely assuming the very thing 
 to be proved, if a proposition can be said to have 
 a distinct meaning at all which predicates space 
 and time as qualities of any thing. What, for 
 example, is time but the succession of ideas, 
 and the consciousness and the recollection which 
 we have of that succession ? To call it a quality 
 is absurd ; as well might we call motion a quality, 
 or our ideas of absent things and persons a 
 quality. 
 
 Again, if space is to be deemed a quality, and
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 85 
 
 if infinite space be the quality of an infinite being-, 
 finite space must also be a quality, and must, by 
 parity of reason, be the quality of a finite being. 
 Of what being? Here is a square of one foot 
 within an exhausted receiver, or a cylinder of 
 half an inch diameter and three inches high in 
 the Torricellian vacuum. What is the being of 
 whom that square and that cylindrical space are 
 to be deemed as qualities ? Is distance, that is, 
 the supposed movement of a point in a straight 
 line ad infinitum, a quality? It must be so if 
 infinite space is. Then of what is it a quality ? 
 If infinite space is the quality of an infinite being, 
 infinite distance must be the quality of an infinite 
 being also. But can it be said to be the quality 
 of the same infinite being ? Observe that the 
 mind can form just as correct an idea of infinite 
 distance as of infinite space, or, rather, it can 
 form a somewhat more distinct idea. But the 
 being to be inferred from this infinite distance 
 cannot be exactly the same in kind with that 
 to be inferred from space infinite in all direc- 
 tions. Again, if infinite distance shows an in- 
 finite being of whom it is the quality, finite dis- 
 tance must be the quality of a finite being.
 
 86 . A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 What being ? Of what kind of being is the 
 distance between two trees or two points a qua- 
 lity? There can be no doubt that this argu- 
 ment rests either upon the use of words without 
 meaning, or it is a disguised form of the old 
 doctrine of the anima mundi, or of the hypo- 
 thesis that the whole universe is a mere emana- 
 tion of the Deity. 
 
 But it deserves to be remarked that this argu- 
 ment, which professes to be a priori, and wholly 
 independent of all experience, is, strictly speak- 
 ing, inductive, and nothing more. We can have 
 no idea whatever of space apart from experience. 
 The experience of space filled with matter enables 
 us, by means of abstraction, to conceive space 
 without the matter ; and a further abstraction and 
 generalization enable us to conceive infinite space 
 by imagining the limits indefinitely removed of a 
 particular portion of space. But the foundation 
 of the whole reasoning is the experience of certain 
 finite portions of space first observed in con- 
 nexion with matter. Therefore our ideas of space 
 are the result of our experience as to external 
 objects. Even if we could fancy figure (which is 
 possible) without having seen or touched any
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 87 
 
 objects external to ourselves, still it would be 
 the experience of our own ideas that had given 
 us this idea. So of time; it is the succession 
 of our ideas, and we have the notion of it from 
 consciousness and memory. From hence we form 
 an idea of indefinite time or eternal duration. 
 But the basis of the whole is the observation 
 which we have made upon the actual succession 
 of our ideas ; and this is inductive, though the 
 process of reasoning be very short. It is as much 
 a process of inductive reasoning as that by which 
 we arrive at the knowledge of the mind's exist- 
 ence. There is, therefore, great inaccuracy in 
 denominating the argument in question, were it 
 ever so sound, an argument a priori, for it is a 
 reasoning founded on experience, and it is to be 
 classed with the arguments derived from the ob- 
 servation of external objects, the ground of our 
 reasoning a posteriori as to matter, or, at the 
 utmost, with the information given by conscious- 
 ness, the whole ground of our reasoning a j) s - 
 teriori as to mind. 
 
 When, however, Dr. Clarke has once fixed the 
 propositions to which we have been adverting, he 
 deduces from them the whole qualities of the
 
 88 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 Deity those which we learn from experience and 
 thinks he can derive them all from the simple pro- 
 positions that lie at the foundation of his argu- 
 ment. It is truly astonishing to find so profound 
 a thinker, and, generally speaking, so accurate a 
 reasoner, actually supposing that he can deduce 
 from the proposition, that a self-existent being 
 must have existed from all time, this other pro- 
 position, that therefore this being must be infi- 
 nitely wise (Prop. XI.), and that he " must of 
 necessity be a being of infinite goodness, justice, 
 and truth, and all other moral perfections, such 
 as become the supreme governor and judge of the 
 world." (Prop. XII.) With the general texture 
 of this argument we have at present nothing to 
 do, further than to show how little it can by 
 possibility deserve the name either of an argu- 
 ment a priori, or be regarded as the demonstra- 
 tion of a necessary truth. For surely, prior to 
 all experience, no one could ever know that there 
 were such things as either judges or governors ; 
 and without the previous idea of a finite or worldly 
 ruler and judge, we could never gain any idea of 
 an eternal and infinitely just ruler or judge ; and 
 equally certain it is that this demonstration, if it
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 89 
 
 proves the existence of an infinite and eternal 
 ruler or judge to be a necessary and not a con- 
 tingent truth (which is Dr. Clarke's whole argu- 
 ment), Avould just as strictly prove the existence 
 of finite rulers and judges to be a necessary and 
 not a contingent truth ; or, in other words, it would 
 follow, that the existence of governors and judges 
 in the world is a necessary truth, like the equality 
 of the three angles in a triangle to two right 
 angles, and that it would be a contradiction in 
 terms, and so an impossibility, to conceive the 
 world existing without governors and judges. 
 
 I believe it may safely be said, that very few 
 men have ever formed a distinct apprehension of 
 the nature of Dr. Clarke's celebrated argument, 
 and that hardly any person has ever been at all 
 satisfied with it. The opinion of Dr. Reid is well 
 known upon this subject, and it has received the 
 full acquiescence of no less an authority than that 
 of Mr. Stewart. 
 
 " These," says Dr. Reid, " are the speculations 
 of men of superior genius ; but whether they be 
 as solid as they are sublime, or whether they be 
 the wanderings of imagination in a region beyond 
 the limits of human understanding, I am unable 
 to determine."
 
 90 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 To tliis Mr. Stewart adds " After this candid 
 acknowledgment from Dr. Reid, I need not be 
 ashamed to confess my own doubts and difficul- 
 ties on the same subject."* 
 
 That the argument a priori has been most 
 explicitly handled by Dr. Clarke,, and that its 
 acceptation rests principally upon his high autho- 
 rity, cannot be denied. Nevertheless, other great 
 men preceded him in this field ; and besides Sir 
 Isaac Newton, whose Scholium Generals is thought 
 to have suggested it, the same reasoning is to be 
 found in the writings of others of Dr. Clarke's 
 predecessors. 
 
 The tenth chapter of Mr. Locke's fourth book 
 does not materially differ, in its fundamental 
 position, from the " Demonstration of the Being 
 and Attributes." The argument is all drawn from 
 the truth, assumed as self-evident, " Nothing can 
 no more produce any real being than it can be 
 equal to two right angles." From this, and the 
 knowledge AVC have of our own existence, it is 
 shown to follow, that "from eternity there has 
 been something ;" and again, " that this eternal 
 being must have been most powerful and most 
 * Philosophy of the Active Powers, i. 334.
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 91 
 
 knowing," and " therefore God." The only dif- 
 ference between this argument and Dr. Clarke's 
 is, that Mr. Locke states, as one of his proposi- 
 tions,, our knowledge of our own existence. But 
 this difference is only in appearance; for Dr. 
 Clarke really has assumed what Mr. Locke has 
 more logically made a distinct proposition. Dr. 
 Clarke's first proposition, that something must 
 have existed from all eternity, is demonstrated by 
 showing the absurdity of the supposition that 
 " the things which now are were produced out of 
 nothing." He therefore assumes the existence 
 of those things, while Mr. Locke more strictly 
 assumes the existence of ourselves only, and in- 
 deed states it as a proposition. The other argu- 
 ments of Mr. Locke are more ingenious than Dr. 
 Clarke's, and the whole reasoning is more 
 rigorous, although he does not give it the name 
 of a demonstration, and scarcely can be said to 
 treat it as proving the Deity's existence to be a 
 necessary truth. Were it to be so considered, the 
 objections formerly stated would apply to it. In- 
 deed, if Dr. Clarke had stated the different steps 
 of his reasoning as distinctly as Mr. Locke, he 
 would have perceived it to be inconclusive be-
 
 92 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 yond a very limited extent, and to that extent 
 inductive.* 
 
 Dr. Cudworth, in the fifth chapter of his great 
 work, f has, in answering the Democritick argu- 
 ments,, so plainly anticipated Dr. Clarke, that it 
 is hardly possible to conceive how the latter 
 should have avoided referring to it. J " If space 
 be indeed a nature distinct from body, and a 
 thing really incorporeal, then will it undeniably 
 follow, from this very principle of theirs (the 
 Democritists), that there must be incorporeal 
 space ; and (this space being supposed by them 
 also to be infinite) an infinite incorporeal Deity. 
 Because if space be not the extension of body, 
 nor an affection thereof, then must it of necessity 
 be, either an accident existing alone by itself, 
 without a substance, which is impossible ; or else 
 the extension or affection of some other incor- 
 poreal substance that is infinite." He then sup- 
 
 * See particularly Mr. Locke's proofs of his first position. 
 (Hum. Understanding, IV. x. sec. 2.) 
 
 f Intellectual System, Book L, c.v., s. 3, par. 4. The profound 
 learning of this unfinished work, and its satisfactory exposition of 
 Ihe ancient philosophers, are above all praise. Why are the manu- 
 scripts of the author still buried in the British Museum ? 
 
 J Cud worth's book was published in 1678. The " Demonstra- 
 tion" was delivered in 1704-5 at the Boyle Lecture.
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 93 
 
 poses a reply (founded on the doctrines of Gas- 
 sendi), that space is of a middle nature and 
 essence, and proceeds to observe upon it : 
 " Whatsoever is, or hath any kind of entity, doth 
 either subsist by itself, or else is an attribute, 
 affection, or mode of something that doth subsist 
 by itself. For it is certain that there can be no 
 mode, accident, or affection of nothing ; and, con- 
 sequently, that nothing cannot be extended nor 
 mensurable. But if space be neither the exten- 
 sion of body, nor yet of substance incorporeal, 
 then must it of necessity be the extension of 
 nothing, and the affection of nothing, and nothing 
 must be measurable by yards and poles. We 
 conclude, therefore, that from this very hypo- 
 thesis of the Democritick and Epicurean atheists, 
 that space is a nature distinct from body, and 
 positively infinite, it follows undeniably that 
 there must be some incorporeal substance whose 
 affection its extension is ; and because there can 
 be nothing infinite but only the Deity, that it is 
 the infinite extension of our incorporeal Deity." 
 The statement of Dr. Clarke's argument, given 
 in his correspondence, is manifestly, if not taken 
 from this, at least coincident with it in every im-
 
 94 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 portant respect. Dr. Cudworth, indeed,, confines 
 his reasoning to the consideration of space and 
 immensity, and Dr. Clarke extends his to time 
 and eternity also. But of the two portions of 
 the argument this has been shown to be the most 
 fallacious. 
 
 The arguments of the ancient theists were in 
 great part drawn from metaphysical speculations, 
 some of which resembled the argument a priori.* 
 But they were pressed by the difficulty of con- 
 ceiving the possibility of creation, whether of 
 matter or spirit; and their inaccurate views of 
 physical science made them consider this diffi- 
 culty as peculiar to the creative act. They were 
 thus driven to the hypothesis that matter and 
 mind are eternal, and that the creative power of 
 the Deity is only plastic. They supposed it easy 
 to comprehend how the divine mind should be 
 eternal and self-existing, and matter also eternal 
 and self-existing. They found no difficulty in 
 comprehending how that mind could, by a wish 
 or a word, reduce chaos to order, and mould all 
 the elements of things into their present form ; 
 but how every thing could be made out of nothing 
 * Notes VI. and VII.
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 95 
 
 they could not understand. When rightly consi- 
 dered, however, there is no more difficulty in com- 
 prehending the one than the other operation 
 the existence of the plastic, than of the creative 
 power ; or rather, the one is as incomprehensible as 
 the other. How the Supreme Being made matter 
 out of the void is not easily comprehended. This 
 must be admitted ; but is it more easy to conceive 
 how the same Being, by his mere will, moved and 
 fashioned the primordial atoms of an eternally ex- 
 isting chaos into the beauty of the natural world, 
 or the regularity of the solar system ? In truth, 
 these difficulties meet us at every step of the 
 argument of Natural Theology, when we would 
 penetrate beyond those things, those facts which 
 our faculties can easily comprehend; but they 
 meet us just as frequently, and are just as hard to 
 surmount, in our steps over the field of Natural 
 Philosophy. How matter acts on matter how 
 motion is begun, or, when begun, ceases how 
 impact takes place what are the conditions and 
 limitations of contact whether or not matter 
 consists of ultimate particles, endowed with oppo- 
 site powers of attraction and repulsion, and how 
 these act how one planet acts upon another at
 
 96 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 the distance of a hundred million of miles or 
 how one piece of iron attracts and repels another 
 at a distance less than any visible space all these, 
 and a thousand others of the like sort, are ques- 
 tions just as easily put, and as hard to answer, as 
 how the universe could be made out of nothing, 
 or how, out of chaos, order could be made to 
 spring. 
 
 In concluding these observations upon the 
 argument a priori, I may remark, that although 
 it carries us but a very little way, and would be 
 unsafe to build upon alone, it is yet of eminent 
 use in two particulars. First, it illustrates, if it 
 does not indeed prove, the possibility of an Infi- 
 nite Being existing beyond and independent of 
 us and of all visible things ; and, secondly, the 
 fact of those ideas of immensity and eternity, 
 forcing themselves, as Mr. Stewart expresses it, 
 upon our belief, seems to furnish an additional 
 argument for the existence of an Immense and 
 Eternal Being. At least we must admit that 
 excellent person's remark to be well-founded, 
 that after we have, by the argument a posteriori 
 (I should rather say the other parts of the argu- 
 ment a posteriori), satisfied ourselves of the exist-
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY". 97 
 
 ence of an intelligent cause, we naturally connect 
 with this cause those impressions which we have 
 derived from the contemplation of infinite space 
 and endless duration, and hence we clothe with 
 the attributes of immensity and eternity the awful 
 Being whose existence has been proved by a 
 more rigorous process of investigation.* 
 
 * Lord Spencer, who has deeply studied these abstruse subjects, 
 communicated to me, before he was aware of my opinion, that ha 
 had arrived at nearly the same conclusion upon the merits of the 
 argument a priori.
 
 98 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 SECTION V. 
 
 MORAL OR ETHICAL BRANCH OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 
 
 IF we now direct our attention to the other great 
 branch of Natural Theology, that which we have 
 termed the moral or ethical portion, which treats 
 of the probable designs of the Deity with respect 
 to the future destiny of his creatures, we shall find 
 that the same argument applies to the nature of 
 its truths, which we have been illustrating in its 
 application to the first or ontological branch of 
 the science, or that relating to the existence and 
 attributes of the Creator, whether proved by phy- 
 sical or by psychological reasoning. The second 
 branch, like the first, rests upon the same founda- 
 tion with all the other inductive sciences, the 
 only difference being that the one belongs to the 
 inductive science of Natural and Mental, and the 
 other to the inductive science of Moral Philo- 
 sophy. 
 
 The means which we have of investigating the 
 probable designs of the Deity are derived from
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 99 
 
 two sources the nature of the human mind, and 
 the attributes of the Creator. 
 
 To the consideration of these we now proceed ; 
 but in discussing them, and especially the first, 
 there is this difference to be marked as distin- 
 guishing them from the former branch of Natural 
 Theology. They are far less abundant in doc- 
 trine; they have been much less cultivated by 
 scientific inquirers ; and the truths ascertained 
 in relation to them are fewer in number: in a 
 word, our knowledge of the Creator's designs in 
 the order of nature is much more limited than 
 our acquaintance with his existence and attri- 
 butes. But, on the other hand, the identity of 
 the evidence with that on which the other inductive 
 sciences rest is far more conspicuous in what may 
 be termed the psychological part of the second 
 branch of Natural Theology than in any portion 
 of the first branch, it being much less apparent 
 that the inferences drawn from facts in favour of 
 the Deity's existence and attributes are of the 
 same nature with the ordinary deductions of phy- 
 sical science in other words, that this part of 
 Natural Theology is a branch of Natural Philo- 
 sophy than it is that the deductions from the
 
 100 
 
 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 nature of the mind in favour of its separate and 
 future existence are a branch of Metaphysical 
 science. 
 
 From this diversity it follows, that, in treating 
 this second branch of the subject, there will be 
 more necessity for entering at large into the 
 subject of the Deity's probable designs in regard 
 to the soul, especially those to be inferred from 
 its constitution, than we found for entering into 
 the evidences of his existence and attributes, 
 although there will not be so much labour re- 
 quired for proving that this is a branch of in- 
 ductive science. 
 
 1. PSYCHOLOGICAL ARGUMENT, OR EVIDENCE OF 
 THE DEITY'S DESIGNS DRAWN FROM THE NATURE 
 OF THE MIND. 
 
 THE Immateriality of the Soul is the foundation 
 of all the doctrines relating to its Future State. 
 If it consists of material parts, or if it consists of 
 any modification of matter, or if it is inseparably 
 connected with any combination of material ele- 
 ments, we have no reason whatever for believing 
 that it can survive the existence of the physical 
 part of our frame ; on the contrary, its destruction
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 101 
 
 seems to follow as a necessary consequence of the 
 dissolution of the body. It is true that the body 
 is not destroyed in the sense of being annihilated ; 
 but it is equally true that the particular con- 
 formation, the particular arrangement of material 
 particles with which the soul is supposed to have 
 been inseparably connected, or in which it is 
 supposed to consist, is gone and destroyed even 
 in the sense of annihilation; for that arrangement 
 or conformation has no longer an existence, any 
 more than a marble statue can be said to have 
 an existence Avhen it is burned into a mass of 
 quicklime. Now it is to the particular confor- 
 mation and arrangement, and not to the matter 
 itself, that the soul is considered as belonging by 
 any theory of materialism, there being none of 
 the theories of materialists so absurd as to make 
 the total mass of the particles themselves, inde- 
 pendent of their arrangement, the seat of the 
 soul. Therefore, the destruction of that form 
 and organization as effectually destroys the soul 
 which consists in it, as the beauty or the intel- 
 lectual expression of the statue is gone when the 
 marble is reduced to lime-dust. 
 
 Happily, however, the doctrines of materialism
 
 102 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 rest upon no solid foundation, cither of reason 
 or experience. The vague and indistinct form 
 of the propositions in which they are conveyed 
 affords one strong argument against their truth. 
 It is not easy to annex a definite meaning to the 
 proposition that mind is inseparably connected 
 with a particular arrangement of the particles of 
 matter ; it is more difficult to say what they mean 
 who call it a modification of matter ; but to con- 
 sider it as consisting in a combination of matter, 
 as coming into existence the instant that the 
 particles of matter assume a given arrangement, 
 appears to be a wholly unintelligible collocation 
 of words. 
 
 Let us, however, resort to experience, and in- 
 quire what results may be derived from that safe 
 guide whom modern philosophers most willingly 
 trust, though despised as too humble a helpmate 
 by most of the ancient sages. 
 
 We may first of all observe that if a particular 
 combination of matter gives birth to what we call 
 mind, this is an operation altogether peculiar and 
 unexampled. We have no other instance of it ; 
 we know of no case in which the combination of 
 certain elements produces something 1 quite dif-
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 103 
 
 ferent, not only from each of the simple in- 
 gredients, but also different from the whole com- 
 pound. We can, by mixing an acid and an alkali, 
 form a third body, having the qualities of neither, 
 and possessing qualities of its own different from 
 the properties of each ; but here the third body 
 consists of the other two in combination. There 
 are not two things two different existences the 
 neutral salt composed of the acid and the alkali, 
 and another thing different from that neutral salt, 
 and engendered for the first time by that salt 
 coming into existence. So Avhen, by chiselling, 
 " the marble softened into life grows warm," we 
 have the marble new moulded, and endowed with 
 the power of agreeably affecting our senses, our 
 memory, and our fancy; but it is all the while 
 the marble : there is the beautiful and expressive 
 marble instead of the amorphous mass, and we 
 have not, besides the marble, a new existence 
 created by the form which has been given to that 
 stone. But the materialists have to maintain 
 that, by matter being arranged in a particular 
 way, there is produced both the organized body 
 and something different from it, and having not 
 one of its properties neither dimensions, nor
 
 10-1 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 weight, nor colour, nor form. They have to main- 
 tain that the chemist who mixed the aqua fortis 
 and potash produced both nitre and something 
 quite different from all the three, and which began 
 to exist the instant that the nitre crystallized; 
 and that the sculptor who fashioned the Apollo, 
 not only made the marble into a human figure, 
 but called into being something different from 
 the marble and the statue, and which exists at 
 the same time with both and without one property 
 of either. If, therefore, their theory is true, it 
 must be admitted to rest upon nothing which 
 experience has ever taught us : it supposes ope- 
 rations to be performed and relations to exist of 
 which we see nothing that bears the least resem- 
 blance in anything we know. 
 
 But secondly, the doctrine of the materialists 
 in every form which it assumes is contradicted by 
 the most plain and certain deductions of expe- 
 rience. The evidence which we have of the ex- 
 istence of the mind is complete in itself, and 
 wholly independent of the qualities or the exist- 
 ence of matter. It is not only as strong and 
 conclusive as the evidence which makes us believe 
 in the existence of matter, but more strong and
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY, 105 
 
 more conclusive ; the steps of the demonstration 
 are fewer; the truth to which they conduct the 
 reason is less remote from the axiom the in- 
 tuitive or self-evident position whence the demon- 
 stration springs. We believe that matter exists 
 because it makes a certain impression upon our- 
 senses, that is, because it produces a certain 
 change or a certain effect; and we argue, and 
 argue justly, that this effect must have a cause,, 
 though the proof is by no means so clear that 
 this cause is something external to ourselves. 
 But we know the existence of mind by our con-, 
 sciousness of or reflection on what passes within 
 us, and our own existence as sentient and think- 
 ing beings implies the existence of the mind 
 which has sense and thought. To know, there- 
 fore, that we are, and that we think, implies a 
 knowledge of the soul's existence. But this 
 knowledge is altogether independent of matter, 
 and the subject of it bears no resemblance what- 
 ever to matter in any one of its qualities, or 
 habits, or modes of action. Nay, we only know 
 the existence of matter through the operations 
 of the mind; and were we to doubt of the ex- 
 istence of either, it would be far more reasonable 
 
 F3
 
 106 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 to doubt that matter exists than that mind 
 exists. The existence and the operations of 
 mind, supposing it to exist, will account for all 
 the phenomena which matter is supposed to ex- 
 hibit. But the existence and action of matter, 
 vary it how we may, will never account for One of 
 the phenomena of mind. We do not believe 
 more firmly in the existence of the sensible objects 
 around us when we are well and awake, than we 
 do in the reality of those phantoms which the 
 imagination conjures up in the hours of sleep, or 
 the season of derangement. But no effect pro- 
 duced by material agency ever produced a spiri- 
 tual existence, or engendered the belief of such 
 an existence ; indeed, the thing is almost a con- 
 tradiction in terms. That all around us should 
 only be the creatures of our fancy, no one can 
 affirm to be impossible. But that our mind- 
 that which remembers compares imagines 
 in a word, that which thinks that of the exist- 
 ence of which we are perpetually conscious that 
 which cannot but exist if we exist that which 
 can make its own operations the subject of its 
 own thoughts that this should have no existence 
 is both impossible and indeed a contradiction in
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 107 
 
 terms. We have, therefore, evidence of the strictest 
 kind induction of facts the most precise and 
 unerring to justify the conclusion that the mind 
 exists, and is different from and independent of 
 matter altogether.* 
 
 Now this proposition not only destroys the 
 doctrine of the materialists, but leads to the 
 strongest inferences in favour of the mind sur- 
 viving the body with which it is connected through 
 life. All our experience shows us no one instance 
 of annihilation. Matter is perpetually changing 
 never destroyed ; the form and manner of its 
 existence is endlessly and ceaselessly varying 
 its existence never terminates. The body decays, 
 and is said to perish ; that is, it is resolved into 
 its elements, and becomes the material of new 
 combinations, animate and inanimate, but not a 
 single particle of it is annihilated ; nothing of us 
 or around us ever ceases to exist. If the mind 
 perishes, or ceases to exist at death, it is the only 
 example of annihilation which we know. 
 
 But, it may be said, why should it not, like the 
 
 body, be changed, or dissipated, or resolved into 
 
 its elements? The answer is plain: it differs 
 
 from the body in this, that it has no parts ; it 
 
 * See on the Hypothesis of Materialism. Note IV
 
 108 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 is absolutely one and simple ; therefore it is 
 incapable of resolution or dissolution. These 
 words, and the operations or events they refer to, 
 have no application to a simple and immaterial 
 existence. 
 
 Indeed, our idea of annihilation is wholly de- 
 rived from matter, and what we are wont to call 
 destruction means only change of form and reso- 
 lution into parts, or combination into new forms. 
 But for the example of the changes undergone 
 by matter, we should not even have any notion 
 of destruction or annihilation. When we come 
 to consider the tiling itself, we cannot conceive it 
 to be possible; we can well imagine a parcel of 
 gunpowder or any other combustible substance 
 ceasing to exist as such by burning or exploding ; 
 but that its whole elements should not con- 
 tinue to exist in a different state, and in new 
 combinations, appears inconceivable. We can- 
 not follow the process so far; we can form no 
 conception of any one particle that once is, 
 ceasing wholly to be. How then can we form 
 any conception of the mind which we now know 
 to exist ceasing to be ? It is an idea altogether 
 above our comprehension. True, we no longer, 
 after the body is dissolved, perceive the mind,
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 109 
 
 because we never knew it by the senses ; we only 
 were aware of its existence in others by its effects 
 upon matter, and had no experience of it uncon- 
 nected with the body. But it by no means 
 follows that it should not exist, merely because 
 we have ceased to perceive its effects upon any 
 portion of matter. It had connexion with the 
 matter which it used to act upon, and by which 
 it used to be acted on; when its entire sever- 
 ance took place that matter underwent a great 
 change, but a change arising from its being of a 
 composite nature. The same separation cannot 
 have affected the mind in the like manner, because 
 its nature is simple and not composite. Our 
 ceasing to perceive any effects produced by it on 
 any portion of matter, the only means we can- 
 have of ascertaining its existence, is therefore no 
 proof that it does not still exist ; and even if we 
 admit that it no longer does produce any effect 
 upon any portion of matter, still this will offer no 
 proof that it has ceased to exist. Indeed, when, 
 we speak of its being annihilated we may be said 
 to use a word to which no precise meaning can be 
 attached by our imaginations. At any rate, it is 
 much more difficult to suppose that this annihila-
 
 110 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 tion has taken place, and to conceive in what way 
 it is effected, than to suppose that the mind con- 
 tinues in some state of separate existence, dis- 
 encumbered of the body, and to conceive in what 
 manner this separate existence is maintained. 
 
 It may be further observed that the material 
 world affords no example of creation, any more 
 than of annihilation. Such as it was in point of 
 quantity since its existence began, such it still 
 is, not a single particle of matter having been 
 either added to it or taken from it. Change 
 unceasing change in all its parts, at every 
 instant of time, it is for ever undergoing; but 
 though the combinations or relations of these 
 parts are unremittingly varying, there has not 
 been a single one of them created, or a single one 
 destroyed. Of mind, this cannot be said ; it is 
 called into existence perpetually, before our eyes. 
 In one respect this may weaken the argument for 
 the continued existence of the soul, because it 
 may lead to the conclusion, that as we see mind 
 created, so may it be destroyed; while matter, 
 which suffers no addition, is liable to no loss. 
 Yet the argument seems to gain in another 
 direction more force than it loses in tin's; for
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. Ill 
 
 nothing can more strongly illustrate the diversity 
 between mind and matter,, or more strikingly 
 show that the one is independent of the other. 
 
 Again, the mind's independence of matter and 
 capacity of existence without it, appears to be 
 strongly illustrated by whatever shows the entire 
 dissimilarity of its constitution. The inconceivable 
 rapidity of its operations is, perhaps, the most 
 striking feature of the diversity ; and there is no 
 doubt that this rapidity increases in proportion as 
 the interference of the senses that is, the in- 
 fluence of the body is withdrawn. A multitude 
 of facts, chiefly drawn from and connected with 
 the Phenomena of Dreams, throw a strong light 
 upon this subject, and seem to demonstrate the 
 possible disconnexion of mind and matter. 
 
 The bodily functions are in part suspended 
 during sleep, that is, all those which depend 
 upon volition. The senses, however, retain a 
 portion of their acuteness ; and those of touch* 
 
 * The common classification of the senses which makes the 
 touch comprehend the sense of heat and cold, is here adopted ; 
 though, certainly, there seems almost as little reason for ranging 
 this under touch, as for ranging sight, smell, hearing, and taste 
 under the same head. '
 
 112 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 and hearing, especially, may be affected without 
 awakening the sleeper. The consequence of the 
 cessation which takes place of all communication 
 of ideas through the senses, is that the action of 
 the mind, and, above all, of those powers con- 
 nected with the imagination, becomes much more 
 vigorous and uninterrupted. This is shown in 
 two ways first, by the celerity with which any 
 impression upon the senses, strong enoiigh to be 
 felt without awaking, is caught up and made 
 the groundwork of a new train of ideas, the mind 
 instantly accommodating itself to the suggestions 
 of the impression, and making all its thoughts 
 chime in with that; and, secondly, by the pro- 
 digiously long succession of images that pass 
 through the mind, with perfect distinctness and 
 liveliness, in an instant of time. 
 
 The facts upon this subject are numerous, and 
 of undeniable certainty, because of daily occur- 
 rence. Every one knows the effect of a bottle of 
 hot water applied during sleep to the soles of the 
 feet: you instantly dream of walking over hot 
 mould, or ashes, or a stream of lava, or having 
 your feet burnt by coming too near the fire. But 
 the effect of falling asleep in a stream of cold air,
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 113 
 
 as in an open carriage, varies this experiment in a 
 very interesting, and, indeed,, instructive manner. 
 You will, instantly that the wind begins to blow, 
 dream of being upon some exposed point, and 
 anxious for shelter, but unable to reach it ; then 
 you are on the deck of a ship, suffering from the 
 gale you run behind a sail for shelter, and the 
 wind chariges, so that it still blows upon you you 
 are driven to the cabin, but the ladder is re- 
 moved, or the door locked. Presently you are 
 on shore, in a house with all the windows open, 
 and endeavour to shut them in vain ; or, seeing 
 a smith's forge, you are attracted by the fire, and 
 suddenly a hundred bellows play upon it, and 
 extinguish it in an instant, but fill the whole 
 smithy with their blast, till you are as cold as on 
 the road. If you from time to time awake, the 
 moment you fall asleep again, the same course of 
 dreaming succeeds in the greatest variety of 
 changes that can be rung on our thoughts. 
 
 But the rapidity of these changes, and of the 
 succession of ideas, cannot be ascertained by this 
 experiment : it is most satisfactorily proved by 
 another. Let any one wiio is extremely over- 
 powered with drowsiness as after sitting up all
 
 114 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 night, and sleeping none the next day lie down, 
 and begin to dictate : he will find himself falling 
 asleep after uttering a few words, and he will be 
 awakened by the person w r ho writes repeating the 
 last word, to show he has written the whole ; not 
 above five or six seconds may elapse, and the 
 sleeper will find it at first quite impossible to 
 believe that he has not been asleep for hours, and 
 will chide the amanuensis for having fallen asleep 
 over his work so great apparently will be the 
 length of the dream which he has dreamt, ex- 
 tending through half a lifetime. This experi- 
 ment is easily tried : again and again the sleeper 
 will find his endless dream renewed ; and he will 
 always be able to tell in how short a time he must 
 have performed it. For suppose eight or ten 
 seconds required to write the four or five words 
 dictated, sleep could hardly begin in less than four 
 or five seconds after the effort of pronouncing the 
 sentence ; so that, at the utmost, not more than 
 four or five seconds can have been spent in sleep. 
 But, indeed, the greater probability is, that not 
 above a single second can have been so passed ; for 
 a writer will easily finish two words in a second ; 
 and .suppose he has to write four, and half the
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 115 
 
 time is consumed in falling asleep, one second 
 only is the duration of the dream, which yet seems 
 to last for years, so numerous are the images that 
 compose it. 
 
 Another experiment is still more striking, and 
 affords a more remarkable proof both of the 
 velocity of thought, and of the quickness with 
 which its course is moulded to suit any external 
 impression made on the senses. But this experi- 
 ment is not so easily tried. A puncture made 
 will immediately produce a long dream, which 
 seems to terminate in some such accident as that 
 the sleeper has been wandering through a wood, 
 and received a severe wound from a spear, or the 
 tooth of a wild animal, which at the same instant 
 awakens him. A gun fired in one instance, during 
 the alarm of invasion, made a military man at 
 once dream the enemy had landed, so that he ran 
 to his post, and repairing to the scene of action, 
 was present when the first discharge took place, 
 which also the same moment awakened him.* 
 
 Now these facts shoAV the infinite rapidity of 
 
 * The ingenious Eastern tale, in the Spectator, of the magician 
 who made the prince plunge his head into a pail of water, is founded 
 on facts like those to which we have been referring.
 
 116 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 thought ; for the puncture and the discharge of 
 the gun took place in an instant, and their im- 
 pression on the senses was as instantaneous ; and 
 yet, during that instant, the mind went through 
 a long operation of fancy, suggested by the first 
 part of the impression, and terminated, as the 
 sleep itself was, by the continuation the last 
 portion of the same impression. Mark what was 
 done in an instant in a mere point of time. 
 The sensation of the pain or noise beginning 
 is conveyed to the mind, and sets it a thinking 
 of many things connected with such sensations. 
 But that sensation is lost or forgotten for a portion 
 of the short instant during which the impression 
 lasts ; for the conclusion of the same impression 
 gives rise to a new set of ideas. The walk in 
 the wood, and the hurrying to the post, are sug- 
 gested by the sensation beginning. Then fol- 
 low many things unconnected with that sensa- 
 tion, except that they grew out of it ; and, lastly, 
 comes the wound, and the broadside, suggested 
 by the continuance of the sensation, while, all 
 the time, this continuance has been producing 
 an effect on the mind wholly different from the 
 train of ideas the dream consists of, nay, destruc-
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 117 
 
 tive of that train namely, the effect of rousing it 
 from the state of sleep, and restoring its domi- 
 nion over the body. Nay, there may be said to 
 be a third operation of the mind going on at the 
 same time with these two a looking forward to 
 the denouement of the plot, for the fancy is all 
 along so contriving as to fit that, by terminat- 
 ing in some event, some result consistent with 
 the impression made on the senses, and which 
 has given rise to the whole train of ideas. 
 
 There seems every reason to conclude, from 
 these facts, that we only dream during the instant 
 of transition into and out of sleep. That instant 
 is quite enough to account for the whole of what 
 appears a night's dream. It is quite certain we 
 remember no more than ought, according to these 
 experiments, to fill an instant of time ; and there 
 can be no reason why we should only recollect this 
 one portion if we had dreamt much more. The 
 fact that we never dream so much as when our rest 
 is frequently broken proves the same proposition 
 almost to demonstration. An uneasy and rest- 
 less night passed in bed is always a night studded 
 full with dreams. So, too, a night passed on the 
 road in travelling, by such as sleep well in a
 
 118 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 carriage,, is a night of constant dreams. Every 
 jolt that awakens or half-awakens us seems to be 
 the cause of a dream. If it be said that we 
 always or generally dream when asleep, but only 
 recollect a portion of our dream, then the ques- 
 tion arises, why we recollect a dream each time 
 we fall asleep, or are awakened, and no more ? If 
 we can recall twenty dreams in a night of inter- 
 rupted sleep, how is it that we can only recall one 
 or two when our sleep is continued ? The length 
 of time occupied by the dream \ve recollect is the 
 only reason that can be given for our forgetting 
 the rest ; but this reason fails if, each time we are 
 roused, we remember separate dreams. 
 
 Nothing can be conceived better calculated 
 than these facts to demonstrate the extreme agi- 
 lity of the mental powers, their total diversity 
 from any material substances or actions ; nothing 
 better adapted to satisfy us that the nature of the 
 mind is consistent with its existence apart from 
 the body. 
 
 The changes which the mind undergoes in its 
 activity, its capacity, its mode of operation, are 
 matter of constant observation, indeed of every 
 man's experience. Its essence is the same ; its
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 119 
 
 fulidamental nature is unalterable ; it never loses 
 the distinguishing peculiarities which separate it 
 from matter ; never acquires any of the properties 
 of the latter ; but it undergoes important changes, 
 both in the progress of time, and by means of 
 exercise and culture. The development of the 
 bodily powers appears to affect it, and so does 
 their decay ; but we rather ought to say, that, in 
 ordinary cases, its improvement is contempora- 
 neous with the growth of the body, and its decline 
 generally is contemporaneous with that of the 
 body, after an advanced period of life. For it is an 
 undoubted fact, and almost universally true, that 
 the mind, before extreme old age, becomes more 
 sound, and is capable of greater things, during 
 nearly thirty years of diminished bodily powers ; 
 that, in most cases, it suffers no abatement of 
 strength during ten years more of bodily decline ; 
 that, in many cases, a few years more of bodily 
 decrepitude produce no effect upon the mind; 
 and that, in some instances, its faculties remain 
 bright to the last, surviving the almost total ex- 
 tinction of the corporeal endowments. It is cer- 
 tain that the strength of the body, its agility, its 
 patience of fatigue, indeed all its qualities, de-
 
 120 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 clinc from thirty at the latest; and yet the mind 
 is improving rapidly from thirty to fifty ; suffers 
 little or no decline before sixty ; and therefore is 
 better when the body is enfeebled, at the age of 
 fifty-eight or fifty-nine, than it was in the acme 
 of the corporeal faculties thirty years before. It is 
 equally certain, that while the body is rapidly de- 
 caying, between sixty or sixty-three and seventy, 
 the mind suffers hardly any loss of strength in 
 the generality of men ; that men continue to 
 seventy-five or seventy-six in the possession of 
 all their mental powers, while few can then boast 
 of more than the remains of physical strength; 
 and instances are not wanting of persons who, 
 between eighty and ninety, or even older, when 
 the body can hardly be said to live, possess every 
 faculty of the mind unimpaired. We are au- 
 thorised to conclude, from these facts, that unless 
 some unusual and violent accident interferes, 
 such as a serious illness or a fatal contusion, the 
 ordinary course of life presents the mind and the 
 body running courses widely different, and in 
 great part of the time in opposite directions ; and 
 this affords strong proof, both that the mind is 
 independent of the body, and that its destruction
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 121 
 
 in the period of its entire vigour is contrary to 
 the analogy of nature. 
 
 The strongest of all the arguments both for 
 the separate existence of mind, and for its sur- 
 viving the body remains, and it is drawn from 
 the strictest induction of facts. The body is con- 
 stantly undergoing change in all its parts. Pro- 
 bably no person at the age of twenty has one 
 single particle in any part of his body which he 
 had at ten ; and still less does any portion of the 
 body he Avas born with continue to exist in or with 
 him. All that he before had has now entered 
 into new combinations, forming parts of other 
 men, or of animals, or of vegetable or mineral 
 substances, exactly as the body he now has will 
 afterwards be resolved into new combinations 
 after his death. Yet the mind continues one and 
 the same, "without change or shadow of turn- 
 ing." None of its parts can be resolved ; for it 
 is one and single, and it remains unchanged by 
 the changes of the body. The argument would 
 be quite as strong though the change undergone 
 by the body were admitted not to be so com- 
 plete, and though some small portion of its 
 harder parts were supposed to continue with us 
 through life. G
 
 122 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 But observe how strong the inferences arising 
 from these facts are, both to prove that the 
 existence of the mind is entirely independent of 
 the existence of the body, and to show the pro- 
 bability of its surviving ! If the mind continues 
 the same while all or nearly all the body is 
 changed, it follows that the existence of the mind 
 depends not in the least degree upon the exist- 
 ence of the body ; for it has already survived a 
 total change of, or, in the common use of the 
 words, an entire destruction of that body. But 
 again, if the strongest argument to show that 
 the mind perishes with the body, nay, the only 
 argument be, as it indubitably is, derived from 
 the phenomena of death, the fact to which we 
 have been referring affords an answer to this. 
 For the argument is that we know of no instance 
 in which the mind has ever been known to exist 
 after the death of the body. Now here is exactly 
 the instance desiderated, it being manifest that 
 the same process which takes place on the body 
 more suddenly at death is taking place more 
 gradually, but as effectually in the result, during 
 the whole of life, and that death itself does not 
 more completely resolve the body into its ele- 
 ments and form it into new combinations than
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 123 
 
 living fifteen or twenty years does destroy, by 
 like resolution and combination, the self-same 
 body. And yet after those years have elapsed, 
 and the former body has been dissipated and 
 formed into new combinations, the mind remains 
 the same as before, exercising the same memory 
 and consciousness, and so preserving the same 
 personal identity as if the body had suffered no 
 change at all. In short, it is not more correct to 
 say that all of us who are now living have bodies 
 formed of what were once the bodies of those 
 who went before us, than it is to say that some 
 of us who are now living at the age of fifty have 
 bodies which in part belonged to others now 
 living at that and other ages. The phenomena 
 are precisely the same, and the operations are 
 performed in like manner though with different 
 degrees of expedition. Now all would believe in 
 the separate existence of the soul if they had 
 experience of its existing apart from the body. 
 But the facts referred to prove that it does exist 
 apart from one body with which it once was 
 united, and though it is in union with another, 
 yet as it is not adherent to the same, it is shown 
 to have an existence separate from, and inde- 
 
 G2
 
 124 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 pendent of, that body. So all would believe in 
 the soul surviving the body,, if after the body's 
 death its existence were made manifest. But the 
 facts referred to prove that after the body's death, 
 that is, after the chronic dissolution which the 
 body undergoes during life, the mind continues 
 to exist as before. Here, then, we have that 
 proof so much desiderated the existence of the 
 soul after the dissolution of the bodily frame 
 with which it was connected. The two cases 
 cannot, in any soundness of reasoning, be dis- 
 tinguished ; and this argument, therefore, one of 
 pure induction, derived partly from physical 
 science, through the evidence of our senses, partly 
 from psychological science by the testimony of 
 our consciousness, appears to prove the possible 
 Immortality of the Soul almost as rigorously as 
 " if one were to rise from the dead." 
 
 Now we have gone through the first division 
 of this second branch of the subject, and have 
 considered the proofs of the separate and future 
 existence of the soul afforded by the nature of 
 mind. It is quite clear that all of them are 
 derived from a strict induction of facts, and 
 that the doctrines rest upon precisely the same
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 125 
 
 kind of evidence with that upon which the doc- 
 trines respecting the constitution and habits of 
 the mind are founded. In truth, the subjects 
 are not to be distinguished as regards the species 
 of demonstration applicable to them the process 
 by which the investigation of them is to be con- 
 ducted. That mind has an existence perceivable 
 and demonstrable as well as matter, and that it 
 is wholly different from matter in its qualities, is 
 a truth proved by induction of facts. That mind 
 can exist independent of matter and survive the 
 dissolution of the body, is a truth proved exactly 
 in the same manner, by ind\ictioii of facts. The 
 phenomena of dreams which lead to important 
 conclusions touching the nature of the mind, 
 lead, and by the self-same kind of reasoning, to 
 important conclusions of a similar description, 
 touching the mind's existence independent of the 
 body. The facts, partly physical, partly psycho- 
 logical, which show the mind to be unaffected by 
 the decay and by even the total though gradual 
 change of the body during life, likewise show that 
 it can exist after the more sudden change of a 
 similar kind, which we term the dissolution of 
 the body by death. There is no means of sepa-
 
 126 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 rating the two classes of truths, those of Psycho- 
 logy and those of Natural Theology; they are 
 parts of one and the same science; they are 
 ascertained by one and the same process of in- 
 vestigation ; they repose upon one and the same 
 kind of evidence; nor can any person,, without 
 giving way to a most groundless and unphiloso- 
 phical prejudice, profess his belief in the former 
 doctrines, and reject the latter. The only differ- 
 ence between the two is that the Theological pro- 
 positions are of much greater importance to 
 human happiness than the Metaphysical. 
 
 II. MORAL ARGUMENT, OR EVIDENCE OF THE DEITY 's 
 DESIGNS DRAWN FROM HIS ATTRIBUTES IN CON- 
 NEXION WITH THE CONDITION OF THE SPECIES. 
 
 THE probable designs of Divine Providence with 
 respect to the future lot of man are to be ga- 
 thered in part from the nature of the mind itself, 
 the work of the Deity, and in part from the attri- 
 butes of the Deity, ascertained by an examination 
 of his whole works. It thus happens that a por- 
 tion of this head of the argument has been anti- 
 cipated in treating the other head, the nature of 
 the mind. Whatever qualities of the soul show
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 127 
 
 it to differ from matter, both make it improbable 
 that it should perish with the body, and make it 
 improbable that the Deity should destine it to 
 such a catastrophe ; and whatever facts show that 
 it can survive a total change of the body during 
 life, show likewise the probability that the same 
 being who endowed it with that capacity will 
 suffer it, in like manner, to continue in being after 
 the more sudden change which the body under- 
 goes at death. 
 
 The argument built upon the supposed designs 
 of the Creator requires to be handled in a hum- 
 ble and submissive spirit; but, if so undertaken, 
 there is nothing in it which can be charged with 
 presumption, or deemed inconsistent with perfect 
 though rational devotion. In truth, all the inves- 
 tigations of Natural Theology are equally liable to 
 such a charge ; for to trace the evidences of design 
 in the works of nature, and inquire how far bene- 
 volence presides over their formation and main- 
 tenance in other words, to deduce from what 
 we see, the existence of the Deity, and speculate 
 upon His wisdom and goodness in the creation 
 and government of the universe is just as daring 
 a thing, and exactly of the same kind of audacity,
 
 128 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 as to speculate upon His probable intentions with 
 respect to the future destiny of man. 
 
 The contemplation of the Deity's goodness, as de- 
 ducible from the great preponderance of instances 
 in which benevolent design is exhibited, when 
 accompanied with a consideration of the feelings 
 and wishes of the human mind, gives rise to the 
 first argument which is usually adduced in favour 
 of the Immortality of the Soul. There is nothing 
 more universal or more constant than the strong 
 desire of immortality which possesses the mind, 
 and compared with which its other wishes and 
 solicitudes are but faint and occasional. That a 
 benevolent being should have implanted this pro- 
 pensity without the intention of gratifying it, 
 and to serve no very apparent purpose unless 
 it be the proving that it is without an object, 
 appears difficult to believe : for certainly the in- 
 stinctive fear of death would have served all the 
 purposes of self-preservation without any desire 
 of immortality being connected with it, although 
 there can be no doubt that this desire, or at least 
 the anxiety about our future destiny, is intimately 
 related to our dread of dissolution. But the in- 
 ference acquires additional strength from the
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 129 
 
 consideration that the faculties of the mind ripen 
 and improve almost to the time of the body's 
 extinction, and that the destruction of the soul 
 at the moment of its being fitter than ever for 
 worthy things seems quite inconceivable. 
 
 The tender affections so strongly and so uni- 
 versally operating in our nature afford another 
 argument of a like kind. No doubt the purpose 
 to which they are subservient in this life is much 
 more distinctly perceivable ; yet still it is incon- 
 sistent with the provisions of a benevolent Power 
 to suppose that we should be made susceptible 
 of such vehement feelings, and be suffered to 
 indulge in them,, so as to make our happiness 
 chiefly consist in their gratification, and that then 
 we should suddenly be made to undergo the 
 bitter pangs of separation, while, by our surviving, 
 those pains are lengthened out without any useful 
 effect resulting from our sufferings. That such 
 separations should be eternal appears irreconcil- 
 able with the strength of the affections wounded, 
 and with the goodness so generally perceived in 
 the order of the universe. The supposition of 
 a re-union hereafter overcomes the difficulty, and 
 reconciles the apparent inconsistency. 
 
 o3
 
 130 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 The unequal distribution of rewards and pu- 
 nishments in this world, that is, the misery in 
 which virtue often exists, and the prosperity not 
 seldom attendant upon vice, can in no way be so 
 well accounted for, consistently with the scheme 
 of a benevolent Providence, as by the supposition 
 of a Future State. 
 
 But perhaps there is nothing more strongly 
 indicative of such a design in the Creator than 
 the universal prevalence of religion amongst men. 
 There can hardly be found a tribe so dark and 
 barbarous as to be without some kind of worship, 
 and some belief in a future state of existence. 
 Now all religions are so far of God that he per- 
 mits them ; he made and preserves the faculties 
 which have invented the false ones, as well as 
 those which comprehend and treasure up the 
 true faith. Religious belief, religious observance, 
 the looking forward to a future existence, and 
 pointing to a condition in which the deeds done 
 on earth shall be visited with just recompense, 
 are all facts of universal occurrence in the history 
 and intellectual habits of the species. Are they 
 all a mere fiction ? Do they indeed signify no- 
 thing ? Is that a mere groundless fancy, which
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 131 
 
 in all places, in all ages, occupies and has occu- 
 pied the thoughts, and mingled itself with the 
 actions of all mankind, whether barbarous or 
 refined ?* 
 
 But if it be said that the belief of such a state 
 is subservient to an important use, the restraining 
 the passions and elevating the feelings, it is 
 obvious to reply, that so great a mechanism to 
 produce this effect very imperfectly and precari- 
 ously, appears little consistent with the ordinary 
 efficacy and simplicity of the works of Providence, 
 and that the disposition to shun vice and debase- 
 ment could have been more easily and more cer- 
 tainly implanted by making them disgusting. 
 True, there would then have been little merit in 
 the restraint ; but of what value is the production 
 of such merit, if the mind which attains it and 
 becomes adorned by it has no sooner approached 
 perfection than it ceases to exist at all? The 
 supposition of a Future State at once reconciles 
 all inconsistencies here as before, and enables 
 us to comprehend why virtue is taught by the 
 hopes of another life, as well as why those hopes, 
 
 * Note VIII.
 
 132 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 and the grounds they rest on, form so large a 
 portion of human contemplation. 
 
 That the existence of the soul in a new state 
 after the entire dissolution of the body nay, that 
 the existence of the body itself in a new state, 
 after passing through death, is nothing contrary 
 to the analogies which nature presents, has been 
 oftentimes observed, and is a topic much dwelt 
 upon, especially by the ancient philosophers. 
 The extraordinary transformations which insects 
 undergo have struck men's imaginations so power- 
 fully in contemplating this subject, that the soul 
 itself was deemed of old to be aptly designated 
 under the emblematical form of a butterfly, which 
 having emerged from the chrysalis state, flutters 
 in the air, instead of continuing to crawl on the 
 earth, as it did before the worm it once was ceased 
 to exist. The instance of the foetus of animals, 
 and especially of the human embryo, has occu- 
 pied the attention of modern inquirers into this 
 interesting subject. Marking the entire difference 
 in one state of existence before and after birth, 
 and the diversity of every one animal function at 
 those two periods, philosophers have inferred, that 
 as on passing from the one to the other state of
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 133 
 
 existence so mighty a change is wrought, without 
 any destruction either of soul or body,, a like 
 transition may take place at death, and the event 
 which appears to close our being may only open 
 the portals of a new, and higher, and more lasting 
 condition. As far as such considerations suggest 
 analogies, they furnish matter of pleasing con- 
 templation, perhaps lend even some illustration to 
 the argument. Nevertheless, they must be re- 
 garded as exceedingly feeble helps in this latter 
 respect, if indeed their aid be not of a doubtful, 
 and even dangerous kind. They are all drawn 
 from material objects, all rest upon the pro- 
 perties and the fortunes of corporeal existences. 
 Now the stronghold of those who maintain the 
 Immortality of the Soul, and, indeed, all the doc- 
 trines of Natural Theology, is the entire difference 
 between mind and matter, and the proofs we have 
 constantly around us, and within us, of existences 
 as real as the bodies which affect our outward 
 senses, but resembling those perishable things in 
 no one quality, no one habit of action, no one 
 mode of being. 
 
 Upon the particulars of a future state the 
 kind of existence reserved for the soul the spe-
 
 134 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 cies of its occupations and enjoyments Natural 
 Theology is, of course, profoundly silent ; but not 
 more silent than Revelation. We are left wholly 
 to conjecture, and in a field on which our hope- 
 lessness of attaining any certain result is quite 
 equal to our interest in the success of the search. 
 Indeed, all our ideas of happiness in this world 
 are such as rather to disqualify us for the investi- 
 gation, or what may more fitly be termed the 
 imagination. Those ideas are, for the most part, 
 either directly connected with the senses, or de- 
 rived from our condition of weakness here which 
 occasions the formation of connexions for mutual 
 comfort and support, and gives to the feebler 
 party the feeling of allegiance, to the stronger 
 the pleasure of protection. Yet may we conceive 
 that, hereafter, such of our affections as have been 
 the most cherished in life shall survive and form 
 again the delight of meeting those from whom 
 death has severed us that the soul may enjoy 
 the purest delights in the exercise of its powers, 
 above all, for the investigation of truth that it 
 may expatiate in the full discovery of whatever 
 has hitherto been most sparingly revealed, or 
 most carefully hidden from its view that it may
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 135 
 
 be gratified with the sight of the useful harvest 
 reaped by the world from the good seed which it 
 helped to sow. We can only conjecture or fancy. 
 But these, and such as these, are pleasures in 
 which the gross indulgences of sense have no 
 part, and which are even removed above the less 
 refined of our moral gratifications : they may, 
 therefore, be supposed consistent with a pure and 
 faultless state of spiritual being. 
 
 Perhaps the greatest of all the difficulties which 
 we feel in forming such conjectures, regards the 
 endless duration of an immortal existence. All 
 our ideas in this world are so adapted to a limited 
 continuance of life not only so moulded upon 
 the scheme of a being incapable of lasting beyond 
 a few years, but so inseparably connected with a 
 constant change even here a perpetual termina- 
 tion of one stage of existence and beginning of 
 another that we cannot easily, if at all, fancy an 
 eternal, or even a long-continued, endurance of 
 the same faculties, the same pursuits, and the 
 same enjoyments. All here is in perpetual move- 
 ment ceaseless change. There is nothing in us 
 or about us that abides an hour nay, an instant. 
 Resting-place there is none for the foot no haven
 
 136 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 is provided where the mind may be still. How 
 then shall a creature, thus wholly ignorant of 
 repose unacquainted with any continuation at 
 all in any portion of his existence so far abstract 
 his thoughts from his whole experience as to 
 conceive a long, much more a perpetual, duration 
 of the same powers, pursuits, feelings, pleasures ? 
 Here it is that we are the most lost in our en- 
 deavours to reach the seats of the blessed with 
 our imperfect organs of perception,, and our inve- 
 terate and only habits of thinking.* 
 
 * The part of Dean Swift's satire which relates to the SlulLruys 
 may possibly occur to some readers as bearing upon this topic. That 
 the staunch admirers of that singularly-gifted person should have 
 been flung into ecstacies on the perusal of this extraordinary part 
 of his writings, needs not surprise us. Their raptures were full 
 easily excited ; but I am quite clear they have given a wrong gloss 
 to it, and heaped upon its merits a very undeserved praise. They 
 think that the picture of the Stulbrugs was intended to wean us 
 from a love of life, and that it has well accomplished its purpose. 
 I am very certain that the Dean never had any such thing in 
 view, because his sagacity was far too great not to perceive ihat 
 he only could make out this position by a most undisguised begging 
 of the question. How could any man of the most ordinary re- 
 flection expect to wean his fellow-creatures from Jove of life by 
 describing a sort of persons who at a given age lost their faculties, 
 and became doting, drivelling idiots ? Did any man breathing 
 ever pretend that he wished to live, not only for centuries, but even 
 for threescore years and ten, bereaved of his understanding, and
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 137 
 
 It remains to observe, that all the speculations 
 upon which we have touched under this second 
 subdivision of the subject, the moral argument, 
 are similar to the doctrines of inductive science 
 at least to such of those doctrines as are less 
 perfectly ascertained; but the investigation is 
 conducted upon the same principles. The most 
 satisfactory proofs of the soul's immortality are 
 those of the first, or psychological class, derived 
 from studying the nature of mind ; those of the 
 second class which we have last been surveying, 
 derived from the condition of man in connexion 
 with the attributes of the Deity, are less distinct 
 and cogent ; nor would they be sufficient of 
 themselves ; but they add important confirmation 
 to the others ; and both are as truly parts of 
 legitimate inductive science as any branch we 
 may rather say, any other branch of moral phi- 
 losophy. 
 
 treated by the law and by his fellow men as in hopeless, incurable 
 dotage ? The passage in question is much more likely to have 
 proceeded from Swift's exaggerated misanthropy, and to have 
 been designed as an antidote to human pride, by showing tha, 
 our duration is necessarily limited if, indeed, it is not rather 
 to be regarded as the work of mere whim and caprice.
 
 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 SECTION VI. 
 LORD BACON'S DOCTRINE OF FINAL CAUSES. 
 
 IT now appears, that when we said that Natural 
 Theology can no more be distinguished from 
 the physical, psychological, and ethical sciences, 
 in respect of the evidence it rests upon and 
 the manner in which its investigations are to 
 be conducted, than the different departments of 
 those sciences can be distinguished from each 
 other in the like respect, we were only making 
 an assertion borne out by a close and rigorous 
 examination of the subject. How, then, comes 
 it to pass, it may be asked, that the father of 
 Inductive Philosophy has banished the specula- 
 tion of Final Causes from his system, as if it were 
 no branch of inductive science ? A more atten- 
 tive consideration of the question will show, first, 
 that the sentence which he pronounced has been 
 not a little misunderstood by persons who looked 
 only at particular aphorisms, without duly regard- 
 ing the context and the occasion ; and, secondly,
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 139 
 
 that Lord Bacon may very probably have con- 
 ceived a prejudice against the subject altogether, 
 from the abuses, or indeed perversions, to which a 
 misplaced affection for it had given rise in some 
 of the ancient schools of philosophy. 
 
 That Lord Bacon speaks disparagingly of the in- 
 quiry concerning final causes, both when he handles 
 it didactically, and when he mentions it incident- 
 ally, is admitted. He enumerates it among the 
 errors that spring from the restlessness of mind 
 (impotentia mentis), which forms the fourth class 
 of the idols of the species (idola tribus} or causes of 
 false philosophy connected with the peculiarities 
 of the human constitution.* In other parts of the 
 same work he descants upon the mischiefs which 
 have arisen in the schools from mixing the doc- 
 trines of natural religion with those of natural 
 philosophy ; f and he more than once treats of the 
 inquiry concerning final causes as a barren specu- 
 lation, comparing it to a nun or a vestal conse- 
 crated to heaven. J But a nearer examination 
 
 * Nov. Org. lib. i. Aph. 48. 
 f Ib. Aph. 96 ; and De Dig. et Aug. lib. i. 
 | " Sterilis et tanquam virgo deo sacra non parit." c. 5. De 
 Dig. lib. iii.
 
 140 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 of this great authority will show that it is not 
 adverse to our doctrine. 
 
 1. First of all it is to be remarked, that Lord 
 Bacon does not disapprove of the speculation con- 
 cerning final causes absolutely, and does not un- 
 dervalue the doctrines of Natural Religion, so long 
 as that speculation and those doctrines are kept in 
 their proper place. His whole writings bear testi- 
 mony to the truth of this proposition. In the Pa- 
 rasceve to natural and experimental history, which 
 closes the Novum Organum, he calls the history of 
 the phenomena of nature a volume of the work of 
 God, and as it were another Bible " volumen ope- 
 rum Dei, et tanquam altera scriptura."* In the first 
 book of the De Dignitate, he says there arc two 
 books of religion to be consulted the scriptures, 
 to tell the will of God, and the book of creation, 
 to show his power.-f- Accordingly he maintains 
 elsewhere,;}; that a miracle was never yet per- 
 formed to convert atheists, because these might 
 always arrive at the knowledge of a Deity by the 
 light of nature. Nor ought we to pass over the 
 remarkable passage of the Cogitata et Visa, in 
 which he propounds the use of Natural Philo- 
 
 * Parasceve. c. 9. f Lib. i. J Ib. lib. iii. c. 13.
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 141 
 
 sophy as the cure for superstition and the support 
 of true religion. " Naturalem Philosophiam, post 
 verbum Dei, certissimam superstitionis medici- 
 nam, eandem probatissimam fidei alimentum esse. 
 Itaque merito religioni tanquam fidatissimam et 
 acceptissimam ancillam attribui, cum altera vo- 
 luntatem Dei, altera potestatem manifested" * 
 If the earlier part of the passage left any doubt 
 of the kind of service which religion was to derive 
 from inductive science, the last words clearly show 
 that it could only be by the doctrine of final 
 causes. 
 
 2. But further, he distinctly classes natural re- 
 ligion among the branches of legitimate science ; 
 and it is of great and decisive importance to our 
 present inquiry that we should mark the particu- 
 lar place which he assigns to it. He first divides 
 science into two great branches, Theology and 
 Philosophy comprehending under the former 
 description only the doctrines of revelation, and 
 under the latter all human science. Now, after 
 expressly excluding Natural Religion f from the 
 first class, he treats it as a part of the second. 
 
 * Francisci Baconi, Cogitata et Visa, 
 f De Dig. lib. iii. c. I.
 
 142 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 The second, or philosophy, is divided into three 
 parts, according as its object is the Deity, Nature, 
 or Man. The first of these subdivisions constitutes 
 Natural Religion, which he says may be termed 
 Divine knowledge, if you regard its object, but 
 Natural knowledge, if you consider its nature and 
 evidence (" ratione informationis scientia natu- 
 ralis censeri potest."*) That he places it in a 
 different subdivision from Natural Philosophy 
 proves nothing ; for he classes anatomy, medicine, 
 and intellectual philosophy also in a different 
 subdivision : they come under the head of Human 
 Philosophy, or the science of man, as contradistin- 
 guished from Natural Theology and Natural Phi- 
 losophy, or the science of God and of external 
 objects. Many objections may undoubtedly be 
 made to this classification, of which it is perhaps 
 enough to say, that it leads to separating optics 
 as well as anatomy and medicinef from natural 
 philosophy. But, at all events, it shows both that 
 Lord Bacon deemed Natural Theology a fit object 
 of philosophical inquiry, and that he regarded the 
 
 * De Dig. lib. iii. c. 2. 
 
 f Ib. lib. iv. c. 3. He treats of the desiderata in optics, under 
 the head of the human mind the senses.
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 143 
 
 inductive method as furnishing the means by 
 which the inquiry was to be conducted. 
 
 3. The general censure upon the doctrine of 
 final causes to which we have in the outset ad- 
 verted, as conveyed by certain incidental remarks, 
 is manifestly directed against the abuse of such 
 speculations, and more especially in the ancient 
 schools of philosophy. Lord Bacon justly objects 
 to the confounding of final with efficient or physi- 
 cal causes ; he marks the loose and figurative lan- 
 guage to which this confusion has given rise ; he 
 asks if it is philosophical to describe the eye as 
 Aristotle, Galen, and others do, with the eyelids 
 and eyelashes as a wall and a hedge to protect it ; 
 or the bones as so many beams and pillars to 
 support the body;* and he is naturally appre- 
 hensive of the danger which may result from men 
 introducing fancies of their own into science, and, 
 above all, from their setting out with such fancies, 
 and then making the facts bend to humour them. 
 This is indeed the great abuse of the doctrine of 
 final causes ; and the more to be dreaded in its 
 consequences, because of the religious feelings 
 
 * De Dig. lib. iii. c. 4.
 
 144 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 which are apt to mix themselves with such specu- 
 lations, and to consecrate error.* 
 
 4. The objections of Lord Bacon are the more 
 clearly shown to be levelled against the abuse 
 only, that we find him speaking in nearly similar 
 terms of logic and the mathematics as having 
 impeded the progress of natural science. In the 
 passage already referred to, and which occurs 
 twice in his books, where the Platonists are 
 accused of mixing Natural Religion with philo- 
 sophy, the latter Platonists (or Eclectics) are in 
 the same words charged with corrupting it by the 
 mathematics, and the Peripatetics by logic. f Not 
 certainly that the greatest logician of modern 
 times could undervalue either his own art or the 
 skill of the analyst, but because Aristotle through 
 dialectic, and Proclus through geometrical pe- 
 
 * This idea is expressed by Bacon, with his wonted felicity, in 
 the 75th Aphorism. " Pessimaenim res esterrorum apotheosis; et 
 pro peste intellectus hubenda est, si vanis accedat veneratio." (Nov. 
 Org. lib. i.) He gives an instance of this folly in the perverted 
 use made of some portions of the Bible history "Hincvanitat 
 nonnulH ex modernis summa levitate ita indulserunt, ut in primo 
 cupitulo Geneseos et in libro Job et aliis scripturis sacris, Philoso- 
 phiam Naturalem fundare conati sint ; inter viva quterentea mortua." 
 
 t Nov. Org. lib. i. Aph. 96 ; De Dig. lib. i.
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 145 
 
 dantry, neglected that humbler but more useful 
 province of watching and interpreting nature, and 
 used the instruments furnished by logic and the 
 mathematics, not to assist them in classifying facts, 
 or in reasoning from them, but to construct phan- 
 tastic theories, to which they made the facts bend. 
 When rightly examined, then, the authority of 
 Lord Bacon appears not to oppose the doctrine 
 which we are seeking to illustrate. Yet it is 
 possible that a strong impression of the evils 
 occasioned by the abuse of these speculations 
 may have given him a less favourable opinion of 
 them than they deserved. It appears that he 
 had even conceived some prejudice against 
 logic and the mathematics from a similar 
 cause ; and he manifests it, not only in the pas- 
 sages already referred to, but in that portion of 
 his treatise De Dig. et Aug., in which he treats of 
 mathematical as an appendix to physical science, 
 expressing much hesitation whether to rank it as 
 a science, and delivering himself Avith some aspe- 
 rity against both logicians and mathematicians.* 
 
 * De Dig. lib. iii. c. 6. Delicias ct fastum mathematicorum, 
 qui hanc scientiam physicse fieri imperare cupiunt. Nescio euim 
 quo fato fiat ut mathematica et logica quae ancillarum loca erga 
 
 H
 
 146 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 High as is the authority of this great man and 
 upon the subject of the present inquiry the 
 highest of all yet, if it clearly appears that the 
 argument from Final Causes comes within the 
 scope of inductive science, we are bound to admit 
 it within the circle of legitimate human know- 
 ledge, even if we found the father of that science 
 had otherwise judged. It is clear that, had he 
 now lived, he would himself have rejected some 
 speculations as wholly beyond the reach of the 
 human faculties, which he unhesitatingly ranges 
 among the objects of sound philosophy.* It is 
 equally undeniable that he would have treated 
 others with greater respect than he has shewn 
 them.f Above all, it is certain that he would 
 
 physicatn se gerere debebant, nihilominus, certitudinem prae se 
 jactantes, dominationem exercere petunt." 
 
 * He distinctly considers the "doctrine of angels and spirits" as 
 an " appendix to Natural Theology," and holds that their nature 
 may be investigated by science, including that of unclean spirits 
 or daemons, which he says hold in this inquiry the same place as 
 poisons do in physics, or vices in ethics. (De Dig. lib. iii. c. 2.) 
 Natural magic, the doctrine of fascination, the discovery of futurity 
 from dreams and ecstacies, especially in bad health from death- 
 bed glimpses in a word, divination he holds to be branches of 
 science deserving of cultivation ; though he warns against sorcery, 
 or the practice of witchcraft. (Ib. lib. iv. c. 3, and lib. ii. c. 2.) 
 
 f He complains of treatises of Natural History being "swelled
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 147 
 
 never have suffered that the veneration due to 
 his own name should enshrine an idol* to ob- 
 struct the progress of truth, and alienate her 
 votaries from the true worship which he himself 
 had founded. 
 
 That Lord Bacon has not himself indulged in 
 any speculations akin to those of Natural Theo- 
 logy is, beyond all dispute, true. There is hardly 
 any writer upon moral or natural science, in 
 whose works fewer references can be found to the 
 power or wisdom of a superintending Providence. 
 It would be difficult to find in any other author, 
 ancient or modern, as much of very miscellaneous 
 matter upon almost all physical subjects as he has 
 brought together in the Sylva Sylvarum, without 
 one allusion to Final Causes. But it must also be 
 admitted, that it would not be easy to find in any 
 other writer of the least name upon physical sub- 
 jects so little of value, and so much that is wholly 
 unworthy of respect. That work is, indeed, a 
 striking instance of the inequalities of the human 
 
 with figures of animals and plants, and other superfluous matter,, 
 instead of being enriched with solid observations." (De Dig, lib, 
 ii. c. 3.) 
 
 * Idolum theatri. 
 
 H2
 
 148 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 faculties. Among the one thousand observa- 
 tions of which it consists, hardly one of the two 
 hundred and eighteen pages certainly not one 
 can be found in which there is not some instance 
 of credulity, superstition, groundless hypothesis, 
 manifest error of some kind or other ; and nothing 
 at any time given to the world ever exhibited a 
 more entire disregard of all his own rules of phi- 
 losophizing : for a superficial examination of facts, 
 a hasty induction, and a proneness to fanciful 
 theory, form the distinguishing characters of the 
 whole book. Assuredly it is a proof that the 
 doctrine of Final Causes is not the only parent of 
 a "phantastic philosophy," though the other base 
 undergrowth of "heretical religion" * may not be 
 found in the recesses of the Sylva. 
 
 Descartes, whose original genius for the ab- 
 stract sciences fixed an sera in the history of pure 
 
 * This striking and epigrammatic antithesis occurs more than 
 once in his writings. Thus, in the Nov. Org. lib. i. aph. 63 '' Ex 
 divinorum et humanorum malesana admixtione, non solum edu- 
 citur philosophia phantastica, sed etiam Religio haeretica;" and 
 again, in De Dig. and Aug. lib. iii. c. 2, speaking of the abuse of 
 speculations touching natural religion, he remarks on the "incom- 
 rnoda et pericula qua> ex eo (abusu) turn religioni, turn philoso- 
 phise impendent, utpote cjui religionem hsereticam procudit et 
 philosophiam phantasticam et superstitiosam."
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 149 
 
 mathematics, as remarkable as Bacon's genius did 
 in that of logic, like him failed egregiously as a 
 cultivator of natural philosophy ; and he excluded 
 Final Causes altogether from his system as a pre- 
 posterous speculation an irreverent attempt to 
 penetrate mysteries hidden from human eyes by 
 the imperfection of our nature. But it is to be 
 observed, that all the successful cultivators of 
 physical science have, as if under the influence of 
 an irresistible impulsion, indulged in the sublime 
 contemplations of Natural Religion. Nor have 
 they fallen into this track from feeling and senti- 
 ment ; they have pursued it as one of the paths 
 which inductive philosophy opens to the student 
 of nature. To say nothing of Mr. Boyle, one of 
 the earliest cultivators of experimental philo- 
 sophy, whose works are throughout imbued with 
 this spirit, and who has left a treatise expressly 
 on the subject of Final Causes, let us listen to the 
 words of Sir Isaac Newton himself. The greatest 
 work of man, the Principia, closes with a swift 
 transition from its most difficult investigation, the 
 determination and correction of a comet's tra- 
 jectory upon the parabolic hypothesis,* to that 
 
 * Principia, lib. iii. Prop. xli. and xlii.
 
 150 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 /celebrated scholium, upon which Dr. Clarke's 
 argument a priori for the existence of a Deity is 
 built. But whatever may be deemed the sound- 
 ness of that argument, or the intrinsic value of 
 the eloquent and sublime passages which lay its 
 foundation, its illustrious author at the same time 
 points our attention to the demonstration from 
 induction, and in the most distinct and positive 
 terms sanctions the doctrine, that this is a legi- 
 timate branch of natural knowledge. " Hunc 
 (Deum) cognoscimus per proprietates ejus et at- 
 tributa et per sapientissimas et optimas rcrum 
 structuras et causas finales, et admiramur ob pro- 
 spectiones." " Deus sine dominio, providentia, 
 et causis finalibus, nihil alind est quam fatum et 
 natura." "Et hsec de Deo de quo utique ex 
 phaenomenis disserere ad philosophiam naturalem 
 pertinet.' ' (Scholium Generate.) 
 , And if he could not rest from his immortal 
 labours in setting forth the system of the Uni- 
 verse, without raising his mind to the contem- 
 plation of Him who "weighed the mountains in 
 scales and the hills in a balance," so neither could 
 he pursue the more minute operations of the 
 most subtile material agent, without again
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 151 
 
 rising towards Him who said " Let there be 
 light." The most exquisite investigation ever 
 conducted by man of the laws of nature by the 
 means of experiment abounds in its latter portion, 
 with explicit references to the doctrines of Natu- 
 ral Theology, and with admissions that the busi- 
 ness of physical science is " to deduce causes from 
 effects till we come to the very First Cause," and 
 that " every true step made in inductive philoso- 
 phy is to be highly valued, because it brings us 
 nearer to the First Cause." * 
 
 * Optics, Book iii. Query 28. " How came the bodies of ani- 
 mals to be contrived with so much art, and for what ends were the 
 several parts ? Was the eye contrived without skill in optics, and 
 the ear without knowledge of sound:"' (See, too, Query 31.)
 
 152 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 SECTION VII. 
 
 OF SCIENTIFIC ARRANGEMENT, AND THE METHODS 
 OF ANALYSIS AND SYNTHESIS. 
 
 HAVING shown that Natural Theology is a branch 
 of inductive science partly physical, partly intel- 
 lectual and moral it is of comparatively little im- 
 portance to inquire whether or not it can be kept 
 apart from the other branches of those sciences. 
 In one view of this question we may say, that 
 there is no more ground for the separation than 
 there would be for making a distinct science of 
 all the propositions in Natural Philosophy which 
 immediately relate to the human body whereby 
 we should have portions of dynamics, pneumatics, 
 optics, chemistry, electricity, and all human ana- 
 tomy and pathology as contradistinguished from 
 comparative, reduced under one and the same 
 head a classification, indeed, resembling Lord 
 Bacon's. But in another, and, as it seems, the 
 more just view, there is a sufficient number of 
 resemblances and differences, and the importance
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 153 
 
 of the subject is sufficient, to justify the making 
 a separate head of Natural Theology. The ques- 
 tion is entirely one of convenience ; nothing of 
 essential moment turns upon the classification; 
 and there is obviously an advantage in having 
 the truths collected in one body, though they 
 are culled from the various parts of Physical 
 and Metaphysical science to which they naturally 
 belong. All that is needful is, constantly to keep 
 in mind the identity of the evidence on which 
 these truths rest, with that which is the ground- 
 work of those other parts of philosophy. 
 
 Although, however, convenience and the para- 
 mount importance of the subject seem to require 
 such a separation, it is manifest that much of 
 theology must still be found intermingled with 
 physics and psychology, and there only ; for the 
 truths of Natural Theology being sufficiently de- 
 monstrated by a certain induction of facts a 
 certain number of experiments and observations 
 no further proof is required ; and to assemble- 
 all the evidence, if it were possible, would be only 
 incumbering the subject with superfluous proofs, 
 while the collection would still remain incomplete, 
 as every day is adding to the instances discovered 
 
 H3
 
 154 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 of design appearing in the phenomena of the na- 
 tural and moral world. It has been said, indeed, 
 that a single well-established proof of design is 
 enough, and that no additional strength is gained 
 to the argument by multiplying the instances. 
 We shall afterwards show with what limitations 
 this proposition is to be received; but for our 
 present purpose it is sufficient, that, at all events, 
 a certain definite number of instances arc of force 
 enough to work out the demonstration ; and yet 
 in every branch of physics and psychology new 
 instances are presented at each step we make. 
 These instances are of great importance; they 
 are to be carefully noted and treasured up ; they 
 form most valuable parts of those scientific in- 
 quiries, conveying, in its purest form and in its 
 highest degree, the gratification of contemplating 
 abstract truths, in which consists the whole of the 
 pleasure derived from science, properly so called 
 that is, from science as such, and as independent 
 of its application to uses or enjoyments of a cor- 
 poreal kind. 
 
 An apprehension has frequently been enter- 
 tained by learned and pious men men of a truly 
 philosophical spirit lest the natural desire of
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 155 
 
 tracing design in the works of nature should 
 carry inquirers too far, and lead them to give 
 scope to their imagination rather than contain 
 their speculations within the bounds of strict rea- 
 soning. They have dreaded the introduction of 
 what Lord Bacon calls a "phantastic philosophy," 
 and have also felt alarm at the injuries which reli- 
 gion may receive from being exposed to ridicule, 
 in the event of the speculations proving ground- 
 less upon a closer examination. But it does not 
 appear reasonable that philosophers should be 
 deterred by such considerations from anxiously in- 
 vestigating the. subject of Final Causes, and giving 
 it the place which belongs to it in all their in- 
 quiries ; provided that they do not suffer fancy to 
 intermix with and disturb their speculations. If 
 they do, they commit the greatest error of which 
 reasoners can be guilty an error against which 
 it is the very object of inductive philosophy to 
 guard ; but it is no more an error in this, than in 
 the other investigations of science. He who ima- 
 gines design where there is none ; he who either 
 assumes facts in order to build upon them an 
 inference favourable to Natural Religion, or from 
 admitted facts draws such an inference fancifully,
 
 156 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 and not logically, comes within the description of 
 a false philosopher : he prefers the hypothetical 
 to the inductive method ; he cannot say with his 
 master, "hypotheses non finyo;"* he renounces 
 the modern, and recurs to the exploded modes of 
 philosophising. But he is not the more a false 
 philosopher, and does not the more sin against 
 the light of improved science, for committing the 
 offence in the pursuit of theological truth. He 
 would have been liable to the same charge if he 
 had resorted to his fancy instead of observation 
 and experiment while in search of any other scien- 
 tific truth, or had hypothetically assumed a prin- 
 ciple of classifying admitted phenomena, instead 
 of rigorously deducing it from examining their 
 circumstances of resemblance and of diversity. 
 
 That any serious discredit can be brought upon 
 the science of Natural Theology itself, from the 
 failures to which such hypothetical reasonings 
 may lead, seems not very easy to conceive. Vain 
 and superficial minds may take any subject for 
 their ridicule, and may laugh at the mechanician 
 and the chemist as well as the theologian, when 
 they chance to go astray in their searches after 
 
 * Principia, lib. iii. Sch. Gen.
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 157 
 
 truth. Yet no one ever thought of being discou- 
 raged from experimental inquiries, because even 
 the strictest prosecution of the inductive method 
 cannot always guard against error. It is of the 
 essence of all investigations of merely contingent 
 truth, that they are exposed to casualties which do 
 not beset the paths of the geometrician and the 
 analyst. A conclusion from one induction of facts 
 may be well warranted until a larger induction 
 obliges us to abandon it, and adopt another. Yet 
 no one deems chemistry discredited because a 
 body considered in one state of our knowledge 
 to be a compound acid has since appeared rather 
 to be a simple substance, bearing to the acids no 
 resemblance in its composition; nor would the 
 optical discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton be discre- 
 dited, much less the science he cultivated be 
 degraded, if the undulatory hypothesis should, 
 on a fuller inquiry, become established by strict 
 proof. Yet such errors, or rather such imperfect 
 and partial views, were the result of a strict obe- 
 dience to the inductive rules of philosophising. 
 How much less ground for cavil against either 
 those rules, or the sciences to which they are ap- 
 plicable, would be afforded by the observations of
 
 158 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 those who had mistaken their way through a 
 neglect of inductive principle, and by following 
 blindly false guides ! 
 
 While then, on the one hand, we allow Natural 
 Theology to form a distinct head or branch, the 
 other sciences must of necessity continue to class 
 its truths among their own ; and thus every science 
 may be stated to consist of three divisions 1. The 
 truths which it teaches relative to the constitution 
 and action of matter or of mind ; 2. The truths 
 which it teaches relative to theology ; and 3. The 
 application of both classes of truths to practical 
 uses, physical or moral. Thus, the science of 
 pneumatics teaches, under \hefirst head, the doc- 
 trine of the pressure of the atmosphere, and its 
 connexion with respiration, and with the suspen- 
 sion of weights by the formation of a vacuum. 
 Under the second head, it shows the adaptation of 
 the lungs of certain animals to breathe the air, 
 and the feet of others to support their bodies, in 
 consequence of both being framed in accordance 
 with the former doctrine that is, with the law of 
 pressure and thus demonstrates a wise and bene- 
 ficent design. Under the third head, it teaches the 
 construction of barometers, steam-engines, &c.,
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 159 
 
 while the contemplation of the Divine wisdom 
 and goodness inculcates piety, patience, and 
 hope. 
 
 But it may be said, that in this classification of 
 the objects of science, we omit one ordinarily 
 reckoned essential the explanation of pheno- 
 mena. The answer is, that such a classification 
 is not strictly accurate, as no definite line can be 
 drawn between the explanation of phenomena 
 and the analytical process by which the truths 
 themselves are established: in a word, between 
 analysis and synthesis in the sciences of contingent 
 truth. For the same phenomena which form the 
 materials of the analytical investigation the steps 
 that lead us to the proposition or discovery 
 would, in a reversed order, become the subjects of 
 the synthetical operation ; that is, the things to 
 be explained by means of the proposition or dis- 
 covery, if we had been led to it by another route, 
 in other words, if we had reached it by means of 
 other phenomena of the like kind, referrible to the 
 same class, and falling within the same principle 
 or rule. Thus the experiments upon the pris- 
 matic spectrum prove the sun's .light to be com- 
 posed of rays of different refrangibility. This
 
 160 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 being demonstrated, we may explain by means of 
 it the phenomena which form the proofs of the first 
 proposition of the " Optics, " that lights which 
 differ in colour differ in refrangibility as that a 
 parallelogram of two colours refracted through a 
 prism has its sides no longer parallel ; or, having 
 shown the different refrangibility by the prismatic 
 phenomena, we may explain why a lens has the 
 focus of violet rays nearer than the focus of red, 
 while this experiment is of itself one of the most 
 cogent proofs of the different refrangibility. It is 
 plain that, in these cases, the same phenomenon 
 may be made indiscriminately the subject matter 
 either of analysis or synthesis. So, one of the 
 proofs given of latent heat is, that after you heat 
 a bar of iron once or twice by hammering it, the 
 power of being thus heated is exhausted, until by 
 exposing it to the fire that power is restored. Yet, 
 suppose we had proved the doctrine of the absorp- 
 tion of heat by other experiments as by the 
 effects on the thermometer of liquids of different 
 temperatures mixed together the phenomenon 
 of the iron bar would be explicable by that doc- 
 trine thus learnt. Again, another proof of the 
 same truth is the production of heat by the sudden
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 161 
 
 condensation of gaseous fluids, and of cold by 
 evaporation, the evolution of heat being inferred 
 from the former, and its absorption from the latter 
 operation. But if the experiments upon the mix- 
 ture of fluids of different temperatures, and other 
 facts, had sufficiently proved the disappearance of 
 heat in its sensible form, and its being held in a 
 state in which it dJ9. not affect the thermometer, 
 we should by means of that doctrine have been 
 able to account for the refrigerating effect of eva- 
 poration, and the heating power of condensation. 
 
 It cannot, then, be a real and an accurate dis- 
 tinction, or one founded on the nature of the 
 tiling, which depends on the accident of the one 
 set of facts having been chosen for the instru- 
 ments of the analytical, and the other set for the 
 subjects of the synthetical operation, each set 
 being alike applicable to cither use. For, in order 
 that the synthesis may be correct, nay, in order 
 that it may be strict and not hypothetical, it is ob- 
 viously necessary that the phenomena should be 
 of such a description as might have made them 
 subservient to the analysis. In truth, both the 
 operations are essentially the same the general- 
 ization of particulars the arranging or classifying
 
 162 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 facts so as to obtain a more general or compre- 
 hensive fact ; and the explanation of phenomena 
 is just as much a process of generalization or 
 classification as the investigation of the proposi- 
 tion itself, by means of which you are to give the 
 explanation. We do not perform two operations, 
 but one,, in these investigations. We do not in 
 reality first find by the prism* that light is dif- 
 ferently refrangible, and then explain the rain- 
 bow or show by the air-pump that the atmos- 
 phere presses with the weight of so many pounds 
 upon a square foot, and then explain the steam- 
 engine and the fly's foot or prove, by burning 
 the two weighed gases together and burning iron 
 in one of them, that water is composed of them 
 both, and that rust is the metal combined with 
 one, and then explain why iron rusts in water. 
 But we observe all these several facts, and find 
 that they are related to each other, and resolvable 
 into three classes that the phenomena of the 
 prism and of the shower are the same, the spec- 
 trum and the rainbow being varieties of the same 
 fact, more general than either, and comprehending 
 many others, all reducible within its compass 
 that the air-pump, the steam-engine, the fly's foot,
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 163 
 
 are all the same fact, and come within a descrip-' 
 tion still more general and compendious that 
 the rusting of iron, the burning of inflammable 
 air, and the partial consumption of the blood in 
 the lungs, are likewise the same fact in different 
 shapes, and resolvable into a fact much more com- 
 prehensive. 
 
 If, then, the distinction of investigation and 
 explanation, or the analytical and synthetical 
 process, is to be retained, it can only be nominal ; 
 and it is productive of but little if any conve- 
 nience. On the contrary, it is calculated to in- 
 troduce inaccurate habits of philosophising, and 
 holds out a temptation to hypothetical reasoning. 
 Having obtained a general laAv, or theory, we are 
 prone to apply it where no induction shows that 
 it is applicable ; and perceiving that it would 
 account for the observed phenomena, if certain 
 things existed, we are apt to assume their exist- 
 ence, that we may apply our explanation. Thus 
 we know that if the walrus's foot, or the fly's, make 
 a vacuum, the pressure of the air will support the 
 animal's weight, and hence we assume that the 
 vacuum is made. Yet it is clear that we have no 
 right whatever to do so ; and that the strict rules
 
 164 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 of induction require us to prove the vacuum before 
 we can arrange this fact in the same class with 
 the other instances of atmospheric pressure. But 
 when we have proved it by observation, it will be 
 said we have gained nothing by our general doc- 
 trine. True ; but all that the science entitles us 
 to do is, not to draw facts we are half acquainted 
 with under the arbitrary sway of our rule, but to 
 examine each fact in all its parts, and bring it 
 legitimately within the rule by means of its ascer- 
 tained resemblances that is, classify it with those 
 others to which it bears the common relation. 
 Induction gives us the right to expect that the 
 same result will always happen from the same 
 action operating in like circumstances ; but it is of 
 the essence of this inference that the similarity be 
 first shown. 
 
 It may be worth while to illustrate this further, 
 as it is an error very generally prevailing, and 
 leads to an exceedingly careless kind of inquiry. 
 The fundamental rule of inductive science is, that 
 no hypothesis shall be admitted that nothing 
 shall be assumed merely because, if true, it would 
 explain the facts. Thus the magnetic theory of 
 ^Epinus is admitted by all to be admirably con-
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 165 
 
 sistent with itself, and to explain all the pheno- 
 mena that is, to tally exactly with the facts 
 observed. But there is no proof at all of the 
 accumulation of electrical or magnetic fluid at the 
 one pole, and other fundamental positions ; on 
 the contrary the facts arc rather against them : 
 therefore, the theory is purely gratuitous ; and 
 although it would be difficult to find any other, 
 on any subject, more beautiful in itself, or more 
 consistent with all the phenomena, it is universally 
 rejected as a mere hypothesis, of no use or value 
 in scientific research. The inductive method con- 
 sists in only admitting those things which the 
 facts prove to be true, and excludes the supposing 
 things merely because they square with the facts. 
 Whoever makes such suppositions upon observing 
 a certain number of facts, and then varies those 
 suppositions when new facts come to his know- 
 ledge, so as to make the theory tally with the 
 observation whoever thus goes on touching and 
 retouching his theory each time a new fact is 
 observed which does not fall within the original 
 proposition, is a mere framer of hypotheses, not 
 an inductive inquirer a fancier, and not a philo- 
 sopher.
 
 166 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 Now., this being the undoubted rule, does not the 
 course of those fall exactly within it, who, having 
 upon a certain class of phenomena, built a conclu- 
 sion legitimately and by strict induction, employ 
 that conclusion to explain other phenomena, which 
 they have not previously shown to fall within the 
 same description ? Take the example of the 
 Torricellian vacuum. Having by that experiment 
 proved the weight of the atmosphere, we have a 
 right to conclude that a tube filled with water 
 forty feet high would have a vacuum in the upper- 
 most seven feet because we know the relative 
 specific gravities of water and mercury, and might 
 predict from thence that the lighter fluid would 
 stand at the height of thirty-three feet ; and this 
 conclusion we have" a right to draw, without any 
 experiments to ascertain the existence of a vacuum 
 in the upper part of the tube. But we should 
 have no right whatever to draw this conclusion, 
 without ascertaining the specific gravities of the 
 two fluids : for if we did, it would be assuming 
 that the two facts belonged to the same class. So 
 respecting the power of the walrus or the fly to 
 walk up a vertical plane. We know the effects 
 of exhausting the air between any two bodies.,
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 167 
 
 and leaving the external atmosphere to press 
 against them : they will cohere. But if from 
 thence we explain the support given to the wal- 
 rus or the fly without examining their feet, and 
 ascertaining that they do exhaust or press out the 
 air if, in short, we assume the existence of a 
 vacuum under their feet, merely because were 
 there a vacuum the pressure of the air would pro- 
 duce the cohesion, and thus account for the phe- 
 nomena we really only propound a hypothesis. 
 We suppose certain circumstances to exist, in 
 order to classify the fact with other facts actually 
 observed, and the existence of which circumstances 
 is necessary, in order that the phenomena may be 
 reducible under the same head. 
 
 There is no reason whatever for asserting that 
 this view of the subject restricts the use of induc- 
 tion by requiring too close and constant a refer- 
 ence to actual observation. The inductive prin- 
 ciple is this that from observing a number of 
 particular facts, we reason to others of the same 
 kind that from observing a certain thing to hap- 
 pen in certain circumstances, we expect the same 
 thing to happen in the like circumstances. This 
 is to generalize ; but then this assumes that we
 
 168 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 first show the identity of the facts, by proving the 
 similarity of the circumstances. If not, we sup- 
 pose or fancy, and do not reason or generalize. 
 The tendency of the doctrine that a proposition 
 being demonstrated by one set of facts, may be 
 used to explain another set, has the effect of 
 making us suppose or assume the identity or 
 resemblance which ought to be proved. The 
 true principle is, that induction is the general- 
 izing or classifying of facts by observed resem- 
 blances and diversities. 
 
 Nothing here stated has any tendency to 
 shackle our experimental inquiries by too rigidly 
 narrowing the proof. Thus, although we are not 
 allowed to suppose any thing merely because, if 
 it existed, other things would' be explained ; yet, 
 when no other supposition will account for the 
 appearances, the hypothesis is no longer gratui- 
 tous ; and it constantly happens, that an inference 
 drawn from an imperfect induction, and which 
 would be, on that state of the facts, unauthorized 
 because equivocal and not the only supposition 
 on which the facts could be explained, becomes 
 legitimate on a further induction, whereby we 
 show that, though the facts first observed might
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 169 
 
 be explained by some other supposition, yet those 
 facts newly observed could to no other supposi- 
 tion be reconciled. Thus, the analytical experi- 
 ment on the constitution of water, by passing 
 steam over red hot iron, is not conclusive, be- 
 cause, although it tallies well with the position 
 that water consists of oxygen and hydrogen, yet 
 it would also tally with another supposition, that 
 those gases were produced in the process and 
 not merely separated from each other; so that 
 neither oxygen nor hydrogen existed in the water 
 any more than acid and water exist in coal and 
 wood, but only their elements, and that, like the 
 acid and water, the products of the destructive 
 distillation of those vegetable substances, the 
 oxygen and hydrogen, were compounded, and 
 in fact produced by the process. But when, 
 besides the analytical, we have the synthetical ex- 
 periments of Mr. Cavendish and Dr. Priestley* 
 
 * Dr. Priestley drew no conclusion of the least value from his 
 experiments. But Mr. Watt, after thoroughly weighing them, by 
 careful comparison with other facts, arrived at the opinion that 
 they proved the composition of water. This may justly be said to 
 have been the discovery of that great truth in chemical science. I 
 have examined the evidence, and am convinced that he was the 
 first discoverer, in point of time, although it is very possible that 
 
 I
 
 170 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 when we find that by burning the two gases in 
 a close vessel, they disappear, and leave a weight 
 of water equal to their united weights we have 
 a fact not reconcilable to any other supposition, 
 except that of the composition of this fluid. It is 
 as when, in solving a problem, we fix upon a 
 point in one line, curved or straight, because it 
 answers one of the conditions it may be the 
 right point, or it may not, for all the other points 
 of the line equally answer that condition ; but 
 when we also show that the remaining conditions 
 require the point to be in another line, and that 
 this other intersects the former in the very point 
 we had assumed, then no doubt can exist, and 
 the point is evidently the one required, none other 
 fulfilling all the conditions. 
 
 We have used the words analytical and synthe- 
 tical as applicable to the experiments of resolu- 
 tion and composition; and in this sense these 
 terms are strictly correct in reference to inductive 
 operations. But the use of the terms analysis 
 and synthesis as applicable to the processes of 
 
 Mr. Cavendish may have arrived at the same truth from his own 
 experiments, without any knowledge of Mr. Watt's earlier process 
 of reasoning.
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 171 
 
 induction the former being the investigation of 
 truths by experiment or observation, and the 
 latter the explaining other facts by means of the 
 truths so ascertained is by no means so correct, 
 and rests upon an extremely fallacious analogy, 
 if there be indeed any analogy, for identity, or 
 even resemblance, there is none. The terms are 
 borrowed from mathematical science, where they 
 denote the two kinds of investigation employed 
 in solving problems and investigating theorems. 
 When, in order to solve a problem, we suppose a 
 thing done which we know not how to do, \v6 
 reason upon the assumption that the prescribed 
 conditions have been complied with, and proceed 
 till we find something which we already possess 
 the means of doing. This gives us the construc- 
 tion; and the synthetical demonstration consists 
 in merely retracing the steps of the analysis. And 
 so of a theorem : we assume it to be true, and 
 reasoning on that assumption, we are led to some- 
 thing which we know from other sources to be true, 
 the synthesis being the same operation reversed. 
 The two operations consist here, of manifest ne- 
 cessity, of the very same steps the one being the 
 steps of the other taken in the reverse order. In 
 
 12
 
 172 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 Physics, to make the operations similar to these, 
 the same facts should be the ground or compo- 
 nent parts of both. In analysis, we should ascend 
 not only from particulars to generals, but from 
 the same particulars, and then the synthesis would 
 be a descent through the same steps to the parti- 
 cular phenomena from the general fact. But it 
 is a spurious synthesis, unlike the mathematical, 
 and not warranted by induction, to prove the pro- 
 position by one set of facts, and by that proposi- 
 tion to explain that is, classify another set, 
 without examining it by itself. If we do examine 
 it by itself, and find that it is such as the proposi- 
 tion applies to, then also is it such as might prove 
 the proposition ; and the synthesis is here, as in 
 the case of the mathematical investigation, the 
 analysis reversed. As far as any resemblance or 
 analogy goes, there is even a greater affinity be- 
 tween the inductive analysis and the geometrical 
 synthesis, than between those operations which 
 go by the same name ; and I hardly know any- 
 thing in experimental investigation resembling 
 the mathematical analysis, unless it be when, from 
 observing certain facts, we assume a position, and 
 then infer, that if this be true, some other facts
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 173 
 
 must also exist, which we find (from other proofs) 
 really do exist. This bears a resemblance rather 
 to the analytical investigation than to the compo- 
 sition or synthetical demonstration of theorems 
 in the ancient geometry. It is not the course 
 of reasoning frequently pursued in experimental 
 sciences ; but a most beautiful example of it oc- 
 curs in the Second Part of Dr. Black's experi- 
 ments on Magnesia Alba and Quick Lime, the 
 foundation of the modern gaseous chemistry. 
 
 Upon the whole, the use of these terms is apt 
 to mislead ; and, for the reasons which have been 
 assigned, there seems no solidity in the division 
 of inductive inquiry into the two classes.* 
 
 * When this section was written, I had not seen Mr. Stewart's 
 learned remarks upon analysis and synthesis in the second volume 
 of his Elements, nor was aware of the observations of Dr. Hook, 
 quoted by him, and which show a remarkable coincidence with one 
 of the observations in the text. Mr. Stewart's speculations do not 
 come upon the same ground with mine ; but Dr. Hook having 
 rerersed the use of the terms analysis and synthesis in experi- 
 mental science, affords a strong confirmation of the remark which 
 I have ventured to make upon the inaccuracy of this application 
 of mathematical language. (See Elem, of Phil, of Human Mind, 
 vol. ii. p. 354, 4to.)
 
 PART THE SECOND. 
 
 OF THE ADVANTAGES OF THE STUDY OF 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 
 
 THE uses of studying the science to which our 
 inquiries have been directed now demand some 
 consideration. These consist of the pleasures 
 which attend all scientific pursuits, the pleasures 
 and the improvement peculiar to the study of 
 Natural Theology, and the service rendered by 
 this study to the doctrines of Bevelation. 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 OF THE PLEASURES OF SCIENCE. 
 
 As we have established the position that Na- 
 tural Theology is a branch of Inductive Science, 
 it follows that its truths are calculated to bestow 
 the same kind of gratification which the investi-
 
 176 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 gation and the contemplation of scientific truth 
 generally is fitted to give. 
 
 That there is a positive pleasure in such re- 
 searches and such views., wholly independent of 
 any regard to the advantages derived from their 
 application to the aid of man in his physical 
 necessities, is quite undeniable. . The ascer- 
 taining by demonstration any of the great truths 
 in the mathematics,, or proving by experiment any 
 of the important properties of matter, would 
 give a real and solid pleasure, even were it certain 
 that no practical use could be made of either the 
 one or the other. To know that the square of 
 the hypothenuse is always exactly equal to the 
 sum of the squares of the sides of a right-angled 
 triangle, whatever be its size, and whatever the 
 magnitude of the acute angles, is pleasing ; and 
 to be able to trace the steps by which the abso- 
 lute certainty of this proposition is established is 
 gratifying, even if AVC were wholly ignorant that 
 the art of guiding a ship through the pathless 
 ocean mainly depends upon it. Accordingly we 
 derive pleasure from rising to the contemplation 
 of the much more general truth, of which the dis- 
 covery of Pythagoras (the 47th proposition of
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 177 
 
 the First Book of Euclid) is but a particular 
 case, and which is also applicable to all similar 
 triangles,, and indeed to circles and ellipses also, 
 described on the right-angled triangle's sides; 
 and yet that general proposition is of no use in 
 navigation, nor indeed in any other practical art. 
 In like manner, the pleasure derived from ascer- 
 taining that the pressure of the air and the 
 creation of a vacuum alike cause the rise of the 
 mercury in the barometer, and give the power to 
 Hies of walking on the ceiling of a room, is 
 wholly independent of any practical use obtained 
 from the discovery, inasmuch as it is a pleasure 
 superadded to that of contemplating the doctrine 
 proved by the Torricellian experiment, which had 
 conferred all its practical benefits long before the 
 cause of the fly's power was found out. Thus 
 again it is one of the most sublime truths in 
 science, and the contemplation of which, as mere 
 contemplation, affords the greatest pleasure, that 
 the same power which makes a stone fall to 
 the ground keeps the planets in their course, 
 moulds the huge masses of those heavenly bodies 
 into their appointed forms, and reduces to per- 
 fect order all the apparent irregularities of the 
 
 i3
 
 178 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 system : so that the handful of sand which for an 
 instant ruffles the surface of the lake, acts by the 
 same law Avhich governs, through myriads of ages, 
 the mighty system composed of myriads of worlds. 
 There is a positive pleasure in generalizing facts 
 and arguments in perceiving the wonderful pro- 
 duction of most unlike results from a few very 
 simple principles in finding the same powers or 
 agents re-appearing in different situations, and 
 producing the most diverse and unexpected effects 
 in tracing unexpected resemblances and differ- 
 ences in ascertaining that truths or facts appa- 
 rently unlike are of the same nature, and ob- 
 serving wherein those apparently similar are 
 various : and this pleasure is quite independent 
 of all considerations relating to practical applica- 
 tion ; nay, the additional knowledge that those 
 truths are susceptible of a beneficial application 
 gives a further gratification of the like kind to 
 those who are certain never to have the oppor- 
 tunity of sharing the benefits obtained, and who 
 indeed may earnestly desire never to be in the 
 condition of being able to share them. Thus, in 
 addition to the pleasure received from contem- 
 plating a truth in animal physiology, we have
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 179 
 
 another gratification from finding that one of its 
 corollaries is the construction of an instrument 
 useful in some painful surgical operation. Yet, 
 assuredly, we have no desire ever to receive 
 advantage from this corollary ; and our scientific 
 gratification was wholly without regard to any 
 such vieAV. In truth, generalizing the disco- 
 very of remote analogies of resemblances among 
 unlike objects forms one of the most pleasing 
 employments of our faculties in every department 
 of mental exertion, from the most severe inves- 
 tigation of the mathematician to the lightest 
 efforts of the wit. To trace the same equality, or 
 other relation between figures apparently unlike, 
 is the chief glory of the geometrician ; to bring 
 together ideas of the most opposite description, 
 and show them in unexpected, yet when suddenly 
 pointed out, undeniable connexion, is the very 
 definition of wit. Nay, the proposition which we 
 have just enunciated is a striking instance of the 
 same general truth ; for we have been surveying 
 the resemblance, or rather the identity, in one im- 
 portant particular of two pursuits, in all other 
 respects the most widely remote from each other 
 mathematics and wit.
 
 180 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 If the mere contemplation of scientific truth is 
 the source of real gratification, there is another 
 pleasure, alike remote from all reference to prac- 
 tical use or benefit, and which is obtained by 
 tracing the investigations and demonstration the 
 steps that lead analytically to the discovery, and 
 synthetically to the proof of those truths. This 
 is a source of pleasure, both by giving us the 
 assurance that the propositions of generalization 
 the statements of resemblance and diversity 
 are true in themselves, and also by the conscious- 
 ness of power which it imparts, and the feeling of 
 difficulty overcome which it involves. We feel 
 gratified when we have closely followed the bril- 
 liant induction which led Newton to the discovery 
 that white is the union of all colours ; and when 
 we have accompanied him in the series of pro- 
 found researches, from the invention of a new 
 calculus or instrument of investigation, through 
 innumerable original geometrical lemmas, to the 
 final demonstration that the force of gravitation 
 deflects the comet from the tangent of its elliptical 
 orbit; and we feel the gratification because the 
 pursuit of these investigations assures us that 
 the marvellous propositions are indeed true
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 181 
 
 because there is a consciousness of man's power 
 in being able to penetrate so far into the secrets 
 of nature, and search so far into the structure of 
 the universe and because there is a pleasure, 
 which we enjoy individually, in having accom- 
 plished a task of considerable difficulty. In these 
 gratifications, derived from the contemplation 
 and the investigation of general laws, consists the 
 Pleasure of Science properly so called, and apart 
 from all views of deriving particular advantages 
 from its application to man's use. 
 
 This pleasure is increased as often as we find 
 that any scientific discovery is susceptible of prac- 
 tical applications. The contemplation of this 
 adaptation is pleasing, independent of any re- 
 gard to our own individual advantage, and even 
 though we may desire never to be in a con- 
 dition to reap benefit from it. We sympathize, 
 perhaps, with those who may be so unfortunate 
 as to require the aid afforded by such applications 
 to relieve and assuage pain ; but the mere know- 
 ledge that such a corollary follows from the disco- 
 very of the scientific truth is pleasing. Of course 
 the gratification is increased, if we know that in- 
 dividually we shall profit by it, and we may per-
 
 182 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 haps always more or less contemplate this possibi- 
 lity ; but this is a pleasure, properly speaking, of 
 a different kind from that which science, as such, 
 bestows. 
 
 The branch of science which we are here parti- 
 cularly considering differs in no respect from the 
 other departments of philosophy in the kind of gra- 
 tification which it affords to those who cultivate it. 
 Natural Theology, like the other sciences, whether 
 physical or mental, bestows upon the student the 
 pleasures of contemplation of generalization; 
 and it bestows this pleasure in an eminent degree. 
 To trace design in the productions and in the 
 operations of nature, or in those of the human un- 
 derstanding, is, in the strictest sense of the word, 
 generalization, and consequently produces the same 
 pleasure with the generalizations of physical and 
 of psychological science. Every part of the fore- 
 going reasoning, therefore, applies closely and ri- 
 gorously to the study of Natural Theology. Thus, 
 if it is pleasing to find that the properties of two 
 curves so exceedingly unlike as the ellipse and 
 the hyperbola closely resemble each other, or that 
 appearances so dissimilar as the motion of the 
 moon and the fall of an apple from the tree are
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 183 
 
 different forms of the same fact, it affords a 
 pleasure of the same kind to discover that the 
 light of the glow-worm and the song of the 
 nightingale are both provisions of nature for the 
 same end of attracting the animal's mate, and con- 
 tinuing its kind that the peculiar law of attrac- 
 tion pervading all matter, the magnitude of the 
 heavenly bodies, the planes they move in, and 
 the directions of their courses, are all so contrived 
 as to make their mutual actions, and the countless 
 disturbances thence arising all secure a perpe- 
 tual stability to the system which no other ar- 
 rangement could attain. It is a highly pleasing 
 contemplation of the self-same kind with those of 
 the other sciences to perceive every where design 
 and adaptation to discover uses even in things 
 apparently the most accidental to trace this so 
 constantly, that where peradventure we cannot 
 find the purpose of nature, we never for a moment 
 suppose there was none, but only that we have 
 hitherto failed in finding it out and to arrive at 
 the intimate persuasion that all seeming disorder 
 is harmony all chance, design and that nothing 
 is made in vain ; nay, things which in our igno- 
 rance we had overlooked as unimportant, or even
 
 184 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 complained of as evils, fill us afterwards with con- 
 tentment and delight, when we find that they are 
 subservient to the most important and beneficial 
 uses. Thus inflammation and the generation of 
 matter in a wound we find to be the effort which 
 Nature makes to produce new flesh, and effect 
 the cure ; the opposite hinges of the valves in the 
 veins and arteries are the means of enabling the 
 blood to circulate ; and so of innumerable other 
 arrangements of the animal economy. So, too, 
 there is the highest gratification derived from 
 observing that there is a perfect unity, or, as it has 
 been called, a personality, in the kind of the con- 
 trivances in which the universe abounds ; and 
 truly this peculiarity of character, or of manner, 
 as other writers have termed it, affords the same 
 species of pleasure which we derive from contem- 
 plating general resemblances in the other sciences. 
 We may close this branch of the subject with 
 the observation that those other sciences have 
 often in their turn derived aid from Natural 
 Theology, at least from the speculation of Final 
 Causes, for which they, generally speaking, lay 
 the foundation. Many discoveries in the physio- 
 logy both of animals and plants owe their origin
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 185 
 
 to some arrangement or structure being remarked, 
 the peculiar object of which was not known,, and 
 the ascertaining of which led to the knowledge of 
 an important truth. The well-known anecdote of 
 Harvey related by Mr. Boyle, is the best example 
 of this which can be given. In his tract on 
 Final Causes he thus writes : " I remember that 
 when I asked our famous Harvey, in the only 
 discourse I had with him, (which was but a while 
 before he died,) what were the things that induced 
 him to think of a circulation of the blood, he 
 answered me, that when he took notice that the 
 valves in the veins of so many parts of the body 
 were so placed that they gave free passage to the 
 blood towards the heart, but opposed the passage 
 of the veinal blood the contrary way, he was 
 incited to imagine that so provident a cause as 
 Nature had not so placed so many valves without 
 design, and no design seemed more probable than 
 that since the blood could not well, because of 
 the interposing valves, be sent by the veins to 
 the limbs, it should be sent through the arteries, 
 and return through the veins whose valves did 
 not oppose its course that way."* Even the 
 
 * Disquisition about the Final Causes of Natural Things. 
 Works, v. 427. 4to.
 
 186 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 arts have borrowed from the observation of 
 the animal economy. Those valves the hollow 
 bones of birds the sockets of the joints have 
 all furnished suggestions upon which some of 
 our most useful machinery is constructed. Nor 
 can any abuse arise from this employment of the 
 argument, so long as we take care only to let 
 it occupy the subordinate place of a suggestor 
 an originator of inquiry and never suffer it to 
 usurp the station of a sole guide, or a substitute 
 for that induction which alone can be relied on 
 in forming our conclusions. The ancients were 
 ignorant of this caution, and would probably have 
 rested satisfied with the consideration which only 
 set Harvey upon making experiments, instead of 
 proving in this way what the argument from Final 
 Causes only rendered probable. Hence much of 
 what, as we have already explained, Lord Bacon 
 has said upon the subject of this speculation, 
 abused as it certainly has been in all ages, but 
 especially in ancient times.
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 187 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 OF THE PLEASURE AND IMPROVEMENT PECULIAR TO 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 
 
 HITHERTO we have only shown that the gratifica- 
 tion which the contemplation of scientific truth is 
 calculated to bestow belongs to Natural Theology, 
 in common with the other branches of Philosophy. 
 But there are several considerations which make 
 it plain that the pleasure must be greater which 
 flows from the speculations of this than any which 
 the other sciences confer. 
 
 In the first place, the nature of the truths with 
 which Natural Theology is conversant is to be 
 considered. They relate to the evidences of 
 design, of contrivance, of power, of wisdom, of 
 goodness but let us only say, of design or con- 
 trivance. Nothing can be more gratifying to 
 the mind than such contemplations: they afford 
 great scope to the reasoning powers ; they exer- 
 cise the resources of our ingenuity; they give a
 
 188 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 new aspect to the most ordinary appearances; 
 they impart life as it were to dead matter ; they 
 are continually surprising us with novel and un- 
 expected proofs of intentions plainly directed to a 
 manifest object. If some scoffers and superficial 
 persons despise the enthusiasm with which these 
 investigations have at times been pursued, and 
 hold the exercise given by them to the inge- 
 nuity of inquirers to be rather a play of imagi- 
 nation than of reasoning, it is equally unde- 
 niable that in some of the most important and 
 most practically useful of the sciences, design, so 
 far from being a matter of fanciful conjecture, is 
 always assumed as incontestable, and the inquiry, 
 often with a merely practical view, is confined to 
 discovering what the object of the design is. 
 Thus, when the physiologist has discovered some 
 part of the animal body before unknown, or 
 observed some new operation of the known or- 
 gans, he never doubts that design exists, and that 
 some end is to be answered. This he takes for 
 granted without any reasoning ; and he only en- 
 deavours to find out what the purpose is what 
 use the part can have what end the operation is 
 intended to accomplish ; never supposing it pos-
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 189 
 
 sible that either the part could be created, or the 
 function appointed, without an object. The inves- 
 tigation conducted upon the assumption of this 
 postulate has frequently led to the most brilliant 
 discoveries among others, as we have just seen, 
 to by far the most important ever made in physio- 
 logical science. For the mere exercise of the 
 intellectual faculties, or gratification of scientific 
 curiosity, we may refer to almost all the singular 
 phenomena which form the bases of the reasonings 
 as to design the structure of the ear, and still 
 more of the eye the circulation of the blood 
 the physiology of the foetus in the uterus, as con- 
 trasted with the economy of the born animal, 
 and the prospective contrivances of a system 
 which until the birth is to be wholly useless 
 the structure of the eye and the nictitating mem- 
 brane in different birds, and the haw in certain 
 quadrupeds the powers of the eye in birds' of 
 prey perhaps more than any thing else, the con- 
 struction of their cells by bees, according to the 
 most certain principles discovered by men only 
 with the help of the most refined analytical calculus. 
 The atheist can only deny the wonderful nature of 
 such operations of instinct by the violent assump-
 
 190 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 tion that the bee works as the heavenly bodies 
 roll, and that its mathematically correct opera- 
 tions are no more to be wondered at than the 
 equally mathematically adjusted movements of 
 the planets a truly violent assumption, and espe- 
 cially of those who angrily deny that men have 
 a soul differing in kind from the sentient prin- 
 ciple in the lower animals. 
 
 Secondly. The universal recurrence of the facts 
 on which Natural Theology rests deserves to be 
 regarded as increasing the interest of this science. 
 The other sciences, those of Physics at least, are 
 studied only when we withdraw from all ordinary 
 pursuits, and give up our meditations to them. 
 Those which can only be prosecuted by means of 
 experiment can never be studied at all without 
 some act of our own to alter the existing state 
 of things, and place nature in circumstances 
 which force her, by a kind of question, as Lord 
 Bacon phrases it, to reveal her secrets. Even 
 the sciences which depend on observation have 
 their fields spread only here and there, hardly 
 ever lying in our way, and not always accessible 
 when we would go out of our way to walk in 
 them. But there is no place where the evidences
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 191 
 
 of Natural Religion are not distributed in ample 
 measure. It is equally true that those evidences 
 continually meet us in all the other branches of 
 science. A discovery made in these almost cer- 
 tainly involves some new proofs of design in the 
 formation and government of the universe. 
 
 Thirdly and chiefly. Natural Theology stands 
 far above all other sciences from the sublime and 
 elevating nature of its objects. It tells of the 
 creation of all things of the mighty power that 
 fashioned and that sustains the universe of the 
 exquisite skill that contrived the wings, and beak, 
 and feet of insects invisible to the naked eye 
 and that lighted the lamp of day, and launched 
 into space comets a thousand times larger than 
 the earth, whirling a million of times swifter than 
 a cannon ball, and burning with a heat which a 
 thousand centuries could not quench. It exceeds 
 the bounds of material existence, and raises us 
 from the creation to the Author of Nature. Its 
 office is, not only to mark what things are, but 
 for what purpose they were made by the infinite 
 wisdom of an all-powerful being, with whose exist- 
 ence and attributes its high prerogative is to 
 bring us acquainted. If we prize, and justly, the
 
 192 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 delightful contemplations of the other sciences ; 
 if we hold it a marvellous gratification to have 
 ascertained exactly the swiftness of the remotest 
 planets the number of grains that a piece of 
 lead would weigh at their surfaces and the de- 
 gree in which each has become flattened in shape 
 by revolving on its axis ; it is surely a yet more 
 noble employment of our faculties, and a still 
 higher privilege of our nature, humbly, but con- 
 fidently, to ascend from the universe to its Great 
 First Cause, and investigate the unity, the per- 
 sonality, the intentions, as well as the matchless 
 skill and mighty power of him who made and 
 sustains and moves those prodigious bodies, and 
 all that inhabit them. 
 
 Now, all the gratification of which we have 
 been treating is purely scientific, and wholly in- 
 dependent of any views of practical benefit result- 
 ing from the science of Natural Theology. The 
 pleasure in question is merely that double grati- 
 fication which every science bestows namely, the 
 contemplation of truth, in tracing resemblances 
 and differences, and the perception of the evi- 
 dence by which that truth is established. Natu- 
 ral Theology gives this double pleasure, like all
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 193 
 
 other branches of science like the mathematics 
 like physics and would give it if we were beings 
 of an order different from man, and whose des- 
 tinies never could be affected by the truth or 
 the falsehood of the doctrines in question. Nay, 
 we may put a still stronger case, one analogous 
 to the instance given above of the pleasure de- 
 rived from contemplating some fine invention of 
 a surgical instrument. Persons of such lives as 
 should make it extremely desirable to them that 
 there was no God, and no Future State, might 
 very well, as philosophers, derive gratification 
 from contemplating the truths of Natural Theo- 
 logy, and from following the chain of evidence by 
 which these are established, and might, in such 
 sublime meditation, find some solace to the pain 
 which reflection upon the past, and fears of the 
 future are calculated to inflict upon them. 
 
 But it is equally certain that the science de- 
 rives an interest incomparably greater from the 
 consideration that we ourselves, who cultivate it, 
 are most of all concerned in its truth that our 
 own highest destinies are involved in the results 
 of the investigation. This, indeed, makes it, 
 beyond all doubt, the most interesting of the 
 
 K
 
 194 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 sciences, and sheds on the other branches of 
 philosophy an interest beyond that which 
 otherwise belongs to them, rendering them more 
 attractive in proportion as they connect them- 
 selves with this grand branch of human know- 
 ledge, and are capable of being made subservient 
 to its uses. See only in what contemplations the 
 wisest of men end their most sublime inquiries ! 
 Mark where it is that a Newton finally reposes 
 after piercing the thickest veil that envelopes 
 nature grasping and arresting in their course 
 the most subtle of her elements and the swiftest 
 traversing the regions of boundless space ex- 
 ploring worlds beyond the solar way giving out 
 the law which binds the universe in eternal order ! 
 He rests, as by an inevitable necessity, upon the 
 contemplation of the great First Cause, and holds 
 it his highest glory to have made the evidence of 
 his existence, and the dispensations of his power 
 and of his wisdom, better understood by men. 
 
 If such are the peculiar pleasures which apper- 
 tain to this science, it seems to follow that those 
 philosophers are mistaken who would restrict us 
 to a very few demonstrations, to one or two in- 
 stances of design, as sufficient proofs of the
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 195 
 
 Deity's power and skill in the creation of the 
 world. That one sufficient proof of this kind is 
 in a certain sense enough cannot be denied: a 
 single such proof overthrows the dogmas of the 
 atheist, and dispels the doubts of the sceptic; 
 but is it enough to the gratification of the con- 
 templative mind? The great multiplication of 
 proofs undeniably strengthens our positions ; nor 
 can we ever affirm respecting the theorems in a 
 science, not of necessary but of contingent truth, 
 that the evidence is sufficiently cogent without 
 variety and repetition. But, independently alto- 
 gether of this consideration, the gratification is 
 renewed by each instance of design which we are 
 led to contemplate. Each is different from the 
 other. Each step renews our delight. The 
 finding that at every step we make in one science, 
 and with one object in view, a new proof is added 
 to those before possessed by another science, 
 affords a perpetual source of new interest and 
 fresh enjoyment. This would be true if the 
 science in question were one of an ordinary 
 description. But when we consider what its. 
 nature is how intimately connected with our 
 highest concerns how immediately and neces-
 
 196 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 sarily leading to the religious adoration of the 
 Supreme Being can we doubt that the perpe- 
 tually renewed proofs of his power, wisdom, and 
 goodness tend to fix and to transport the mind, 
 by the constant nourishment thus afforded to feel- 
 ings of pure and rational devotion? It is, in 
 truth, an exercise at once intellectual and moral, in 
 which the highest faculties of the understanding 
 and the warmest feelings of the heart alike par- 
 take, and in which not only without ceasing to 
 be a philosopher the student feels as a man, but 
 in which the more warmly his human feelings are 
 excited, the more philosophically he handles the 
 subject. What delight can be more elevating, 
 more truly worthy of a rational creature's enjoy- 
 ment, than to feel, wherever we tread the paths 
 of scientific inquiry, new evidence springing up 
 around our footsteps new traces of divine in- 
 telligence and power meeting our eye ! We are 
 never alone ; at least, like the old Roman, we are 
 never less alone than in our solitude. We walk 
 with the Deity ; we commune with the great 
 First Cause, who sustains at every instant what 
 the word of his power made. The delight is 
 renewed at each step of our progress, though as
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 197 
 
 far as evidence is concerned we have long ago 
 had proof enough. But that is no more a reason 
 for ceasing to contemplate the subject in its per- 
 petually renovated and varied forms, than it 
 would be a reason for resting satisfied with once 
 seeing a long lost friend, that his existence had 
 been sufficiently proved by one interview. Thus, 
 instead of restricting ourselves to the proofs alone 
 required to refute atheism or remove scepticism, 
 we should covet the indefinite multiplication of 
 evidences of design and skill in the universe, as 
 subservient in a threefold way to purposes of use 
 and of gratification: first, as strengthening the 
 foundation whereupon the system reposes; se- 
 condly, as conducive to the ordinary purposes of 
 scientific gratification, each instance being a fresh 
 renewal of that kind of enjoyment ; and thirdly, 
 as giving additional ground for devout, pleasing, 
 and wholesome adoration of the Great First Cause, 
 who made and who sustains all nature. 
 
 It is, therefore, manifest that instead of resting 
 satisfied with details and reasons barely sufficient 
 to prove the existence of design in the universe, 
 the gratification of a laudable scientific curiosity, 
 and the proper indulgence of rational devotion,
 
 198 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 require that every occasion should be taken of 
 exhibiting those evidences upon which the sys- 
 tem of Natural Theology rests. The professed 
 treatises upon that science do not suffice for this 
 purpose, although they ought unquestionably to 
 enter largely, and \vith very great variety of 
 illustration, into the proofs ; but each several 
 branch of science, natural and moral, should have 
 a constant reference to this, and should never fail 
 to apply its peculiar doctrines towards the proof 
 and the illustration of the doctrines of Natural 
 Theology.
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 199 
 
 SECTION III. 
 
 OF THE CONNEXION BETWEEN NATURAL AND 
 REVEALED RELIGION. 
 
 THE ordinary arguments against Natural Theo- 
 logy with which we have to contend are those of 
 atheists and sceptics; of persons who deny the 
 existence of a First Cause, or who involve the 
 whole question in doubt ; of persons who think 
 they see a balance of reason for denying the 
 existence of a Deity, or who consider the rea- 
 sons on both sides as so equally poised that they 
 cannot decide either way. An objection of a 
 very different nature has sometimes proceeded, 
 unexpectedly, from a very different quarter the 
 friends of Revelation who have been known, 
 without due reflection, to contend that by the 
 light of unassisted reason we can know absolutely 
 notliing of God and a Future State. They appear 
 to be alarmed lest the progress of Natural Reli- 
 gion should prove dangerous to the acceptance of 
 Revealed; lest the former should, as it were, be
 
 200 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 taken as a substitute for the latter. They argue 
 as if the two systems were rivals, and whatever 
 credit the one gained, were so much lost to the 
 other. They seem to think that if any discovery 
 of a First Cause and another world were made by 
 natural reason, it would no longer be true that 
 " life and immortality were brought to light by 
 the gospel." Although these reasoners are neither 
 the most famous advocates of revelation, nor the 
 most enlightened,, we yet may do well to show 
 the groundlessness of the alarms which they 
 would excite. 
 
 1. In the first place, it is worthy of our consi- 
 deration that the greatest advocates of Natural 
 Theology have always been sincere and even 
 zealous Christians. The names of Ray, Clarke, 
 Derham, Keill, Paley, attest the truth of this 
 assertion. None of these was likely to lend his 
 support to any system the evidence of which put 
 the outworks of Christianity in jeopardy. Some 
 of them, as Clarke and Paley, have signalized 
 themselves as strenuous and able defenders of 
 the truth of Revelation. Derham actually de- 
 livered his celebrated work on the great truths 
 of Natural Theology as a series of sermons
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 201 
 
 preached in Bow Church,, at a Lecture for the 
 promotion of the Christian religion, founded by 
 Mr. Boyle. At the same Lecture, in St. Paul's, 
 was delivered Dr. Clarke's argument a priori, 
 and indeed his whole "Evidence of Natural and 
 Revealed Religion," as well as his "Demonstra- 
 tion of the Being and Attributes of God ;" and 
 Dr. Bentley, the first preacher upon that founda- 
 tion, delivered in like manner as sermons his 
 argument in favour of Natural Religion from the 
 structure of the human mind, the animal body, and 
 the universe at large. 
 
 This Lecture was expressly founded by Mr. 
 Boyle in support of the Christian religion; and 
 no reference to Natural Theology, apart from its 
 uses in supporting Revelation, is to be found in 
 the terms of the gift. The subject of the eight 
 sermons is to be, in the words of the will, " The 
 proof of the Christian religion against notorious 
 infidels, viz. atheists, theists, Pagans, Jews, and 
 Mahometans, not descending lower to any con- 
 troversies that are among Christians themselves." 
 Yet the great Christian divines whom we have 
 named so construed these words as to include a 
 proof of Natural Religion among the most essential 
 
 K3
 
 202 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 arguments for Christianity ; and almost as many 
 of the sermons preached at the Boyle Lecture, 
 during the first forty years after its foundation,, 
 relate to the doctrines of Natural Theology as to 
 those of Revelation. So far were the divines of 
 that day from holding the two subjects as hostile 
 to each other.* 
 
 2. But, secondly, Natural Theology is most 
 serviceable to the support of revelation. All the 
 soundest arguments in behalf of the latter pre- 
 suppose the former to be admitted. Witness the 
 profound work of Butler, his "Analogy of Natural 
 and Revealed Religion to the Order of Nature," 
 the most argumentative and philosophical defence 
 of Christianity ever submitted to the world. But 
 Lardner and Paley, and all other writers on 
 the same side, abound in references to Natural 
 Theology, and in the course of their reasonings 
 assume its truths as postulates. 
 
 We may suppose that those practised contro- 
 versialists and zealous Christians did not make 
 
 * If any one will read the vituperation rather than sermon 
 against infidels with which Dr. Bentley commences his discourses 
 upon Natural Religion, he will see no reason to doubt the zeal for 
 Christianity of that most learned preacher.
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 203 
 
 such assumptions gratuitously. We may safely 
 give them credit for not resting their case upon 
 more postulates than the exigency of the argu- 
 ment required. Such a course if unnecessary 
 would have been most unskilful, and might have 
 proved dangerous by opening the door to new 
 attacks. But they are not peculiar in their view 
 of the subject. Boyle and Newton were as sin- 
 cerely attached to Christianity as any men in any 
 age, and they are likewise the most zealous advo- 
 cates of Natural Religion. Lord Bacon, though 
 imbued perhaps with a certain degree of preju- 
 dice on this subject, but of a philosophical and 
 not a polemical origin, distinctly places the truth 
 of Natural Religion at the entrance of theological 
 study, and regards the evidences of Revelation as 
 founded upon the previous demonstration of Na- 
 tural Theology. " The latter," he says, " is the 
 key of the former, and opens our understanding 
 to the genuine spirit of the scriptures, but also 
 unlocks our belief, so that we may enter upon the 
 serious contemplation of the divine Power, the 
 characters of which are so deeply graven in the 
 works of the creation."* He elsewhere also lays 
 
 * De Dig. et Aug. lib. i.
 
 204 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 it down as clear that atheism is to be refuted not 
 by miracles but by the contemplation of nature, 
 and accurately takes the distinction between Reve- 
 lation and Natural Religion ; that the former de- 
 clares the will of God as to the worship most 
 acceptable, while the latter teaches his existence 
 and powers, but is silent as to a ritual.* 
 
 3. Accordingly we proceed a step farther, and 
 assert, thirdly, that it is a vain and ignorant thing 
 to suppose that Natural Theology is not neces- 
 sary to the support of Revelation. The latter may 
 be untrue, though the former be admitted. It 
 may be proved, or allowed, that there is a God, 
 though it be denied that he sent any message to 
 man, through men or other intermediate agents ; 
 as indeed the Epicureans believed in the existence 
 of the gods, but held them to keep wholly aloof 
 from human affairs, leaving the world, physical 
 as well as moral, to itself, without the least inter- 
 ference in its concerns. f But Revelation cannot 
 
 * De Dig. lib. iii. c. 2. 
 
 t It is singular, too, that this sect inculcated religious duties 
 towards the gods, whom nevertheless they neither believed to be 
 the creators nor governors of the universe. Cicero says of its 
 founder, " De sanctitate, de pietate adversus deos libros scripsit
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 205 
 
 be true if Natural Religion is false,, and cannot 
 be demonstrated strictly by any argument, or 
 established by any evidence without proving or 
 assuming the latter. A little attention to the 
 subject will clearly prove this proposition. 
 
 Suppose it were shown by incontestable proofs 
 that a messenger sent immediately from heaven 
 had appeared on the earth ; suppose, to make the 
 case more strong against our argument, that this 
 messenger arrived in our own days, nay appeared 
 before our eyes, and shewed his divine title to have 
 his message believed, by performing miracles in 
 our presence. No one can by possibility imagine 
 a stronger case; for it excludes all arguments 
 upon the weight or the fallibility of testimony; 
 it assumes all the ordinary difficulties in the way 
 of Revelation to be got over. NOAV, even this 
 strong evidence would not at all establish the 
 truth of the doctrine promulgated by the mes- 
 senger; for it would not show that the story 
 he brought was worthy of belief in any one par- 
 Epicurus. At quomodo in his loquitur ? ut Coruncanum, ut 
 Scaevolam, Pontifices maximos te audire dicas." " You would 
 think," says he, "to hear him, it was our high-priests des- 
 canting upon holiness and piety."
 
 206 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 ticular except his supernatural powers. These 
 would be demonstrated by his working miracles. 
 All the rest of his statement would rest on 
 his assertion. But a being capable of working 
 miracles might very well be capable of deceiving 
 us. The possession of power does not of neces- 
 sity exclude either fraud or malice. This mes- 
 senger might come from an evil as well as from 
 a good being ; he might come from more beings 
 than one ; or he might come from one being 
 of many existing in the universe. When Chris- 
 tianity was first promulgated, the miracles of 
 Jesus were not denied by the ancients; but it 
 was asserted that they came from evil beings, and 
 that he was a magician. Such an explanation 
 was consistent with the kind of belief to which 
 the votaries of polytheism were accustomed. They 
 were habitually credulous of miracles and of di- 
 vine interpositions. But their argument was not 
 at all unphilosophical. There is nothing whatever 
 inconsistent in the power to work miracles being 
 conferred upon a man or a minister by a super- 
 natural being, who is either of limited power 
 himself, or of great malignity, or who is one 
 of many such beings. Yet it is certain that
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 207 
 
 no means can be devised for attesting the super- 
 natural agency of any one, except such a power 
 of working miracles ; therefore, it is plain that 
 no sufficient evidence can ever be given by direct 
 Revelation alone in favour of the great truths 
 of religion. The messenger in question might 
 have power to work miracles without end, and 
 yet it would remain unproved, either that God 
 was omnipotent, and one, and benevolent, or that 
 he destined his creatures to a future state, or that 
 he had made them such as they are in their present 
 state. All this might be true, indeed ; but its truth 
 would rest only on the messenger's assertion, and 
 upon whatever internal evidence the nature of his 
 communication afforded; and it might be false, 
 without the least derogation to the truth of the 
 fact that he came from a superior being, and pos- 
 sessed the power of suspending the laws of nature. 
 But the doctrines of the existence of a Deity 
 and of his attributes, which Natural Religion 
 teaches, preclude the possibility of such ambi- 
 guities and remove all those difficulties. We 
 thus learn that the Creator of the world is one 
 and the same ; and we come to know his attributes, 
 not merely of power, which alone the direct com-
 
 208 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 munication by miracles could convey, but of 
 wisdom and goodness. Built upon this foun- 
 dation, the message of Revelation becomes at once 
 unimpeachable and invaluable. It converts every 
 inference of reason into certainty, and, above all, 
 it communicates the Divine Being's intentions 
 respecting our own lot, with a degree of precision 
 which the inferences of Natural Theology very 
 imperfectly possess. This, in truth, is the chief 
 superiority of Revelation, and this is the praise 
 justly given to the Gospel in sacred writ not 
 that it teaches the being and attributes of God, 
 but that it brings life and immortality to light. 
 
 It deserves, however, to be remarked, in perfect 
 consistency with the argument which has here 
 been maintained, that no mere revelation, no 
 direct message, however avouched by miraculous 
 gifts, could prove the faithfulness of the promises 
 held out by the messenger, excepting by the 
 slight inference which the nature of the message 
 might afford. The portion of his credentials 
 which consisted of his miraculous powers could 
 not prove it. For unless we had first ascertained 
 the unity and the benevolence of the being that 
 sent him, as those miracles only prove power,
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 209 
 
 he might be sent to deceive us; and thus the 
 hopes held out by him might be delusions. The 
 doctrines of Natural Religion here come to our 
 aid, and secure our belief to the messenger of 
 one Being, whose goodness they have taught us 
 to trust. 
 
 4. In other respects, the services of Natural 
 Religion are far from inconsiderable, as subsidiary 
 to, and co-operative with, the great help of Reve- 
 lation. Thus, were our whole knowledge of the 
 Deity drawn from Revelation, its foundation must 
 become weaker and weaker as the distance in 
 point of time increases from the actual inter- 
 position. Tradition, or the evidence of testi- 
 mony, must of necessity be its only proof: for 
 perpetual miracles must be wrought to give us 
 evidence by our own senses. Now, a perpetual 
 miracle is a contradiction in terms ; for the ex- 
 ception to, or suspension of, the laws of nature 
 so often repeated would destroy the laws them- 
 selves, and with the laws the force of the excep- 
 tion or suspension. Upon testimony, then, all 
 Revelation must rest. Every age but the one 
 in which the miracles were wrought, and every 
 country but the one that witnessed them in-
 
 210 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 deed, all the people of that country itself save 
 those actually present must receive the proofs 
 which they afford of Divine interposition upon 
 the testimony of eye-witnesses, and of those to 
 whom eye-witnesses told it. Even if the miracles 
 were exhibited before all the nations of one age, 
 the next must believe upon the authority of tra- 
 dition ; and if we suppose the interposition to be 
 repeated from time to time, each repetition would 
 incalculably weaken its force, because the laws 
 of nature, though not wholly destroyed, as they 
 must be by a constant violation, would yet lose 
 their prevailing force, and each exception would 
 become a slighter proof of supernatural agency. 
 It is far otherwise with the proofs of Natural 
 Religion ; repetition only strengthens and extends 
 them. We are by no means affirming that Reve- 
 lation would lose its sanction by lapse of time, as 
 long as it had the perpetually new and living evi- 
 dence of Natural Religion to support it. We are 
 only shewing the use of that evidence to Revela- 
 tion, by examining the inevitable consequences 
 of its entire removal, and seeing how ill supported 
 the truths of Revelation would be, if the prop were 
 withdrawn Avhich they borrow from Natural Theo-
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 211 
 
 logy ; for then they would rest upon tradition 
 alone.* 
 
 In truth, it is with Natural Religion as with 
 many of the greatest blessings of our sublunary 
 lot: they are so common, so habitually present 
 to and enjoyed by us, that we become insensible 
 of their value, and only estimate them aright 
 when we lose them, or fancy them lost. Accus- 
 tomed to handle the truths of Revelation in con- 
 nexion with, and in addition to, those of Natural 
 Theology, and never having experienced any 
 state of mind in which we were without the latter, 
 we forget how essential they are to the former. 
 As we are wont to forget the existence of the air we 
 constantly breathe until put in mind of it by some 
 violent change threatening suffocation, so it re- 
 quires a violent fit of abstraction to figure to our- 
 selves the state of our belief in Revelation were the 
 lights of natural religion withdrawn. The ex- 
 istence and attributes of a God are so familiarly 
 proved by every thing around us, that we can 
 hardly picture to ourselves the state of our belief 
 in this great truth, if we only knew it by the 
 testimony borne to miracles, which, however au- 
 * Note V.
 
 212 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 thentic, were yet wrought in a remote age and 
 distant region.* 
 
 5. The use of Natural Theology to the believer 
 in Revelation is equally remarkable in keeping 
 alive the feelings of piety and devotion. As this 
 topic has occurred under a former head, it is 
 only to be presented here in close connexion with 
 Revealed Religion. It may be observed, then, that 
 even the inspired penmen have constant recourse 
 to the views which are derived from the contem- 
 plation of nature when they would exalt the 
 Deity by a description of his attributes, or incul- 
 cate sentiments of devotion towards him. " How 
 excellent," says the Psalmist, "is thy name in all 
 the earth; thou hast set thy glory above the 
 heavens. I will consider the heavens, even the 
 work of thy fingers; the moon and the stars 
 which thou hast ordained." See also that singu- 
 larly beautiful poem the 139th Psalm ; and the 
 Book of Job, from the 38th to the 41st chapter. 
 
 It is remarkable how little is to be found of 
 
 * Mr. Locke has said, upon a similar question, " He that takes 
 away Reason to make way for Revelation puts out the light of 
 both ; and does much about the same as if he would persuade a 
 man to put out his eyes, the better to receive the remote light of an 
 invisible star by a telescope." (Human Understanding, iv. 19, 4.)
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 213 
 
 particularity and precision in any thing that has 
 been revealed to us respecting the nature of the 
 Godhead. For the wisest purposes it has pleased 
 Providence to veil in awful mystery almost all the 
 attributes of the Ancient of Days beyond what 
 natural reason teaches. By direct interposition,, 
 through miraculous agency, we become acquainted 
 with his will, and are made more certain of his 
 existence; but his peculiar attributes are nearly 
 the same in the volume of nature and in that of 
 his revealed word.
 
 NOTES.
 
 NOTES. 
 
 NOTE I. PAGE 11. 
 Of the Classification of the Sciences. 
 
 I AM abundantly sensible, not only, as is stated in the 
 text, how imperfect all such classifications must be, but 
 that grave objections may be urged against the one I have 
 adopted, and particularly against the threefold division of 
 'physical, psychological, and ethical or moral. It may be 
 said that one part of the moral branch of Natural Theo- 
 logy belongs to psychology namely, the arguments 
 drawn from the nature of the mind in favour of a future 
 state ; and that this part ought therefore to have been 
 classed with the second division of the ontological branch 
 namely, the psychological. But it must be borne in 
 mind that the two first divisions, comprising the ontolo- 
 gical branch, are confined to the doctrine of existences 
 the investigation of the Deity's existence and attri- 
 butes ; while the whole of the third division, or second 
 branch, relates to the prospects of man with respect to 
 his soul; and consequently, although the arguments 
 respecting these prospects are partly of a psychological 
 nature, yet they relate to the future, and not at all to the 
 past or present not at all to the doctrine of existence 
 
 L
 
 218 NOTES. 
 
 or attributes. This is therefore a sufficiently distinct 
 ground for the separation. In all such classifications 
 we should be guided by views of convenience, rather 
 than by any desire to attain perfect symmetry; and that 
 arrangement may be best suited to a particular purpose 
 which plants the same things in one order, and separates 
 them and unites them in one way, when an arrangement 
 which should dispose those things differently might be 
 preferable, if we had another purpose to serve. Thus 
 the three divisions of physics, psychology, and morals 
 may be convenient for the purposes of Natural Theology, 
 and yet it may not so well suit the purposes of general 
 science ; although I own my opinion to be in favour of 
 that classification for such general purposes also, keeping 
 always in mind that whatever portion of moral science 
 (using the term in its more ordinary sense) belongs to 
 ontology comes within the second, and not the third, 
 subdivision, and that the third deals with deontology 
 alone. 
 
 The various classifications which, in ancient as well 
 as modern times, have been made of the sciences, are 
 well calculated to illustrate the difficulty of a perfect 
 arrangement. The Greek philosophers distinguished 
 them into physics, ethics, and logic. Under the first 
 head was comprehended both the nature of mind and 
 of the Deity ; consequently, under physics were classed 
 what we now term psychology and theology, as well as 
 natural philosophy. Mr. Locke mainly adopted the 
 same order when he ranged the objects of science into 
 physical, practical, and logical (4>ucnjoj, ^axrixTj, cnj-
 
 NOTES. 219 
 
 ^ or Aoyr/oj) ; or, 1. Things in themselves know- 
 able, whether God himself, angels, spirits, bodies ; or 
 their affections, as number, figure, &c. 2. Actions, as 
 they depend upon us in order to happiness ; and 3. The 
 use of signs, in order to knowledge. Thus, like the 
 Greek philosophers, he classed natural philosophy, psy- 
 chology, and theology under one head ; but as he only 
 stated ethics to be " the most considerable of the second 
 head," it may be doubtful whether or not he included 
 under it any practical application of the natural branches 
 of the first head. One thing, too, is quite clear in this 
 arrangement, that pure mathematics becomes part of 
 the science of ontology that is, of existences, natural 
 and mental ; and yet it bears a more close relation to the 
 third, or logical division. It certainly appears somewhat 
 violent to class fluxions with anatomy, metallurgy with 
 psychology, and entomology with theology; while we 
 make separate heads of ethics and logic. But yet more 
 violent is M. Turgot's classification, by which he ranges, 
 under the head of physical sciences, not only natural 
 philosophy and metaphysics by name, but also logic and 
 history. To thus classing history there is, indeed, a 
 double objection. Not only is it doing unnecessary vio- 
 lence to common language, to make that which bears no 
 exclusive relation to natural objects a part of physics, 
 but to make history a science at all is perhaps yet more 
 objectionable, unless in the sense in which inductive 
 science is deemed historical by Lord Bacon being con- 
 sidered by him as the history of facts. But this, too, is 
 incorrect ; for the history or record of facts is only the
 
 220 
 
 foundation of inductive science, which consists in the 
 comparison, or reasoning from the comparison, of these 
 facts, and marking their differences and resemblances ; 
 whereas history is applicable to all events and all 
 sciences, being merely the record of things that have 
 happened, of whatever kind, and implies no reasoning 
 or comparing at all. Why is poetry, music, painting, 
 omitted in such an arrangement as that of Turgot ? 
 They are as much sciences as history. 
 
 Lord Bacon's own scientific classification is certainly 
 not distinguished by peculiar felicity. He divides science 
 into three parts, according as its object is the Deity, Man, 
 or External Nature, naming these branches Natural 
 Theology, Human Philosophy, and Natural Philosophy. 
 Hence, while intellectual and moral philosophy are sepa- 
 rated from theology, they are both classed with anatomy 
 and medicine ; while optics and acoustics, merely from 
 their relation to the human eye and the human ear, are 
 ranged under the same head with ethics, and separated 
 from natural philosophy. Hence, too, the chemical 
 nature of the blood and bones of man is made one part 
 of one division Human Philosophy; while the che- 
 mical nature of the blood and bones of all other animals 
 is ranged under another head Natural Philosophy. As 
 for logic and the mathematics, they are treated as a kind 
 of appendix to physics, rather than as deserving the 
 name of sciences.
 
 NOTES. 221 
 
 NOTE II. PAGE 52. 
 
 Of the Psychological Argument from Final Causes. 
 
 DR. CLARKE maintains that the evidences of design 
 are much more to be traced in the natural than in the 
 moral world ; but he plainly means by this proposition, 
 not so much to compare the proofs of Divine wisdom 
 exhibited in the phenomena of the material with those 
 exhibited in the phenomena of the intellectual world, as 
 to show that the designs or intentions of the Deity are 
 more easily perceived in the arrangements of the world 
 with which we are most conversant, than his plans for 
 our happiness, and his general intentions respecting our 
 fate, are to be inferred from moral considerations. It is, 
 however, to be remarked that, like all other reasoners 
 upon Natural Theology, Dr. Clarke confines his attention 
 entirely to physical, and never adverts to psychological, 
 proofs. 
 
 Mr. Smith, in his Theory of Moral Sentiments, has 
 interspersed with his reasonings upon the constitution of 
 the affections and feelings, reflections upon the purposes 
 to which they are subservient ; and Mr. Stewart's writ- 
 ings afford frequent instances of his attention having 
 been alive to the soundness of the same speculation. 
 Indeed, no one who had the accurate and just views of 
 the nature of the sentient principle, and the steady con- 
 viction of its separate and immaterial nature, which 
 prevail through all his writings, could fail to perceive 
 the application of the argument a posteriori to our
 
 222 NOTES. 
 
 mental constitution. But these indications of this ad- 
 mirable writer's attention to the subject are accidental, 
 and scattered through his works ; and it is exceedingly 
 to be regretted, nor, indeed, very easily to be explained, 
 that he should have entirely omitted all reference to the 
 constitution of our mental faculties in the otherwise full 
 and able treatise upon Natural Religion which forms so 
 large apart above one-third of his ' Philosophy of the 
 Active Powers.' With the exception of a single remark 
 (vol. ii., p. 48), and that only upon the adaptation of 
 our faculties to our external circumstances, and a quo- 
 tation from Locke, which relates more to the bodily than 
 to the mental powers, there occurs nothing whatever 
 upon this important part of the subject in that excellent 
 work, where it would have been so peculiarly appro- 
 priate. 
 
 This silence of modern writers upon Natural Theology 
 is easily accounted for by the same consideration to 
 which Dr. Reid has referred in explaining how the 
 modern sceptics have admitted the existence of appear- 
 ances of design in the universe, and denied what he 
 terms the major proposition that design may be traced 
 by its effects ; while the ancient sceptics, admitting the 
 latter proposition, denied the former. He considers this 
 as owing to the great discoveries in physics made in 
 modern times ; and to the same cause may be ascribed 
 the disposition of Natural Theologians to confine their 
 attention to the evidences afforded by the material world. 
 The ancients, on the other hand, whose progress in Na- 
 tural Philosophy was extremely limited, bestow more
 
 223 
 
 attention, and with considerably greater success, upon 
 Intellectual Philosophy ; and accordingly we find that 
 they drew their arguments a posteriori for the exist- 
 ence of design in the universe as much from moral as 
 from physical considerations. 
 
 The discussion held by Socrates with Aristodemus, as 
 recorded by Xeuophon, is well known. After enume- 
 rating the various convenient arrangements of the bodily 
 organs, he adds Ou TOWUV povov Tjpjcecrg Tea 0co roo <rvo- 
 
 Kpa'fi<rTr l v Tcu avQpuirtuj svetyvtre' Ttv<j$ yap 
 v//o%ij Ttpwra, psv few, fwv tot, peyKrra, xxi xaAAicrra 
 
 i, (teo'j; ftspaifsvovori ; toia, s ^ 
 Troo^uAAarrgcrQai, t) Xip,ov y 
 voffoi; sTriKtjvpyffoci, TJ fna^v atrxijcraj, ->j Tteo$ 
 i, r t ocra av axouiry, TJ i$y, y pafty, lx.a- 
 ota.[j,[j,vr l cr$a.i ; " Nor has the Deity been 
 satisfied with taking care of the body alone ; he has 
 implanted in man what is afar greater work to have 
 made a most excellent soul ; for what other animal 
 possesses a mind that can perceive the existence of the 
 Gods by whom all these vast and fair works have been 
 formed ? What other creature than man worships those 
 Gods ? What other intelligence is superior to man's in 
 providing against hunger, and thirst, and cold, and 
 heat ? or in curing diseases, or in exercising strength, 
 or in cultivating learning, or in storing up the recollec- 
 tion of things heard, and seen, and learnt ?"* It may 
 * Xen. Memor. I. iv. 13.
 
 224 NOTES. 
 
 be observed here, in passing, that Mr. Stewart, who 
 refers to this passage, has adopted the paraphrastic 
 translation by Mrs. Fielding, and it is extremely un- 
 like the original. Mr. Stewart justly praises the " almost 
 divine simplicity " of the whole conversation, which is 
 a just eulogy ; but the translation, although well written, 
 little resembles the Greek in that particular. The one 
 I have here given is at least faithful. 
 
 In like manner, the discussion with Euthydemus, after 
 showing the goodness of the Gods in adapting all things 
 to man's use, closes with mentioning the senses given us 
 to enjoy those gifts of external natxire, and, lastly, the 
 use of reason. ToSs KO.I Aoyraov ypiv several, &c. &c. 
 " They have implanted reason in our nature, whereby 
 ive inquire touching external things ; and, arguing and 
 remembering, we learn the uses of each, and hit upon 
 many contrivances for attaining good and avoiding evil. 
 Have they not also given us the gift of speech, by which 
 we can communicate mutually all we have learnt, and 
 thus instruct each other, and make laws, and regulate 
 civil polity ?"* 
 
 Plato pursues the same course of reasoning. We 
 may refer particularly to the tenth and twelfth books of 
 the treatise De Legg. Thus, towards the end of the 
 latter book, he states the argument for the Deity's exist- 
 ence as twofold the nature of the mind, and the order 
 of the worldly system. The first of his reasons is drawn 
 from considering the qualities of the mind; its greater 
 antiquity than that of the body and its immortality; 
 * Xen. Memor. IV. iii. 11.
 
 225 
 
 for the Platonists certainly considered immortality to be 
 so much of the essence of mind as to deduce from thence, 
 as the less clear proposition, the existence of a Deity. 
 
 The Stoics reasoned in like manner, with an equal 
 regard to mental and to natural phenomena. Epictetus, 
 after deducing the inference of design from the adapta- 
 tions of sensible objects, as of the eye to light, adds, 
 correctly and philosophically, that " the constitution of 
 the understanding, whereby it not only receives impres- 
 sions through the senses, but also deals with the ideas 
 thus received, and combines or composes something out 
 of them, proceeding from things that are near to things 
 quite remote, proves the existence of an Artificer ; since 
 things carrying such marks of contrivance could not,'* 
 he contends, " exist spontaneously, and without design."* 
 
 The same train of reasoning is followed by Cicero in 
 all those parts of his writings in which he treats of the 
 existence of a Deity. Thus the famous passage so often 
 quoted from the treatise De Natura Deorum, ends with 
 a reference to our mental constitution, although this 
 part of it is not so frequently attended to. "An vero si 
 domum magnam, pulchramque videris, non possis adduci 
 ut etiam si dominum non videas muribus illam et mus- 
 telis sedificatam putes; tantum vero ornatum mundi, 
 tantam varietatem pulchritudinemque rerum celestium, 
 tantam vim et magnitudinum maris atque terrarum si 
 tuum ac non deorum immortalium domicilium putes, 
 nonne plane desipere videare ?" Thus far as to sensible 
 objects. But he proceeds, " Aliud a terra sumsimus, aliud 
 * Epict. Enchir. i. 6. j 
 
 L3
 
 226 
 
 ab humore, aliud ab igne, aliud ab aere eo quern spiritu 
 ducimus : illud autem quod vincit haec omnia, rationem 
 dico et si placet, pluribus verbis, mentem, consilium, 
 cogitationem, prudentiam ubi invenimus? unde sustu- 
 limus?*" 
 
 And again, in the same book, after speaking at large 
 of the structure of the body, and the uses to which its 
 various parts are adapted, he adds, " Jam vero animum 
 ipsum, memtemque hofninis, rationem, consilium, pru- 
 dentiam, qui non divina cura perfecta esse perspicit, is 
 his ipsis rebus mihi videtur carere." He proceeds to 
 show how great a gift reason is from its productions : 
 " Ex quo scientia intelligitur quam vim habeat, qualis 
 sit, qu& ne in deo quidem est res ulla praestantior ;" 
 and he closes with the well-known) passage in praise of 
 eloquence f. 
 
 In the Tusculan Questions he alludes to mind in a dif- 
 ferent manner. After going through the various pro- 
 visions made for human enjoyment in the economy of 
 nature, he adds, " Sic mentem hominis quamvis cum 
 non videas ut deum non vides, tamen ut deum agnoscis 
 ex operibus ejus, sic ex memoriS. rerum et inventione et 
 celeritate motus omnique pulchritudine virtutis, vim 
 divinam mentis agnoscito J." 
 
 The covirse of the argument in which he is engaged in 
 this first part of his work, the immortality of the soul, 
 leads him to use the phenomena of its faculties for the 
 purpose of illustrating its separate existence ; and, there- 
 
 * De Nat. Deor. ii. 6. f Ibid. ii. 59. 
 
 I Tusc. Qu. i. 29.
 
 NOTES. 227 
 
 fore, he only enumerates the arrangements of the natural 
 world as proofs of Divine agency, and gives those proofs 
 not as the main object of the argument, but as introduc- 
 tory to his statement of the soul's independent nature. 
 
 In these speculations of the ancient philosophers, we 
 cannot find any process of strict inductive reasoning ; 
 and, accordingly, the facts are not turned to the best 
 account for the purposes of the argument. But this 
 defect appears, at the least, as much in the physical as 
 in the psychological portion of the reasoning. Indeed, 
 the latter comes more near to our own philosophy ; and 
 certainly we must admit that those old writers upon 
 Natural Theology, in the place which they assigned to 
 intellectual phenomena, pursued a more sound and con- 
 sistent method of philosophising, than the moderns have 
 done when speculating upon the same subject. 
 
 NOTE III. PAGE 80. 
 
 Of the Doctrine of Cause and Effect. 
 
 THE argument deduced by sceptical writers from Mr. 
 Hume's doctrine respecting causation has tended to 
 bring some discredit upon the doctrine itself, by raising 
 a prejudice against it. The bad use, however, which is 
 made of a sound principle is not fairly a matter of charge 
 against that principle. The only question is whether or 
 not the principle be just in itself; and it cannot be just 
 if legitimate reasoning can deduce from it an absurd con-
 
 228 
 
 sequence. A dangerous consequence, how rigorously 
 soever following from it, would of course form no reason 
 against its reception, though it might justly be made the 
 ground of examining very narrowly the foundations upon 
 which the doctrine itself rested. 
 
 Mr. Stewart, in a valuable and learned note to the 
 " Philosophy of the Human Mind," (vol i., note D,) 
 has brought together the authorities, which have all 
 more or less not only countenanced, but even forestalled 
 Mr. Hume in his position that we know nothing of cau- 
 sation except by observing a constant junction between 
 two events or two facts. This is unquestionably true. 
 We expect that heat being applied to combustible bo- 
 dies, they will take fire ; and that air being excluded 
 they will cease to bum. We expect this, because be- 
 tween the application of heat and the ignition of the 
 heated body, between the exclusion of air and the ex- 
 tinction of the fire, we have constantly observed the 
 relation of sequence the one event being always fol- 
 lowed closely by the other. The inference which 
 forms the ground of this expectation, forms the ground 
 of our belief that the one event occasions the other 
 that there is between the two a connexion beyond the 
 mere relation of junction and sequence and that the 
 one, the preceding event, exerts an influence, a force, a 
 power, over the other, and produces the other. 
 
 This constant conjunction, therefore, in point of fact, 
 is the ground of our belief, and is the origin of our ideas 
 of causality or causation. So far we must admit the 
 doctrine in question. That it is the only ground of the
 
 229 
 
 belief, and the only origin of the idea, may admit of some 
 doubt. This is the point on which turns the connexion 
 between the science of Natural Theology and the contro- 
 versy we are now referring to ; and therefore it deserves 
 some consideration in the present note. 
 
 1. The mere constant and unvarying succession of two 
 events would not of itself be sufficient to make us, even 
 in popular language, denominate the one a cause of the 
 other. Light uniformly succeeds dark one o'clock 
 always follows twelve ; but no man ever thought of call- 
 ing or of deeming night to be the cause of day, or noon 
 of afternoon*. Another and a very important experiment 
 or observation is required before we pronounce the suc- 
 cessive or conjoined events to be related one to the other 
 as cause and effect. Not only must the second event 
 always have been found to follow the first, but the 
 second must never have been observed without the first 
 preceding it, or at least without some other event pre- 
 ceding it in which case the causation is predicated 
 alike of both those preceding events. Thus, the clock 
 pointing to one is not reckoned the effect of its having 
 previously pointed to twelve; but it is reckoned the 
 effect of a certain mechanism, namely, a spring un- 
 folding itself, because if the spring is prevented from 
 relaxing, the hand no longer points ; and so it is also 
 
 * Mr. Stewart's observation, that day follows night as much as 
 night follows day, makes no difference in this illustration : for we 
 may suppose the case of a person seeing day for the first time, or 
 twelve o'clock for the first time, and the conclusion in the text 
 would still hold good.
 
 230 NOTES. 
 
 reckoned the effect of a weight pulling a cord, because, 
 when that weight is stopped in its descent, the whole 
 machinery stops. 
 
 2. But we derive not our notion of causality from even 
 this double proof the positive and negative combined 
 the two observations that one event always follows the 
 other, and that it ceases when the other ceases. This 
 of itself would only tell us the fact, that when one event 
 exists the other exists immediately afterwards and not 
 otherwise. Our minds form, whether we will or no, 
 another idea not merely that of constant connexion or 
 succession, but of the one exerting a power over the other 
 by an inherent force ; and this is the idea of causation. 
 Whence do we derive it ? I apprehend only from our 
 consciousness. We feel that we have a will and a power 
 that we can move a limb, and affect by our own 
 powers, excited after our own volition, a change upon 
 external objects. Now from this consciousness we derive 
 the idea of power, and we transfer this idea and the rela- 
 tion on which it is founded between our own will and the 
 change produced, to the relations between events wholly 
 external to ourselves assuming them to be connected, 
 as we feel our volition and our movements are mutually 
 connected. 
 
 If it be said that this idea by no means involves that 
 of necessary connexion, nothing can be more certain. 
 The whole is a question of fact of contingent truth. 
 Just as the world might be so constituted that heat ap- 
 plied should not ignite, nor air excluded extinguish 
 so might our volition cease to make our limbs move, as it
 
 231 
 
 does cease in paralysis. As it is, and because our will has 
 hitherto had the power to move our limbs, we have ac- 
 quired the idea of power and of causation. But if it had 
 always been otherwise, and that no connexion of succes- 
 sion had ever existed between our volition and our 
 movements, I do not see how the idea of power or caus- 
 ality could ever have been obtained by us from any 
 observation of the sequence of events. The idea of 
 design or contrivance, in like manner, must have been 
 wanting to us ; and hence, I cannot understand how, 
 but for the consciousness of power, we could ever have 
 been led to the belief in the existence of a First Cause. 
 This is another, and, to my mind, a very strong, addi- 
 tional reason for resting the evidences of Natural Theo- 
 logy upon the argument a posteriori alone. 
 
 That they are greatly in error who confound, as has 
 been too common, causation with necessary connexion, 
 and who deny the existence of the relation of causality 
 merely because the relation is contingent and not neces- 
 sary, is sufficiently manifest. Our ideas of power and of 
 causation are solid and well founded, although they only 
 refer to a power or a causation which may or may not 
 exist. That one event causes another may be a propo- 
 sition quite true, to which we affix a precise and definite 
 meaning, and which we have learnt from observation 
 and from consciousness, although the order of nature 
 might easily have been so constituted as that the two 
 events should never have been found in sequence. At 
 present the order of nature connects them, and we affirm 
 that there exists the relation of cause and effect a rela-
 
 232 NOTES. 
 
 tion contingent, however, and not necessary. Of neces- 
 sary causation we can by no possibility know any things 
 but causation may be real enough though contingent. 
 
 NOTE IV. PAGE 57, 107. 
 
 Of the " Systeme de la Nature" and the Plypothesis 
 of Materialism. 
 
 THERE is no book of an atheistical description which 
 has ever made a greater impression than the famous 
 Systeme de la Nature. It bears the impression of Lon- 
 don, 1780, but was manifestly printed in France; also, 
 it purports to be written by Mirabaud, secretary of the 
 Academic FranQaise; and in a prefatory advertisement 
 by the supposed editor, who pronounces a great panegyric 
 upon the work, enough appears to engender doubts of 
 Mirabaud having been its author. He died in 1760; 
 and it was twenty years before the work appeared 
 found, says the writer, among a collection of manuscripts 
 made by a " savant curieux de rassembler des pro- 
 ductions de ce genre." Robinet, the author of another 
 work of similar tendency, called De la Nature, has been 
 at different times said to be its author, without any proof, 
 or indeed probability; but the general opinion now 
 ascribes it to the Baron d'Holbach, aided, in all pro- 
 bability, by Diderot, Helvetius, and other members of 
 the freethinking society, who frequented the Baron's
 
 233 
 
 house, and who used to complain of Voltaire's excess of 
 religious principle, not unfrequently ridiculing him for 
 his fanaticism. Mirabaud, upon whom this publication 
 most unjustifiably charges the book, by placirfg his name 
 in the title-page without any doubt expressed, and 
 reserving the doubts for the preface, was a man of unim- 
 peachable integrity and amiable disposition. He had 
 been educated in the College of the Jesuits, and afterwards 
 was preceptor to some branches of the royal family; he 
 died at the age of eighty-five, universally esteemed for 
 his unblemished character, his strict probity, and his 
 attractive manners. The Diderots and Grimms, though 
 not perhaps persons of abandoned life, were very far 
 from attaining such praise : indeed, the licentious works 
 that proceeded from Diderot's pen attest his deficiency, 
 at least, in one branch of morals. 
 
 It is impossible to deny the merits of the Systeme 
 de la Nature. The work of a great writer it unques- 
 tionably is ; but its merit lies in the extraordinary elo- 
 quence of the composition, and the skill with which 
 words substituted for ideas, and assumptions for proofs, 
 are made to pass current, not only for arguments against 
 existing beliefs, but for a new system planted in their 
 stead. As a piece of reasoning, it never rises above a 
 set of plausible sophisms plausible only as long as the 
 ear of the reader being filled with sounds, his attention 
 is directed away from the sense. The chief resource of 
 the writer is to take for granted the thing to be proved, 
 and then to refer back to his assumption as a step in the 
 demonstration, while he builds various conclusions upon
 
 234 NOTES. 
 
 it, as if it were complete. Then he declaims against a 
 doctrine seen from one point of view only, and erects 
 another for our assent, which, besides being liable to the 
 very same objections, has also no foundation whatever to 
 rest upon. The grand secret, indeed, of the author goes 
 even further in petitione principii than this; for we 
 oftentimes find, that in the very substitute which he has 
 provided for the notions of belief he would destroy, there 
 lurks the very idea which he is combating, and that his 
 idol is our own faith in a new form, but masked under 
 different words and phrases. 
 
 The truth of these statements we are now to examine ; 
 but first it may be fitting to state why so much atten- 
 tion is bestowed upon this work. The reason is, that its 
 bold character has imposed on multitudes of readers, 
 seducing some by its tone of confidence, but intimidating 
 others by its extreme audacity. It is the only* work of 
 any consideration wherein atheism is openly avowed and 
 preached avowed, indeed, and preached in terms. 
 (See, particularly, part ii., chap, ii.) This effect of its 
 hardihood was certainly anticipated by its author ; for 
 the supposed editor, in his advertisement, describes it, 
 somewhat complacently, if not boastingly, as " Pouvrage 
 le plus hardi et le plus extraordinaire que 1'esprit humain 
 ait ose produire jusqu'a present." 
 
 The grand object of the book being to show that there 
 is no God, the author begins by endeavouring to esta- 
 
 * The treatise of Robinet, De la Nature, which, though far less 
 eloquent and dexterous, is superior in real merit, has never attracted 
 anything like the same notice.
 
 NOTES. 235 
 
 blish the most rigorous materialism, by trying to show 
 that there is no such thing as mind nothing beyond or 
 different from the material world. His whole fabric is 
 built on this foundation ; and it would be difficult to find 
 in the history of metaphysical controversies such incon- 
 clusive reasoning, and such undisguised assumptions of 
 the matter in dispute as this fundamental part of his 
 system is composed of. He begins with asserting that 
 man has no means of carrying his mind beyond the 
 visible world ; that he is necessarily confined within its 
 limits; and that there exists nothing, and there can 
 exist nothing, beyond the boundary which incloses all 
 beings that is, the material world. Nature, we are 
 told, acts according to laws, simple, uniform, invariable, 
 which we discover by experience. We are related to 
 Universal Nature by our senses, which alone enable us 
 to discover her secrets ; and the instant we abandon the 
 lessons which those senses teach us, we plunge into an 
 abyss where we become the prey of imagination. 
 
 Thus the very first chapter the opening of the work 
 has already made the gratuitous assumption of a being 
 whom the author calls Nature, without either defining 
 what that is, or how we arrive at a knowledge of its ex- 
 istence. He has also assumed another existence, that 
 of matter, or the material world ; and then he asserts 
 what is absolutely contrary to every day's experience, 
 and to the first rudiments of science that we know, and 
 can know, nothing but what our senses tell us. It is a 
 sufficient answer to ask, how we know anything of ma- 
 thematical truth ? And in case a cavil should arise upon
 
 236 NOTES, 
 
 geometrical science (though it would be but a cavil) we 
 shall speak only of analytical ; and then it is certain 
 that the whole science of numbers, from the rules of ele- 
 mentary arithmetic up to the highest branches of the 
 modern calculus, could by possibility have* been disco- 
 vered by a person who had never in his life been out of 
 a dark room who had never touched any body but his 
 own nay, whose limbs had all his life been so fixed, 
 that he had never exercised even upon his own body the 
 sense of touch : indeed, we might even go so far as to 
 say, who had never heard a sound uttered ; for the primi- 
 tive ideas of number might by possibility have suggested 
 themselves to his mind, and been made the grounds of 
 all further calculations. What becomes now of all our 
 knowledge depending on the senses ? But we need not 
 go to so extreme a case as the one just put : there would 
 be an end of the position we are dealing with, if a 
 person so circumstanced could have discovered any one 
 analytical or common arithmetical truth. Enough, in- 
 deed, is known to every one, how moderately soever im- 
 bued with mathematical learning, to satisfy him how 
 little the intimations received from the senses have, or 
 can have, to do with the whole science of number and 
 quantity. That those intimations of the senses are 
 themselves not at all of a material nature, we shall pre- 
 sently see. 
 
 After many discussions and much eloquence, in the 
 course of which various agents are introduced besides 
 Nature, as Necessity, Relation, and so forth, without 
 definition of their qualities or proof of their existence,
 
 NOTES. 237 
 
 we come to the great demonstration that no soul, no 
 mind, nothing separate from the body and from matter, 
 exists, or indeed can exist : for this book is not content 
 with scepticism ; it rests not even satisfied with disproof : 
 it affects to show the impossibility of the doctrines which 
 it combats; and while perpetually complaining of dog- 
 mas, it is perhaps the most dogmatical work that was 
 ever written. The sixth and seventh chapters, but the 
 seventh especially, treat of ftiis fundamental doctrine 
 the corner-stone of the whole building. The argument 
 is, in fact, a mere vague and unintelligible combination 
 of words, as when the author concludes by saying, The 
 result of the whole is, that " the soul, far from being 
 anything distinguishable from the body, is only the body 
 itself regarded relatively to some of its functions, or to 
 some of the manners of acting or of being, whereof it is 
 capable as long as it enjoys life " (n'est que ce corps 
 lui meme envisage relativement a quelqu'unes de ses fonc- 
 tions ou a quelques facons d'etre et d'agir dont il est 
 susceptible tant qu'il jouit de la vie.) Or when he 
 describes those faculties which are vulgarly called intel- 
 lectual, as modes or manners of being and of acting, 
 which result from the organization of the body (les 
 facultes que Ton nomme intellectuelles ne sont que des 
 modes ou des facons d'etre et d'agir resultant de 1'orga- 
 nisation de notre corps.) Part i. chap. viii. 
 
 But there is still more to be remarked throughout the 
 Treatise, an inconceivable forgetfulness of the evidence 
 on which each party in the controversy most relies, a con- 
 stant assumption of the thing in question, and even an
 
 238 
 
 involuntary assumption of that very separate and spi- 
 ritual existence which it is the author's object to dis- 
 prove. 
 
 Like all materialists, but far more grossly and dog- 
 matically than almost any other, the author begins by 
 assuming that Matter exists, that we can have no 
 doubt whatever of this, and that any other existence is 
 a thing to be proved. Now, what is this Matter? 
 Whence do we derive any knowledge of it ? How do 
 we assure ourselves of its existence ? What evidence 
 at all have we respecting either its being or its quali- 
 ties? We feel, or taste, or smell something that is, 
 we have certain sensations which make us conclude 
 that something exists beyond ourselves. It will not do 
 to say beyond our bodies; for our bodies themselves 
 give us the same sensations. What we feel is some- 
 thing beyond, or out of, or external to, or other than and 
 apart from ourselves that is, from our minds. Our 
 sensations give us the intimation of such existences. 
 But what are our sensations ? The feelings or thoughts 
 of our minds. Then what we do is this : From certain 
 ideas in our minds, produced no doubt by, and con- 
 nected with our bodily senses, but independent of, and 
 separate from them, we draw certain conclusions by 
 reasoning, and those conclusions are in favour of the 
 existence of something other than our sensations and 
 our reasonings, and other than that which experiences 
 the sensations and makes the reasonings passive in 
 the one case active in the other. That something is 
 what we call Mind. But plainly, whatever it is, we
 
 NOTES. 239 
 
 owe to it the knowledge that Matter exists : for that 
 knowledge is gained by means of a sensation or feeling, 
 followed by a process of reasoning ; it is gained by the 
 mind having first suffered something, and then done 
 something, and, therefore, to say there is no such thing 
 as Matter would be a much less absurd inference than 
 to say there is no such thing as Mind. The very act 
 of inferring, as we do by reasoning, that the object 
 which affects our senses exists apart from ourselves, is 
 wholly incapable of giving us any knowledge of the 
 object's existence without, at the same time, giving us 
 a knowledge of our own that is, of the Mind's exist- 
 ence. An external implies necessarily an internal ; 
 that there may be anything beyond or without, there 
 must needs be some other thing beyond or without 
 which it is said to exist ; that there may be a body 
 which we feel abiding separate from us, namely, our 
 own body, one part of which gives us sensations through 
 another part there must be a we, an us that is, a 
 mind. If, as the Systeme de la Nature often contends, 
 we have a right to call spirit, or soul, or Mind, a mere 
 negation of the qualities of Matter, surely this might 
 just as well be retorted by saying, that Matter is only a 
 negation of the qualities of Mind. But, in truth, the 
 materialists cannot stir one step without the aid of that 
 Mind whose existence they deny. 
 
 Then what are those qualities of Matter they are 
 always speaking about ? What but the effects, or the 
 power of causing those effects produced by Matter upon 
 the Mind through the senses ? A remarkable instance,
 
 240 
 
 and a very instructive one, of the impossibility of a 
 materialist arguing legitimately, strictly, or consistently, 
 is to be found in the passage of this book, where the 
 argument is as it were summed up against the exist- 
 ence of mind : " La matiere seule peut agir sur nos 
 sens sans lesquels il nous est impossible que rien se 
 fasse connoitre de nous."" Here the author, in order to 
 deny the possibility of Mind, or any thing else than 
 Matter having an existence, uses, in two lines, ex- 
 pressions, six times over, all drawn from the assump- 
 tion of a something existing separate from and inde- 
 pendent of Matter. Our senses which us 
 known by us all these are words absolutely without 
 meaning if there is nothing but matter in existence; 
 and these are expressions conveying the ideas of which 
 this fundamental proposition wholly consists. But 
 that the author refers to Bishop Berkeley, as well as 
 Mr. Locke, it might have been supposed that he had 
 never been made aware of the controversy upon the 
 existence of matter. Indeed the manner in which he 
 mentions the speculations of Berkeley is quite sufficient 
 to show his ignorance of the nature of the question, and 
 reminds us forcibly of the remark made by D'Alembert, 
 that whoever had not at times doubted the existence of 
 matter, might be assured he had not any genius for 
 metaphysical inquiries. Would any one believe it pos- 
 sible, that an author who could dogmatically deny the 
 possibility of Mind existing in any form apart from 
 Matter, should be so little competent to discuss ques- 
 tions like this, as to speak in these terms of Berkeley ?
 
 NOTES. 24 L 
 
 " Que disons nous d'un Berkley qui s'efForce de nous 
 prouver que tout dans ce monde n'est qu'une illusion chi- 
 merique; que 1'univers entier n'existe que dans nous- 
 m6mes, et dans notre imagination," &c. " Pour 
 justifier des opinions si monstrueuses," &c. 
 
 The truth is, that we believe in the existence of 
 Matter, because we cannot help it. The inferences of 
 our reason from our sensations impel us to this conclu- 
 sion, and the steps are few and short by which we 
 reach it. But the steps are fewer and shorter, and of 
 the self-same nature, which lead us to believe in the 
 existence of Mind; for of that we have the evidence 
 within ourselves, and wholly independent of our senses. 
 Nor can we ever draw the inference in any one instance 
 of the existence of matter without at the same time 
 exhibiting a proof of the existence of mind; for we are, 
 by the supposition, reasoning, inferring, drawing a con- 
 clusion, forming a belief; therefore there exists some- 
 body, or something, to reason, to infer, to conclude, to 
 believe; that is, we not any fraction of matter, but a 
 reasoning, inferring, believing being in other words, a 
 Mind. In this sense the celebrated argument of Des- 
 cartes cogilo, ergo sum had a correct and a profound 
 meaning. If, then, scepticism can have any place in 
 o\ir system, assuredly it relates to the existence of 
 Matter far more than of Mind ; yet the Si/steme de la 
 Nature is entirely founded upon the existence of Matter 
 being a self-evident truth, admitting of no proof, and 
 standing in need of none. 
 
 We have combated the main body of the argument 
 
 M
 
 242 NOTES. 
 
 which runs through the whole book, and passed over 
 some of the gross errors, apparently proceeding from 
 ignorance of physical science, in which it abounds. Of 
 these the most notable, no doubt, is that which Voltaire, 
 in his Essai sur le Systeme de la Nature, considers 
 (chap, i.) as the foundation of the whole theory the 
 absurd passage respecting the formation of eels. Certain 
 it is, that in the Second chapter of Part I., the experi- 
 ment of moistening flour, and thereby producing live 
 microscopic insects, is referred to as a proof that " in- 
 animate matter can pass into life," " which," adds the 
 book, " is itself but the union of notions." No one 
 indeed can accuse Voltaire of taking an unfair advan- 
 tage when he relies on this piece of extraordinary igno- 
 rance; but it is not altogether just to represent the 
 whole book as resting on this blunder. 
 
 As for the kind of comparisons or analogies by which, 
 like all materialists, this writer tries to illustrate his 
 hypothesis, and by which many materialists really are 
 deceived the mechanism of a watch, for example, 
 consisting of parts each separately incapable of pro- 
 ducing any result, but altogether forming a moving 
 instrument that measures the efflux of time nothing, 
 surely, can be more puerile than the attempt to draw 
 from thence an argument in favour of the confused, 
 and, when examined closely, unintelligible position that 
 Mind is a modification of Matter, or the result of a 
 collocation of material particles. For the watch is 
 material, doubtless, both in its whole and in each part 
 separately ; the combination never produces any effect
 
 JS-OTES. 243 
 
 that is not strictly of a material kind ; the motions and 
 the registration of time resulting from them are all as 
 purely mechanical as the form of each part, and each 
 part has in it every quality and incident in kind which 
 the whole possesses. The difference in the case of 
 Mind is, that we have something wholly of a new and 
 peculiar kind, and in no respect resembling or belonging 
 to the same class with any of the exertions or operations 
 of the material parts, the combination of which is alleged 
 by the materialist to have given it birth. 
 
 The first part having laid the foundation by dis- 
 proving the existence of Mind, the second part of the 
 " Systeme " proceeds to raise upon it the conclusion 
 that the Deity's existence is impossible. This part is 
 much more declamatory than the former, though often 
 displaying great powers of eloquence, and reminding 
 us of the more striking parts of Rousseau's early 
 writings, especially his paradoxes against knowledge, 
 perhaps in a more choice style, and with colouring 
 more subdued. But reasoning it contains absolutely 
 none, with the exception of the Fourth chapter, where 
 Dr. S. Clarke's argument a priori is dissected and re- 
 futed a task, unfortunately, not very difficult to accom- 
 plish, though it is here done in an illegitimate manner. 
 We cannot, however, fail to observe, that while the 
 author proposes to go through the arguments of the 
 various philosophers who have maintained the existence 
 of a Deity ; and while he does remark on Descartes, 
 Malebranche, Newton, and Clarke, (in a chapter which 
 forms by far the most argumentative part of his book,) he 
 
 M2
 
 244 NOTES. 
 
 never approaches those who have treated the question 
 by the argument a posteriori. In one place (chap, vii.) 
 he refers to Final Causes, but this passage only relates to 
 the subject of man's superiority and the arguments of the 
 optimists, and does not at all touch upon the evidences of 
 design derived from the structure of the universe the 
 great foundation of Natural Theology. It is impossible 
 to suppose the author ignorant of the argument a pos- 
 teriori, for he in one place refers to Derham by name. 
 The omission of all reference to the most important 
 branch of the subject is one of the things that most 
 bring the good faith of this writer into question. 
 
 The purpose of this note having been to show how the 
 atheistical argument grounded on materialism fails when 
 examined in its connexion with the evidences of the 
 Mind's independent existence, to pursue further the 
 Second Part of the work is unnecessary. But a few 
 remarks are added to show how exactly the same as- 
 sumption of the things to be proved prevails here which 
 we observed in the First Part. 
 
 The first proposition, and supported at great length, is 
 that all the ideas which man has formed of a First Cause 
 have resulted from the evils of his lot, and that but for 
 human suffering a Deity would never have been thought 
 of. "Inquiry and speculation," says the author, "is 
 itself an evil; and no creature living easy and happy, 
 without pain and without wants, would ever give himself 
 the trouble and annoyance of arguing on a First Cause. 
 But fear and evil, especially pain and death the terrors 
 of earthquake, eclipse, tempest the horrors of death -
 
 NOTES. 245 
 
 drove the mind to seek out the source of all these dan- 
 gers, and to appease or disarm its supposed wrath ; and 
 thus the sky was peopled with gods and spirits." 
 
 Now, that the fears and the ignorance of men have 
 been the fruitful source of polytheism, no one doubts ; 
 but it is wholly false to assert that genuine and philoso- 
 phical religion could have had no other origin. To 
 affirm that, but for their sufferings and fears, men never 
 would have encountered the pain or the trouble of 
 speculating on a First Cause, is quite contrary to the 
 most obvious facts. Those speculations, far from being 
 painful or troublesome, are gratifying in the highest 
 degree. As well might it be said that all the pleasures 
 of scientific discovery and study would have been fore- 
 gone by all men, but for some physical inconvenience 
 that drove them into those paths of investigation. Of all 
 writers, the authors of the great improvements in phy- 
 sical science are they who have been the least under the 
 pressure of want, and have gained the least by their 
 labours. But such speculations are productive of the 
 greatest gratification, both to the guide who originally 
 points out the way, and to those who more humbly follow 
 in his footsteps. So the sublime contemplations of 
 Natural Theology have engaged men's attention and 
 exercised their faculties, wholly independent of any 
 sufferings they were exposed to, or any fears they enter- 
 tained ; and far from being a source of pain, this study 
 has ever been found to reward its votaries with the purest 
 enjoyment. 
 
 That the study and the knowledge of a Deity would
 
 246 NOTES. 
 
 have existed without any relation to evil is therefore 
 clear. Man's curiosity his natural desire of tracing 
 the origin of what he saw around him his anxiety to 
 know whence he came, and whither he was going, and 
 how the frame of the universe was contrived and sus- 
 tained would have led to the study and knowledge of a 
 Creator without any such motives as this book supposes. 
 
 It is remarkable, that in the latter, as in the former 
 portion of the work, blind assumptions are not only 
 always made, but an entire disregard is shown to the 
 evidence which often arises out of those very as- 
 sumptions, and proves the truths its author is endea- 
 vouring to subvert. Thus, in the Second chapter, he 
 says : " Whether the human race has always existed on 
 this earth, or that it is a recent and transitory production 
 of nature... ." Now, if it be a recent production of 
 nature, surely this admits the creative power the very 
 divinity the book is contending against ; for what can 
 be the meaning of a state of things, in which, v,p to a 
 certain time i.e. six or seven thousand years ago the 
 human species had no existence, and then this species 
 coming into existence, or, as the book says, being pro- 
 duced by nature ? What but that a superintending 
 power, which had not before acted in this way, now for 
 the first time began thus to act ? To call this Nature is 
 only changing the name a Deity is the plain and the 
 true meaning, and the only thing which can be meant. 
 
 Indeed, nothing can be more absurd and unreflecting 
 than the play made throughout the book with mere 
 words. Thus, in the same chapter, it is asked whether
 
 KOTES. 247 
 
 a Theologian " can really be sincere in believing himself 
 to have made a step by substituting the vague \vprds 
 spirit, incorporeal substance, divinity, &c., for those in- 
 telligible -words" what ? what words so much less vague 
 and more intelligible* than spirit ? " those intelligible 
 words, matter, nature, mobility, necessity ! " Now, we 
 may safely ask, if all language furnishes two words more 
 vague and less intelligible than two out of these four 
 viz. nature and necessity ? But we have, in truth, already 
 shown that Matter, as far as the present controversy is 
 concerned, offers no more precise idea to our contempla- 
 tion than Mind or spirit, and that its existence and qua- 
 lities rest on less conclusive evidence than do those of 
 Mind. Possibly the reader of this passage, and espe- 
 cially if he casts his eye back upon the former parts of 
 the argument, may be inclined to adopt the writer's de- 
 scription of Theology, and apply it to the dogmatical 
 Atheism of the Systeme de la Nature. 
 
 * There occurs every where in this book a vague and mysterious 
 idea of a force or living power belonging to Matter, and almost a 
 deification of this power, utterly unintelligible ; but in a hater of 
 Deity a derider of all gods quite marvellous. The passage in 
 which this idea is most strikingly announced is the llth chapter 
 of part ii., where he is answering the position that there is no such 
 thing as an Atheist in the world " Si par Athee 1'ou designe un 
 homme qui nieroit 1'existence d'une force inhtrente a la nature et 
 sans laquelle Ton ne peut concevoir la Nature, et si c'est 3. cette 
 force motive qu'on donne le nom de Dieu,\\ u'existe point d' Athens 
 et le mot sous lequel on les designe, n'annonceroit que des fous." 
 Can any one doubt, that after rejecting all reasonable and con- 
 sistent notions of a Deity, this writer had really made unto himself 
 other gods, and bowed down before them, and worshipped them ? 
 For what is " the force inherent in matter ?" and what is " nature," 
 and the essence of nature, or that thing " without which nature 
 cannot be conceived?"
 
 248 NOTES. 
 
 NOTE V. PAGE 211. 
 
 Of Mr. Hume's Sceptical Writings, and the Argument 
 respecting Providence. 
 
 The two most celebrated and most dangerous treatises 
 of this great author, upon religious subjects, are those in 
 which he has attacked the foundations of Natural and of 
 Revealed Religion the Essay on Providence and cb 
 Future State, and the Essay on Miracles. Others of 
 his writings have a similar tendency, and more covertly 
 though as surely sap the principles of religion. But the 
 two essays to which we have referred are the most im- 
 portant writings of this eminent philosopher, because 
 they bring his sceptical opinions more diectly to bear 
 upon the systems of actual belief. 
 
 I. The argument of Tillotson against the doctrine 
 of the Real Presence is stated to have suggested that 
 against the truth, or rather the possibility of Miracles ; 
 but there is this most material difference between the 
 two questions that they who assert the Real Presence 
 drive us to admit a proposition contrary to the evidence 
 of our senses, upon a subject respecting which the senses 
 alone can decide, and to admit it by the force of reason- 
 ings ultimately drawn from the senses reasonings far 
 more likely to deceive than they, because applicable to 
 a matter not so well fitted for argument as for perception, 
 but reasonings at any rate incapable of exceeding the evi- 
 dence the senses give. Nothing, therefore, can be more 
 conclusive than Tillotson's argument that against the
 
 NOTES. 249 
 
 Real Presence we have of necessity every argument, and 
 of the selfsame kind with those which it purports to rest 
 upon, and a good deal more besides ; for if we must not 
 believe our senses when they tell us that a piece of bread 
 is merely bread, what right have we to believe those same 
 senses, when they convey to us the words in which the 
 arguments of the Fathers are couched, or the quotations 
 from Scripture itself, to make us suppose the bread 
 is not bread, but flesh ? And as ultimately even the 
 testimony of a witness who should tell us that he had 
 heard an apostle or the Deity himself affirm the Real 
 Presence, must resolve itself into the evidence of that 
 witness's senses, what possible ground can we have for 
 believing that he heard the divine affirmation, stronger 
 than the evidence which our own senses plainly give us 
 to the contrary ? 
 
 This is very far from being the case with the argu- 
 ment on Miracles. There, the evidence for and the evi- 
 dence against do not coincide in kind, but take opposite 
 directions. There, we have not to disbelieve indications 
 of the same nature with those upon which our belief is 
 challenged. The testimony of witnesses is adduced to. 
 prove a Miracle, or deviation from the ordinary laws of 
 nature ; but, says Mr. Hume, it is more likely that the 
 witnesses should be deceived or should deceive, than that 
 the laws of nature should be broken ; and at all events 
 we believe testimony only because it is a law of nature 
 that men should tell the truth. This may very possibly 
 be true ; doubtless it is, generally speaking, so likely to be 
 true, that the belief of a miracle is, and ought to be, most 
 
 M3
 
 250 
 
 difficult to bring about ; but at least, it is not like the 
 belief in the Real Presence : it does not at one and the 
 same time assume the accuracy of the indications given 
 by our senses, and set that accuracy at nought ; it does 
 not at once desire us implicitly to trust, and entirely to 
 disregard the evidence of testimony, as the doctrine of 
 Transubstantiation calls upon us at once to trust and 
 disregard the evidence of our senses. 
 
 There are two answers, however, to which the doctrine 
 proposed by Mr. Hume is exposed, and either appears 
 sufficient to shake it. 
 
 First Our belief in the uniformity of the laws of 
 nature rests not altogether upon our own experience. 
 We believe no man ever was raised from the dead not 
 merely because we ourselves never saw it, for indeed that 
 would be a very limited ground of deduction ; and our 
 belief was fixed on the subject long before we had any 
 considerable experience fixed chiefly by authority 
 that is, by deference to other men's experience. We 
 found our confident belief in this negative position partly, 
 perhaps chiefly, upon the testimony of others ; and at all 
 events, our belief that in times before our own the same 
 position held good, must of necessity be drawn from our 
 trusting the relations of other men that is, it depends 
 upon the evidence of testimony. If, then, the existence 
 of the law of nature is proved, in great part at least, by 
 such evidence, can we wholly reject the like evidence 
 when it comes to prove an exception to the rule a de- 
 viation from the law ? The more numerous are the 
 cases of the law being kept the more rare those of its
 
 NOTES. 251 
 
 being broken the more scrupulous certainly ought we 
 to be in admitting the proofs of the breach. But that 
 testimony is capable of making good the proof there 
 seems no doubt. In truth, the degree of excellence and 
 of strength to which testimony may rise seems almost 
 indefinite. There is hardly any cogency which it is not 
 capable by possible supposition of attaining. The end- 
 less multiplication of witnesses the unbounded variety 
 of their habits of thinking, their prejudices, their inte- 
 rests afford the means of conceiving the force of their 
 testimony augmented ad infinitum, because these cir- 
 cumstances afford the means of diminishing indefinitely 
 the chances of their being all mistaken, all misled, or all 
 combining to deceive us. Let any man try to calculate 
 the chances of a thousand persons who come from dif- 
 ferent quarters, and never saw each other before, and 
 who all vary in their habits, stations, opinions, interests 
 being mistaken or combining to deceive us, when they 
 give the same account of an event as having happened 
 before their eyes these chances are many hundreds of 
 thousands to one. And yet we can conceive them multi- 
 plied indefinitely ; for one hundred thousand such wit- 
 nesses may all in like manner bear the same testimony ; 
 and they may all tell us their story within twenty-four 
 hours after the transaction, and in the next parish. 
 And yet, according to Mr. Hume's argument, we are 
 bound to disbelieve them all, because they speak to a 
 thing contrary to our own experience, and to the accounts 
 which other witnesses had formerly given us of the laws 
 of nature, and which our forefathers had handed down to
 
 252 NOTES. 
 
 us as derived from witnesses who lived in the old time 
 before them. It is unnecessary to add that no testimony 
 of the witnesses whom we are supposing to concur in their 
 relation contradicts any testimony of our own senses. If 
 it did, the argument would resemble Archbishop Tillot- 
 son's upon the real presence, and our disbelief w r ould be 
 at once warranted.* 
 
 Secondly This leads us to the next objection to which 
 Mr. Hume's argument is liable, and which we have in 
 part anticipated while illustrating the first. He requires 
 us to withhold our belief in circumstances which would 
 force every man of common understanding to lend his 
 assent, and to act upon the supposition of the story told 
 being true. For suppose either such numbers of various 
 witnesses as we have spoken of; or, what is perhaps 
 stronger, suppose a miracle reported to us, first by a 
 
 * Prophecy is classed by Mr. Hume under the same head with 
 Miracle every prophecy being, he says, a miracle. This is not, 
 however, quite correct. A prophecy that is, the happening of an 
 event which was foretold may be proved even by the evidence of 
 the senses of the whole world. Suppose it had one thousand years 
 ago been foretold, that, on a certain day this year, one person of 
 every family in the world should be seized with a particular distem- 
 per, it is evident that every family would be at once certain that the 
 event had happened, and that it had been foretold. To future gene- 
 rations the fulfilment would no doubt come within the description 
 of a miracle in all respects. The truth is, that the event happening; 
 which was foretold may be compared to the miracle ; and Mr. 
 Hume's argument will then be, not that there is any thing mira- 
 culous in the event itself, but only in its happening after it had 
 been foretold. Bishop Sherlock wrote discourses on this subject, 
 which Dr. Middleton answered : the former denying that prophecy 
 was more exempt from the scope of the sceptical argument than 
 miracles. On the whole, however, it does seem more exempt.
 
 NOTES. 253 
 
 number of relators, and then by three or four of the 
 very soundest judges and most incorruptibly honest men 
 we know men noted for their difficult belief of won- 
 ders, and, above all, steady unbelievers in Miracles, 
 without any bias in favour of religion, but rather accus- 
 tomed to doubt, if not disbelieve most people would 
 lend an easy belief to any Miracle thus vouched. But let 
 us add this circumstance, that a friend on his death-bed 
 had been attended by us, and that we had told him a 
 fact known only to ourselves something that we had 
 secretly done the very moment before we told it to the 
 dying man, and which to no other being we had ever 
 revealed and that the credible witnesses we are sup- 
 posing inform us that the deceased appeared to them, 
 conversed with them, remained with them a day or two, 
 accompanying them, and to avouch the fact of his re- 
 appearance on this earth, communicated to them the 
 secret of which we had made him the sole depository the 
 moment before his death; according to Mr. Hume, we 
 are bound rather to believe, not only that those credible 
 witnesses deceive us, or that those sound and unpreju- 
 diced men were themselves deceived, and fancied things 
 without real existence, but further, that they all hit by 
 chance upon the discovery of a real secret, known only 
 to ourselves and the dead man. Mr. Hume's argument 
 requires us to believe this as the lesser improbability of 
 the two as less unlikely than the rising of one from 
 the dead ; and yet every one must feel convinced, that 
 were he placed in the situation we have been, figuring, 
 he would not only lend his belief to the relation, but, if
 
 254 NOTES. 
 
 the relators accompanied it with a special warning from 
 the deceased person to avoid a certain contemplated 
 act, he would, acting upon the belief of their story, take 
 the warning, and avoid doing the forbidden deed. Mr. 
 Hume's argument makes no exception. This is its 
 scope ; and whether he chooses to push it thus far or 
 no, all Miracles are of necessity denied by it, without 
 the least regard to the kind or the quantity of the proof 
 on which they are rested; and the testimony which 
 we have supposed, accompanied by the test or check 
 we have supposed, would fall within the grasp of the 
 argument just as much and as clearly as any other 
 Miracle avouched by more ordinary combinations of 
 evidence. 
 
 The use of Mr. Hume's argument is this, and it is 
 an important and a valuable one. It teaches us to sift 
 closely and rigorously the evidence for miraculous 
 events. It bids us remember that the probabilities are 
 always, and must always be, incomparably greater 
 against than for the truth of these relations, because 
 it is always far more likely that the testimony should be 
 mistaken or false, than that the general laws of nature 
 should be suspended. Further than this the doctrine 
 cannot in soundness of reason be carried. It does not 
 go the length of proving that those general laws cannot, 
 by the force of human testimony, be shown to have 
 been, in a particular instance, and with a particular 
 purpose, suspended. 
 
 It is unnecessary to add, that the argument here has 
 only been conducted to one point, and upon one ground
 
 NOTES. 255 
 
 namely, to refute the doctrine that a Miracle cannot 
 be proved by any evidence of testimony. It is for those 
 who maintain the truth of any revelation to show in 
 what manner the evidence suffices to prove the Miracles 
 on which that revelation rests. This treatise is not 
 directed to that object ; but in commenting upon Mr. 
 Hume's celebrated argument, we have dealt with a fun- 
 damental objection to all Revelation, and one which, 
 until removed, precludes the possibility of any such 
 system being established. 
 
 II. The Essay on Miracles being supposed by its 
 author sufficient to dispose of Revelation, the Essay 
 on Providence and a Future State appears to have been 
 aimed as a blow equally fatal to Natural Religion. Its 
 merits are, however, of a very superior order. There is 
 nothing of the sarcasm so unbecoming on subjects of this 
 most serious kind, which disfigures the concluding por- 
 tion of the former treatise. The tone is more philoso- 
 phic, and the sceptical character is better sustained. 
 There cannot, indeed, be said to prevail through it any- 
 thing of a dogmatical spirit, and certainly we here meet 
 with none of that propensity to assume the thing in 
 question, to insist upon propositions as proved which 
 have only been enunciated, to supply by sounds the 
 place of ideas, which we remark in the " Systeme de la 
 Nature." On the contrary, the argument, whether 
 sound or not, is of a substantial nature ; it is rested on 
 very plausible grounds ; and we may the rather con- 
 clude that it is not very easily answered, because, in 
 fact, it has rarely, if ever, been encountered by writers
 
 256 JsOTES, 
 
 on theological subjects. Nevertheless, it strikes at the 
 root of all Natural Religion, and requires a careful con- 
 sideration. 
 
 Mr. Hume does not deny that the reasoning from the 
 appearances and operations of nature to the existence 
 of an intelligent cause is logical and sound ; at least he 
 admits this for argument's sake. But he takes this 
 nice and subtle distinction. We are here, he observes, 
 dealing with an agent, an intelligence, a being, wholly 
 unlike all \ve elsewhere see or hitherto have known : our 
 inferences, therefore, must be confined strictly to the 
 facts from whence they are drawn. When we see a 
 foot-mark imprinted on the sand, we conclude that a 
 man has walked there, and that his other foot had like- 
 wise left its print, which the waves have effaced. But 
 this inference is not drawn from the inspection of the 
 foot alone ; it comes from a previous knowledge of the 
 human body, of which the foot makes a part. Had we 
 never seen that body, or any other that walked on feet, 
 the observation of the mark in the sand could have led 
 to no other conclusion than that some body or thing had 
 been there with a form like the mark. So, when we are 
 to reason from the works of nature to their cause, we are 
 entitled to conclude that a being exists whose power and 
 skill created them such as we behold them, and conse- 
 quently that this being is possessed of skill and power 
 sufficient to contrive and to execute those works that is, 
 those precise works, and no more. We have no right to 
 infer that this being has the skill or the power to contrive 
 and create one single blade of grass or grain of sand be-
 
 KOTES. 257 
 
 yond what we see. It follows, then, that the argument 
 a posteriori only leads to the conclusion that a finite and 
 not 'an infinitely or an indefinitely wise and powerful 
 Being exists ; and it further follows that we are left 
 without any evidence of his power (much less of his in- 
 tention) to perpetuate our existence after death, as well 
 as without any proof of the capacity of the soul to receive 
 such a continuation of being after its separation from the 
 body. This is the sum of the very ingenious, subtle, 
 and original argument of Mr. Hume, affording a mighty 
 contrast to the flimsy sophisms, the declamatory asser- 
 tions, of the French writers, and giving the Natural 
 Theologian, it must be allowed, a good deal to answer. 
 We have stated it as strongly as we could, in order to 
 meet it fully ; and it appears capable of a satisfactory 
 answer. 
 
 The whole argument a posteriori rests upon the 
 assumption, that if we perceive arrangements made, by 
 means of which certain effects are produced, and if 
 seeing such arrangements among the works of men, we 
 should at once conclude that they were designed to 
 produce those effects, we are entitled to say that the 
 arrangements which we see and which we know not to 
 be the work of man, are the work of an intelligent cause, 
 contriving them for the purpose of producing the effects 
 observed. In truth, such must needs be the assumption 
 on which the argument rests, because we have no other 
 knowledge of what design and contrivance are. They 
 necessarily bear reference to our own nature and the 
 knowledge we , have of our own minds, derived from our
 
 258 
 
 own consciousness and experience ; and of this we nave 
 treated in the text, Sect. III. and IV. of Part I. 
 
 If we found anywhere a mechanism of any kind, a 
 watch for instance, as Paley puts the case, we should 
 at once conclude that some skilful and intelligent being 
 had been there, and had left his works on the spot. 
 We should conclude (indeed this is involved in the 
 former inference) that he was capable of doing what we 
 saw he had done, and that he had intended to produce 
 a particular effect by the exercise of his skill ; but we 
 should also conclude that he who could do this could 
 repeat the operation if he chose, and the probability 
 would be that his skill had not been confined to the 
 single exertion of it which we had observed. There is 
 nothing peculiar in the nature of human workmanship 
 or of the human character to make us draw this con- 
 clusion. We arrive at it just as we arrive at the in- 
 ference of design and contrivance ; we believe in them 
 because we are wholly unable to conceive such an 
 adaptation without such an intention; and we are 
 equally unable to conceive that any being, or any in- 
 telligence, or any power, which had sufficed to perform 
 the operation we see, should be confined to that single 
 exertion. We can conceive no reason whatever why 
 the same power should not be capable of repeating the 
 operation. There is nothing peculiar no limit no 
 sufficient reason, of an exclusive nature, why the same 
 power should not be again exercised and with the same 
 result. All induction proceeds upon similar grounds. 
 It is the generalization of particulars ; it is the con-
 
 NOTES. 259 
 
 eluding from a certain limited number of instances to 
 an indefinite number to any number unless circum- 
 stances arise to restrict the generality to any number, 
 where nothing arises to vary or limit the conclusion. 
 We mix an acid and alkali, and form a neutral salt 
 having peculiar properties. We pass a sun -beam or 
 the light of a candle through a prism, and observe the 
 rays separated into lights making certain colours. Why 
 do we conclude from hence that all the acid made by 
 burning sulphur, in what way soever the sulphur was 
 produced or the combustion effected, will be neutralized 
 by soda wheresoever produced and howsoever obtained, 
 and that their union will always make Glauber's salts ? 
 Or, that all light, of all kinds, even that obtained by 
 burning newly-discovered bodies, as the metal of potas- 
 sium, unseen, unknown before the year 1807, will be found 
 resolvable into the seven primary colours ? According 
 to Mr. Hume's argument, we have no right to infer that 
 any one portion of acid or alkali, save the one we have 
 subjected to our experiments, or any light save that of 
 the formerly-known combustible bodies, or rather of 
 those classes of them on which we had experimented 
 nay of the individuals of those classes which we have 
 burnt will produce the effects we have experienced in 
 our laboratory, or in our darkened chamber. In other 
 words, according to this argument, all experimental 
 knowledge must stand still, generalizing be at an end, 
 and philosophers be content never to make a single 
 step, or draw one conclusion beyond the mere facts ob- 
 served by them : in a word, Inductive Science must be
 
 260 NOTES. 
 
 turned from a process of general reasoning upon par- 
 ticular facts, into a bare dry record of those particular 
 facts themselves. 
 
 If, indeed, it be said that we never can be so certain 
 of the things we infer as we are of those we have observed, 
 and on which our inference is grounded, we may admit 
 this to be true. But no one therefore denies the value 
 of the science which is composed of the inferences. So 
 we cannot be so well assured of the Deity's power to 
 repeat and to vary and to extend his operations, as we 
 are of his having created what we actually observe ; and 
 yet our assurance may be quite sufficient to merit entire 
 confidence. Nor will any student of Natural Theology 
 complain if the only result of the argument we are 
 combating be to place the higher truths of the science 
 but a very little lower in point of proof than the in- 
 ferences of design in the works actually examined. 
 The selfsame difference is to be found in the inferences 
 composing the other branches of inductive science, and 
 it in no perceptible degree lessens our confidence in the 
 inductive method. 
 
 It has oftentimes been asked, why we believe that 
 the same result will happen from the same cause acting 
 in the like circumstances the foundation of all induc- 
 tion ; and no answer has ever been given except that we 
 cannot help so believing that the condition of our 
 being the nature of our minds compels us so to 
 believe ; and we take this as an ultimate fact incapable 
 of being resolved into any fact more general. Can we 
 help believing that a being capable of creating what we
 
 NOTES. 261 
 
 see and examine, is also capable of exercising other acts 
 of skill and power ? Can we avoid believing that the 
 same power which made all the animals and vegetables 
 on our globe suffices to people and provide other worlds 
 in like manner ? Again, can we by any effort bring 
 our minds to suppose that this being's whole skill and 
 power were exhausted by one effort, and that having 
 sufficed to create the universe, it ceases to be effective 
 for any other purpose whatever ? The answer is, that 
 we cannot that we can as soon believe in the sun not 
 rising to-morrow, or in his light ceasing to be differently 
 refrangible. 
 
 Much is said in the course of arguments like the 
 present of the word " infinite" Whether or not we are 
 able to form any precise idea of that which has no 
 bounds in power or in duration may be another ques- 
 tion. But when we see such stupendous exertions of 
 power, upon a scale so vast as far to pass all our facul- 
 ties of comprehension, and with a minuteness at the 
 same time so absolute, that as we can on the one hand 
 perceive nothing beyond its grasp, so we are on the 
 other hand \mable to find anything too minute to escape 
 its notice, we are irresistibly led to conclude that there is 
 nothing above or below such an agent, and that nothing 
 which we can conceive is impossible for such an intelli- 
 gence. The argument of Mr. Hume supposes or admits 
 that the whole universe is its work, and that animal life 
 is its creation. We can no more avoid believing that 
 the same power which created the universe can sustain 
 it that the same power which created our souls can
 
 262 NOTES. 
 
 prolong their existence after death than we can avoid 
 believing that the power which sustained the universe 
 up to the instant we are speaking, is able to continue it 
 in being for a thousand years to come. But indeed 
 Mr. Hume's argument would go the length of making 
 us disbelieve that the Deity has the power of continuing 
 the existence of the creation for a day. We are only 
 entitled, according to this argument, to conclude that 
 the Deity had the power of working the works we have 
 seen and no more. Last spring and autumn we ob- 
 served the powers of nature in vegetation, that is, we 
 noted the operations of the Deity in that portion of his 
 works, and were entitled, Mr. Hume admits, to infer 
 that he had the skill and the power to produce that 
 harvest from that seed time, but no more. We had, 
 says the argument, no right whatever to infer that the 
 Deity's power extended to another revolution of the 
 seasons. The argument is this, or it is nothing. Con- 
 fining its scope, as Mr. Hume would confine it, to the 
 universe as a whole, and excluding all inferences as to 
 a future state or other worlds, is wholly gratuitous. 
 The argument applies to all that we have seen of the 
 already past and the actually executed in this universe, 
 and excludes all respecting this same universe which is 
 yet to come ; consequently if it be good for anything, it 
 is sufficient to prove that, although our experience may 
 authorise us to conclude that the Deity has skill and 
 power sufficient to maintain the world in its present 
 state up to this hour, yet that experience is wholly 
 insufficient to prove that he has either skill or power to
 
 263 
 
 continue its existence a moment longer. Every one of 
 the topics applied by him to a Future State applies to 
 this. If we have no right to believe that one exertion 
 of skill proves the author of nature adequate to another 
 exertion of a kind no more difficult and only a little 
 varied, we can have no right to believe that one exertion 
 of skill proves him adequate to a repetition of the same 
 identical operation. Now no man living carries or can 
 carry his disbelief so far as this. Indeed such doubts 
 would not only shake all inductive science to pieces, 
 but would put a stop to the whole business of life. And 
 assuredly we may be well contented to rest the truths 
 of Natural Theology on the same foundation upon which 
 those of all the other sciences, as well as the practical 
 conduct of all human affairs, must for ever repose. 
 
 NOTE VI. PAGE 94. 
 
 Of the Ancient doctrines respecting Mind. 
 
 THE opinions of the ancient philosophers upon the 
 nature of the Soul were not very consistent with them- 
 selves ; and in some respects were difficult to reconcile 
 with the doctrine of its immateriality which most of 
 them maintained. It may suffice to mention a few of 
 those theories. 
 
 Plato and his pupil Aristotle may certainly be said to 
 have held the Soul's immateriality ; at least, they main-
 
 264 NOTES. 
 
 tained that it was of a nature wholly different from the 
 body ; and they appear often to hold that it was unlike 
 all matter whatever, and a substance or existence of a 
 nature quite peculiar to itself. Their language is nearly 
 the same upon this subject. Plato speaks of the ov<rnx, 
 atrapoiTos Y.OU vorffi; a bodiless or incorporeal and 
 intelligent being ; and of such existences he says, in 
 one place, fa. atrw^anx, >eaXArra oyra KSU ^yiyfa. Xoyu 
 povov, aAXw $ ovSevi ffoupw; ixvjTa.i " Things incor- 
 poreal being the most excellent and the greatest of all, 
 are made manifest by reason alone, and no otherwise. 1 ' 
 (Politicus.) So again in the Cratylus, he derives <ro>aa 
 from o-w&ffQau, and represents the body as a prison of 
 the soul, siK'Jvex, Seo-porr^io'j sivoti ovv fr t s ^v^r,; O.VTO suj; 
 f t v fa. opejAoaeva fa a-wpa,, following herein the doctrine 
 said to have been delivered by Orpheus. Aristotle, too, 
 speaks of a being separable and separated from things 
 perceivable by the senses o-Jtna ^w^itrrr/ KOU KS^M^HT- 
 u,evy TWV aHT&yrwv. Nevertheless, these philosophers 
 frequently speak of the soul as being always, and as it 
 were necessarily, connected with matter of some kind 
 or other ai ^v^r/ sifife-fa.^/^^ ff'jufj.xri, TOTE psv aXAw, 
 roTe E aAAw. The soul is always annexed to a body, 
 sometimes to one and sometimes to another. De Legg. x. 
 Thus Aristotle, (De Gener. Anim. ii. 4.) r, yao fyv'/y) 
 tvffia, <rwu,a,To$ Tivo$ earfi the soul is the substance of 
 some kind of body. And in the treatise De Anima, ii. 2, 
 he says v.a.i otoc, TOVTO 
 
 fi " Those therefore rightly
 
 NOTES. 265 
 
 hold who think that the soul cannot const without the 
 body, and yet that it is not body; it is not the body t 
 but somewhat of the body" 
 
 This corporeal connexion is stated by Plutarch, in 
 the QufEst. Platon., still more plainly to have been the 
 Platonic doctrine fafflP Tfgscrfiwfsga.v fov 
 a.i'fta.v 7s Tifjf Kivou yV<riv$ KO.I >%>JV OVK 
 tyvfflv ayeu ffu^oii'Of ovSs vow avzu \l/vxy$, aAAa ^>v^r t v 
 [tsv v (rwpcc'n, vow $ y ft) $v%$i " The soul is older 
 than the body, and the cause and origin of its existence : 
 not that the soul exists without the body, or the under- 
 standing without the soul ; but that the soul is in the 
 body, and the understanding in the soul" 
 
 According to these representations and quotations 
 taken together, Plato held the soul to be an immaterial 
 substance, separable from any given body, but incapable 
 of existing without some body or other, and the mind or 
 understanding to be a part of the soul. The residue 
 of the soul was, as we shall afterwards see, its sensitive 
 or mortal portion. 
 
 The idea of motion seems to have been intimately con- 
 nected in their views with mind or spirit, and in so far 
 their doctrines approach those, if we can call them doc- 
 trines, of the modern atheists (See Note IV.) fo ktx.vr/3 
 xiveiv (says Plato), <pr t ; Xoyov %sr/ fr^v awryv ov<riot.y 
 
 H>uye You say that the substance (or being) to which 
 
 we all give the name of soul, has for its definition " that 
 
 which moves itself" ? I certainly do say so. DeLegg. x. 
 
 But the same philosophers also held the soul to be an 
 
 N
 
 266 KOTES. 
 
 emanation from the Deity, and that each individual soul 
 was a portion of the Divine Essence, or Spirit : conse- 
 quently, they could not mean to assert that the divine 
 essence was inseparable from matter of some kind, but 
 only those portions of that essence which they repre- 
 sented to be severed, and as it were torn off from the 
 divine mind <ruya,<peis *u> few, are aoroa (topiix, ou<na KOU 
 a7ro<r7racru.ara. (Epict. ) 
 
 Plutarch, in the work already cited, says ij 8e $U%T) 
 OVK ecyov <rfi jw-cxov aAAa Y.CU pspos' w5* Jir aurou aXA' 
 eit avfo'j, KO.I s% avTov, ysyovev " The soul is not only his 
 work, but a part of himself ; it was not created by him, 
 but from him and out of him." 
 
 NOTE VII. PAGE 94. 
 
 Of the ancient Doctrines respecting the Deity and 
 Matter. 
 
 THE notions of the Supreme Being entertained by the an- 
 cient philosophers were more simple and consistent than 
 their theory of the soul ; and but for the belief, which 
 they never shook off, in the eternity of matter, would 
 very nearly have coincided with our own. They give 
 him the very same names, and clothe him apparently in 
 the like attributes. He is not only aSavaroj, Affafftfi 
 {jiviaXsQfOf immortal, incorruptible, indestructible but 
 a,vTo i yeyr l $, auro^uryf, auSutfocrT'aT'o; uncreated,
 
 NOTES. 267 
 
 self-made, self -original ing, self-existing. Zuiov 
 X oy p&x&pwt'y'*' 01 ' i w/r ' atpQapffiag, says Epicurus "A 
 Being having all happiness, with an incorruptible 
 nature." Again, he is Tfa.vfo'x.pa.i'uap, itovyKpa.Tr^ omni- 
 potent, all-powerful; uva.T'a,i yap a-tfayra, says Homer 
 (Odyss.)" He has power over all things." The 
 creative power is also in words at least ascribed to him 
 jiOtTjaoTTOiijT'ijf, AgpfeopyBp the maker of the world, the 
 great artificer. Aristotle, too, in a very remarkable 
 passage of the Metaphysics, says that God seems to be 
 the cause of all things, and, as it were, a beginning, or 
 principle so? SOKSI TO atfiov ifouriy sivou xou apxy fig '. 
 and, indeed, by implication, this is ascribed in the terms 
 uncreated, self-created, and self-existing ; for in sound- 
 ness of reason the being who had no creator, and much 
 more the being who created himself (if we can conceive 
 such an idea), must have created all things else. Never- 
 theless, such was certainly not so plain an inference of 
 reasoning with the ancients ; for whether it be that by 
 awf6<pvy$ and auroyevijs, they only meant to convey the 
 idea of ayjyijT'of of a being uncreated and existing from 
 all eternity or that they took some nice distinction, to 
 us incomprehensible, between self- creation and the 
 creation of other beings or things certain it is, that the 
 same philosophers who so described the Deity clung to 
 the notion of matter being also eternal, and co-existent 
 with the supreme power, and that by creator and arti- 
 ficer they rather seem to have meant the arranger of 
 atoms the power giving form to chaotic matter, than 
 the power calling things into existence. They appear to 
 
 N 2
 
 268 NOTES. 
 
 have been all pressed by the difficulty (and who shall 
 deny it ?) of conceiving the act of creation the act of 
 calling existences out of nothing. Accordingly, the 
 maxim which generally prevailed among most of the 
 Greek sects, and which led to very serious and even 
 practical consequences in their systems, was ovosv 
 EK rou ft,r t OVT'OS (or ex. oyoevof) ytvsfftai that nothing is 
 made of what has no existence, or of nothing. Aris- 
 totle represents this as the common opinion of all na- 
 tural philosophers before him y.oivyv Sofyv fwv <pv<riKuv. 
 He says, in another passage (De Coslo,in. 1.) ol psy 
 avrwv (rffofspw <piXofro$r i <ra.vf$) avsiXov oXcvf yevsviv KCX.I 
 <p9sp<x.y' ovtsv yap ovf yiyytr^ai <fa<rw ours <pQip<rfta.i Tuav 
 cvTwy " Some of those (older philosophers) took away 
 (or abolished') all generation and destruction, for they 
 hold that none of the things which exist are either created 
 or destroyed" Nevertheless, it cannot be doubted that 
 the Platonic doctrine was of the same kind, and that 
 Aristotle, in truth, ascribed only a qualified creative 
 power to the Deity. Plutarch's statement of the Pla- 
 tonic doctrine is precise to this point fisXTiov o-jy 
 ^oi^svovf Toy psy xotr^ov vita QSM yeyovsva.i 
 KOU a,$iy o [ASV yap xaXXitrfos Twv ysyovofcav, ofe 
 
 O'j yvoij,'/r t v, aXXa otfoxeju/evijv asi I'M rj^io'J&yw, tig iz- 
 Qsw xai Tafyv a'jrr t $ v.ai Tt^g avTov e^oju-oiwcny, w; SvyaTov 
 f t v itcLbCLy/ziv ov yap K rov juoj ov?o$ ysystri^ aXX' K fa'j 
 v^ KOiXwf, iLrfi 'IKOLVW; yovro$, w$ OIKI<X$, Y.OLI ipaTiov, xai 
 avSptavro; " Better then be convinced by Plato, and 
 say and sing that the world was made by God ; for the
 
 NOTES. 269 
 
 world is the most excellent of all created things, and he 
 the best of all causes. But the substance or matter 
 (literally timber) of which he made it, was not created, 
 but always lay ready for the artificer, to be arranged 
 and ordered by him ; for the creation was not out of 
 nothing, but out of what had been without form and 
 unfit, as a house, or a garment, or a statue are made." 
 And thus it seems that when Maker or Creator is used 
 by the Academics, we are rather to regard them as 
 meaning Maker in the sense in which an artificer is said 
 to make or fabricate the object of his art. Etoiya-sy 
 (says Aristotle) cav T<JVE fujy KO<T[J,OV e a,Tfa<r(x,$ fr^ 
 jAa; He made the world of all kinds of matter. De 
 An. Mund. Indeed, I can in no other way understand 
 that very obscure, and but for some such gloss, con- 
 tradictory passage of Aristotle, in the first book of the 
 Physics, where he is giving his own doctrine in opposi- 
 tion to the tenets of the elder philosophers on this point 
 
 |W.ij ovfOfy wu,otjf [^SVTOI yivyecrflu ZK JM/IJ oyro$ (/ITS 
 jx/Se/Sijxof* ZK yst fy$ ffTsgycrstas o e<rfi ?caS' aura 
 py ov, O'jx. WTfa,^oyTOf yiyvefou ft. QaopM^ffeu Ss Tovfo 
 KO.I aSuyxfov oufw SOKSI yiyvsfftycu.i fi >c rou p,y ov?o$ 
 " We ourselves however say that nothing is absolutely 
 (or merely} produced from what has no existence, yet 
 that something is produced from that which has no exist- 
 ence as far as regards accidents ("or accessory qualities); 
 for something is produced from privation, which has no 
 existence in itself, and not from anything inherent. 
 But this is wonderful, and seems impossible, thai some-
 
 270 
 
 thing should be produced out of that which has no 
 existence." (Phys. i. 8.) Indeed he had said in 
 the same treatise, just before, that all confessed it im- 
 possible and inconceivable that any being could either 
 be created out of nothing, or be utterly destroyed 
 ex fov jtATj wfo; yivzfffjou TOTE ov eoAAt;cr5a< av>;vi;crT'oy xcw 
 apfaxfov. (76. i. 5.) - 
 
 Upon the uncreated nature of things for the doc- 
 trine extended to mind as well as to matter the ancient 
 philosophers founded another tenet of great importance. 
 Matter and soul were reckoned not only uncreated, but 
 indestructible; their existence was eternal in every 
 sense of the word, without end as without beginning : 
 iMfftv EK fov jW'iJ <jvfo$ yiveo'Sa*, ju/>;e tig ?o |u/>j w ^SejpecrSaj 
 " Nothing can be produced out of that which has no 
 existence, nor can any thing be reduced to nonentity." 
 Such is Diogenes Laertius's account of Democritus's 
 doctrine, or the Atomic principle, 
 
 "Principium hinc cujus nobis exordia sumet, 
 Nullam rem e nihilo gigni divinitus unquam'' 
 
 " Hue accedit uti quidque in sua corpora rursum 
 Dissolvat natura, neque ad nihilura intereunt res'* 
 
 " Haud igitur redit ad nihilum res ulla, sed omnes 
 Discidio redeunt in corpora material 1 ' 
 
 are the expressions of Lucretius, in giving an account of 
 the Epicurean Philosophy (i. 151, 217, 249), or, as 
 Persius more shortly expresses it, 
 
 " De nihilo nihil, in nihilum nil posse reverti." Sat. iii. 84. 
 
 And it must be admitted that they reasoned with great 
 consistency in this respect ; for if the difficulty of com-
 
 NOTES. 271 
 
 prehending the act of creation out of nothing was a 
 sufficient ground for holding all things to be eternal 
 a parte ante the equal difficulty of comprehending the 
 act of annihilation was as good a ground for believing in 
 their eternity a parte post there being manifestly just 
 as much difficulty, and of the same kind, in compre- 
 hending how a being can cease to exist, as how it can 
 come into existence. 
 
 From this doctrine mainly it is that the Greek philo- 
 sophers derive the immortality of the soul, as far as the 
 metaphysical and more subtle arguments for their belief 
 go ; and accordingly its pre-existence is a part of their 
 faith as much as its future life, the eternity ab ante being 
 as much considered as the eternity post , Thus Plato 
 says that " our soul was somewhere before it existed in 
 the human form, as also it seems to be immortal after- 
 ivards" r t v7fov ypwv y j&ffl Tfgiv EV fuSs TUJ av 
 
 sivai. (Phced.) Nevertheless, it must be admitted that 
 their doctrine of future existence is most unsatisfactory 
 as far as it is thus derived, that is, their psychological 
 argument : and for two reasons -first, because it is cou- 
 pled with the tenet of pre-existence, and having no kind 
 of evidence of that from reasoning, we not only are 
 prone to reject it, but are driven to suppose that our 
 future existence will in like manner be severed by want 
 of recollection from all consideration of personal identity ; 
 secondly, because, according to the doctrine of the soul 
 being an emanation from the Deity, its future state im- 
 plies a return to the divine essence, and a confusion with 
 or absorption in that supreme intelligence, and conse-
 
 272 NOTES. 
 
 qnently an extinction of individual existence : a doc- 
 trine which was accordingly held by some of the meta- 
 physical philosophers who maintained a Future State. 
 
 In one important particular there was an entire dif- 
 ference of opinion among the ancient philosophers in 
 truth, so important a difference, that those were held 
 not to be theists, but atheists, who maintained one side 
 of the argument I mean as to Providence. The 
 Atomists and Epicureans held that there were Gods, and 
 upon the subject of creative power they did not mate- 
 rially differ from those generally called theists ; but they 
 denied that these Gods ever interfered in the affairs of the 
 universe. The language of Plato and the other theists 
 upon this subject is very strong. They regard such a 
 doctrine as one of the three kinds of blasphemy or sacri- 
 lege ; and in the Republic of that philosopher, all the 
 three crimes are made equally punishable with death. 
 The first species is denying the existence of a Deity, or 
 of Gods 7o $s Ssufsgo'/, O'/TO,; (Qeou;) ov tppwfi&w &v- 
 Qpurjfov. " The second, admitting their existence, but 
 denying that they care for man" The third kind of 
 blasphemy was that of men attempting to propitiate the 
 Gods towards criminal conduct, as pSovot and txStxypMfat, 
 slaughters and outrages upon justice, " by prayers, 
 thanksgivings, and sacrifices thus making those pure 
 beings the accomplices of their crimes, by sharing with 
 them a small portion of the spoil, as the icolves do with 
 the dogs" De Legg. x.* 
 
 * Who can read these, and such passages as these, without 
 wishing that some who call themselves Christians, some Christian 
 Principalities and Powers, had taken a lesson from the heathen
 
 NOTES. 273 
 
 NOTE VIII. PAGE 131. 
 
 Of the ancient Doctrine of the Immortality of the Soul, 
 
 THAT the ancient philosophers for the most part be- 
 lieved in the Future Existence of the Soul after death is 
 undeniable. It is equally certain that their opinions 
 upon this important subject varied exceedingly, and 
 that the kind of immortality admitted by one class can 
 hardly be allowed to deserve the name. Thus they who 
 considered it as a portion of the Divine essence severed 
 for a time, in order to be united with a perishable body, 
 believed in a future existence without memory or con- 
 sciousness of personal identity, and merely as a reuniting 
 of it with the Divine mind. Such, however, was not the 
 belief of the more pure and enlightened theists, and to 
 their opinion, as approaching nearest our own, it is pro- 
 posed to confine the present notice. 
 
 In one respect, even the most philosophical of those 
 theories differed widely from the Christian faith, and 
 indeed departed almost as widely from the intimations of 
 sound reason. They all believed in the soul's pre-ex- 
 
 sage, and (if their nature forbade them to abstain from massacres 
 and injustice) at least had not committed the scandalous impiety, 
 as he calls it, of singing in places of Christian worship, and for 
 the accomplishment of their enormous crimes, Te Deums, which 
 in Plato's Republic would have been punished as blasphemy? 
 Who, indeed, can refrain from lamenting another pernicious kind 
 of sacrilege (an anthropomorphism) yet more frequent that of 
 making Christian temples resound with prayers for victory over 
 our enemies, and thanksgiving for their defeat ? Assuredly such 
 a ritual as this is not taken from the New Testament. 
 
 N3
 
 274 NOTES, 
 
 istence. This is expressly given as proved by facts, 
 and as one argument for immortality or future existence, 
 by Plato in the most elaborate treatise which remains 
 upon the subject, the Phcedo. He considers that all 
 learning is only recollection, Tr,v /x,a9i;<nv ava^vr^iv swat, 
 and seems to think it inconceivable that any idea could 
 ever come into the mind, of which the rudiments had 
 not formerly been implanted there. In the Timceus 
 and' other writings the same doctrine is further ex- 
 pounded. Hv rfov T^'JJV, TJ 4 /v X>'"i *f' v v ~ M ^ 7ca 
 avQgujTfivw siSsi yeveffQai, wffTs xou TavTy aSavarov Ti 
 eoiKsv i? 4/u%ij sivou. " Our soul existed somewhere 
 before it was produced in the human form Cor body}, 
 so it seems to be immortal also.'' 3 The arguments 
 indeed, generally speaking, on which both Plato and 
 other philosophers ground their positions, derive their 
 chief interest from the importance of the subject, 
 and from the exquisite language in which they are 
 clothed. As reasonings they are of little force or value. 
 Thus it is elaborately shown, or rather asserted in the 
 Phcedo, that contraries always come from contraries, 
 as life from death, and death from life, in the works of 
 Nature. Another argument is that the nature or essence 
 of the soul is immortality, and hence it is easily inferred 
 that it exists after death, a kind of reasoning hardly 
 deserving the name 'Otfofe $y TOV aQa.va.Tov KO.I a&o- 
 tpftogov <r?iv 3 aXAort 4/y^ij ij, si aQtx.va.Tos Twyy^avEi oucra, 
 xou avwXs&go$ av sir, " Since that which is immortal is 
 also indestructible, what else can we conclude but 
 that the soul being (or happening to be) immortal, must
 
 275 
 
 also be imperishable." (Ph(ed.) A more cogent topic is 
 that of its simplicity, from whence the inference is drawn 
 that it must be indestructible, because what we mean by 
 the destruction of matter is its resolution into the elements 
 that compose it. In one passage, Plato comes very near 
 the argument relied on in the text respecting the changes 
 which the body undergoes ; but it appears from the rest 
 of the passage that he had another topic or illustration in 
 view aAAa yaf ay (paiyv Ka.<rfyv t'wv fyw^ajv TfoAAa crcy- 
 i/Seiv, aXXw; fe xav tfoAAa. efy @ica. Et yap 
 KCU cra'oAAuoiT'o ert ^wvTo$ T'OU avQpwifov aAA* 
 -r\ fyu%ij GCZL TO KaTafpifiopsvov avvtyaivoi avayxa<ov psvf 
 av sty, oifofe atfoAAooiro y ^vxy, rov TS Xsvfatov vtpcurpa 
 fv^siv avfyv %ov<rav, $s T'oufou [AOYQV ifpofspav atfoA- 
 At;cr9aj " But I should rather say that each of our 
 souls wears out many bodies, though these should live 
 many years ; for if the body runs out and is destroyed t 
 the man still living, but the soul always repairs that 
 which is ivorn out, it would follow of necessity that the 
 soul when it perished would happen to have its last 
 covering, and to perish only just before that covering." 
 Phced. A singular instance of the incapacity of the 
 ancients to observe facts, or at least the habitual care- 
 lessness with which they admitted relations of them, is 
 afforded in another of these arguments. Socrates is made 
 to refer, in the Phcedo, to the appearance of ghosts near 
 places of burial as a well-known and admitted fact, and 
 as proving that a portion of the soul for a while survived 
 the body, but partook of its nature and likeness, and 
 was not altogether immortal. This distinction between
 
 276 NOTES. 
 
 the mortal or sensitive and the immortal or intellectual 
 part of the soul pervades the Platonic theism. We 
 have observed already in the statement of Plutarch, that 
 the Platonists held the vov$ or intellect to he contained 
 in the v-%^ or soul, and the same doctrine occurs in 
 other passages. Aristotle regards the soul in like man- 
 ner as composed of two parts the active, or voug, and 
 the passive : the former he represents as alone immortal 
 and eternal ; the latter as destructible, routo povov 0a- 
 yarov xai aifitov, o 8s ita,Qr t rritr t s <p5acro. Nic.Eth. 
 
 It must, however, be admitted, that the belief of the 
 ancients was more firm and more sound than their rea- 
 sonings were cogent. The whole tenor of the doctrine 
 in the Phcedo refers to a renewal or continuation of the 
 soul as a separate and individual existence, after the 
 dissolution of the body, and with a complete conscious- 
 ness of personal identity in short, to a continuance of 
 the same rational being's existence after death. The 
 liberation from the body is treated as the beginning of 
 a new and more perfect life rofs jao awry naP avryv y 
 ^U%TJ trra< %tupi TO-J <rcutj,a?o$' rtpoTapov 8' ov (rfXgu- 
 f-rpoici). Xenophon thus makes Cyrus deliver himself 
 to his children on his death-bed Ov-roi sywys, wrtaifeg, 
 ov$s fovfo rtujTfofs EifsurQav ug y ^vxy> &$ ^v ay sy 
 
 n y, fyv, ofay Ss fovfov aTfaXXayy, 
 ys OTTWS afpwv sfffai y ^^%'>J> ffuSthi T 
 
 ^a ysxijT'aj, ovSs rovfo ifsTfeHrpai' aAA' ofay 
 K<XI Kaftacog 6 vovg SKfufty, -foTs Y.OLI (ppovi^wTaToy 
 siKOf ocvfov zivai.* Cicero has translated the whole pas- 
 * Cyrop. ii.
 
 KOTES. 277 
 
 sage upon this subject beautifully, though somewhat 
 paraphrastically ; but this portion he has' given more 
 literally " Mihi quidem nunquam persuaderi potuit, 
 animos dum in corporibus essent mortalibus, vivere; 
 quum exissent ex iis, emori : nee vero turn animum esse 
 insipientem, quum ex insipienti corpore evasisset; sed 
 quum omni admixtione corporis liberatus purus et inte- 
 ger esse ccepisset, eum esse sapientem."* 
 
 None of the ancients, indeed, has expressed himself 
 more clearly or more beautifully upon the subject than 
 this great philosopher and rhetorician. His reasoning, 
 too, respecting it greatly exceeds in soundness and 
 in sagacity that of the Grecian sages. Witness the 
 admirable argument in the Tusculan Questions. They 
 who deny the doctrine, says he, can only allege as the 
 ground of their disbelief the difficulty of comprehending 
 the state of the soul severed from the body, as if they 
 could comprehend its state in the body. " Quasi vero 
 intelligant, qualis sit in ipso corpore, quse conformatio, 
 quoe magnitudo, qui locus." " Hsec reputent isti (he 
 adds) qui negant animum sine corpore se intelligere 
 posse ; videbunt quern in ipso corpore intelligant. Mihi 
 quidem naturam animi intuenti, multo difficilior occurrit 
 cogitatio, multoque obscurior, qualis animus in corpore 
 sit, tanquam alienee domi, quam qualis, cum exierit, et 
 in liberum ccelum quasi domum suum venerit."t That 
 he derived the most refined gratification from such con- 
 
 * De Senect. 80. Here the words "omni admixtione,'' &c. 
 are added, 
 
 f Tusc. Quaest. i. 22.
 
 278 
 
 templations, many passages of his writings attest. None 
 more than those towards the close of the Cato Major, 
 which must often have cheered the honest labourers for 
 their country and their kind in the midst of an un- 
 grateful and unworthy generation. " An censes (ut de 
 me ipso aliquid more senum glorier) me tantos labores 
 diurnos nocturnosque, domi militiaeque suscepturum 
 fuisse, si iisdem finihus gloriam meam, quibus vitam 
 essem terminaturuB ? Nonne melius multo fuisset 
 otiosam aetatem et quietam sine ullo labore aut con- 
 tentione traducere ?" " Think you to speak somewhat 
 of myself after the manner of old men think you 
 that I should ever have undergone such toils, by day 
 and by night, at home and abroad, had I believed that 
 the term of my life was to be the period of my renown ? 
 How much better would it have been to while away a 
 listless being and a tranquil, void of all strife, and free 
 from any labour ?"* And again, that famous passage : 
 " O praeclarum diem quum ad illud divinum animorum 
 concilium csetumque proficiscar ; quumque ex hac turba 
 et colluvione discedam !" " Delightful hour ! when I 
 shall journey towards that divine assemblage of spirits, 
 and depart from this crowd of polluted things !" t 
 . The Platonic ideas of a future state, as well as those 
 adopted by the Roman sage, distinctly referred to an ac- 
 count rendered, and rewards or punishments awarded 
 for the things done in the body y^ itotvra iroisiv, says 
 Plato, (affts. apsf-r^ KCH <^^ovr t (TWf sv ra> fliw psfatr^si'/' 
 KaXov yap raSAov KCH 15 shifts psyaty " We ought to act 
 * De Senect. 82. f Ibid. 85. .
 
 NOTES. 279 
 
 in all things so as to pursue virtue and wisdom in this 
 life, for the labour is excellent and the hope great." 
 (De Legg. x .) Tov Ss OVTO, r/^uav ex.a.<rfov ovfcu; a9ava- 
 fijv swat, ifyvxyv stfovOjU.a^OjU,v&v, Tfotpa Qeoi$ aAAo< arti- 
 va.t, SwvovTot Aoyov, KO-ftartep 6 vo^Of o Tfafpujf Aeyei, Tea 
 pgy ayaSw SappaAsov, Tia Ss KOLKUJ ju,aAa (f>ojBepcv " In 
 truth each of us that is to say, each soul is immortal, 
 and departs to other Gods (or Gods in another world) 
 to render an account as the laws of the state declare. 
 This to the good is matter of confidence, but to the 
 wicked of terror.'" (De Legg. xii.) So in the be- 
 ginning of the Epinomis, he says that a glorious pros- 
 pect (XATJ eATrt?) is held out to us of attaining, when 
 we die, the happiness not to be enjoyed on earth, and to 
 gain which after death, we had exerted all our efforts. 
 In the Phfsdo, where he is giving a somewhat fanciful 
 picture of the next world, he tells us that souls which 
 have committed lesser crimes come ei$ njy AJJW/VIJV KI 
 
 Kl OtXOUffl f K0(l KOcQ(XlpO[J,VOl fWV CxSlKTfjU^OCT'WV $t$OVf$ 
 
 iKoc$ atfoXvovfai E< n$ fi rfiiKf l ff " they remain in that 
 space, and being cleansed Cor purged} of their offences, 
 are released;" (from whence the idea and the name of 
 purgatory has been taken). But such as have been 
 incurably wicked, murderers and others, are driven, he 
 says, into Tartarus, o9ev ovrtors KJ3awo'j<riv, "whence 
 they never more escape.'' * It is remarkable, that in the 
 same work, Plato, if some words have not been interpo- 
 lated in the text, looks forward to some direct divine com- 
 munications of light upon this subject ; but recommends 
 * Phsed.
 
 280 NOTES. 
 
 abiding by the light of reason till that shall be granted. 
 Let us, he says, choose the best human reason, and, sitting 
 on it like a raft, pass through the dangers of life, unless 
 (or until) si fj*r t ri$ Svvociro aa-tpaXsa-Tepov K<XI aKivSvvoTspoy 
 ZTli fisfiaiofspov oxyporro; r t Aoyou 6e<oo fivo; dioctfopsu- 
 Qyvai " unless some one can pass us over more easily 
 and safely upon some stronger vehicle or divine 
 ivord." * 
 
 The passage in the Somnium Scipionis, where celes- 
 tial enjoyments are held out as the rewards of public 
 virtue, is well known. The precision indeed of the lan- 
 guage touching a future state, which marks this treatise, 
 is singular, approaching to that of the New Testament 
 " beati sevo sempiterno fruuntur" " ea vita via est in 
 coelum et in hunc ccetum eorum qui jam vixerunt et 
 corpore laxati ilium incolunt locum" " immo vero ii 
 vivunt, qui ex corporum vinculis, tanquam e carcere, 
 evolaverunt ; vestra vero, quae dicitur vita, mors est" 
 " sic habeto, non esse te mortalem, sed corpus hoc ; nee 
 enim tu is es, quern forma ista declarat, sed mens cuj us- 
 que, is est quisque" " animus in domum suam pervo- 
 labit, idque ocius faciet, si jam turn, quum erit inclusus 
 in corpore, eminebit foras, et ea quse extra erunt con- 
 templans, quam maxime se a corpore abstrahet." These 
 things have given rise to doubts of the authenticity of 
 the treatise doubts easily removed by looking to the 
 many absurdities respecting the celestial bodies and 
 the other accompaniments of heaven with which the 
 work abounds; to the Platonic doctrine respecting
 
 NOTES. 281 
 
 motion as the essence of mind, which it adopts ; and also 
 to the doctrine distinctly stated of the pre-existent state. 
 
 NOTE IX. PAGE 131. 
 
 Of Bishop Wai-burton's Theory concerning the ancient 
 Doctrine of a Future State. 
 
 To any one who had read the extracts in the last Note, 
 but still more to one who was familiar with the ancient 
 writers from whose works they are taken, it might 
 appear quite impossible that a question should ever be 
 raised upon the general belief of antiquity in a Future 
 State, and the belief of some of the most eminent of the 
 philosophers, at least, in a state of rewards and punish- 
 ments. Nevertheless as there is nothing so plain to 
 which the influence of a preconceived opinion and the 
 desire of furthering a favourite hypothesis will not blind 
 men, and as their blindness in such cases bears even 
 a proportion to their learning and ingenuity, it has thus 
 fared with the point in question, and Bishop Warburton 
 has denied that any of the ancients except Socrates really 
 believed in a future state of the soul individually, and 
 subject to reward or punishment. He took up this 
 argument because it seemed to strengthen his extraor- 
 dinary reasoning upon the Legation of Moses. It is 
 therefore necessary first to state how his doctrine bears 
 upon that reasoning.
 
 282 NOTES. 
 
 His reasoning is this. The inculcating of a future state 
 of retribution is necessary to the well being of society. 
 All men, and especially all the wisest nations of anti- 
 quity, have agreed in holding such a doctrine necessary 
 to be inculcated. But there is nothing of the kind to 
 be found in the Mosaic dispensation. And here he 
 pauses to observe that these propositions seem too clear 
 to require any proof. Nevertheless his whole work is 
 consumed in proving them ; and the conclusion from the 
 whole, that therefore the Mosaic law is of Divine ori- 
 ginal, is left for a further work, which never appeared ; 
 and yet this is the very position which all, or almost 
 all who may read the book, and even yield their assent 
 to it, are the most inclined to reject. Indeed it may 
 well be doubted if this work, learned and acute as it is, 
 and showing the author to be both well read and well 
 fitted for controversy, eyer satisfied any one except 
 perhaps Bishop Kurd, or ever can demonstrate any 
 thing so well, as it proves the preposterous and perverted 
 ingenuity of an able and industrious man. 
 
 That such was very far from being the author's 
 opinion we have ample proof. He terms his work " A 
 Demonstration." He describes his reasoning " as very 
 little short of mathematical certainty," and " to which 
 nothing but a mere physical possibility of the contrary 
 can be opposed ;" and he declares his only difficulty to 
 be in " telling whether the pleasure of the discovery or 
 the wonder that it is now to make be the greater." 
 Accordingly in the correspondence between him and his 
 friend Bishop Hurd, the complete success of the " De-
 
 283 
 
 monstration" is always assumed, and the glory of it is 
 made the topic of endless and even mutual gratulation, 
 not without pity and even vituperation of all who can 
 remain dissatisfied, and who are habitually and compla- 
 cently classed by name with the subjects of Pope's well- 
 known satire. 
 
 The two things which the author always overlooked 
 were the possibility of a human lawgiver making an 
 imperfect system, and of sceptics holding the want of 
 the sanction in question to be no argument for the 
 divine origin of the Mosaic law, but rather a proof of its 
 flowing from a human and fallible source. As these 
 " mere possibilities" are wholly independent of the ad- 
 mission that every word in the book is correct, and all 
 the positions are demonstrated, and as nothing whatever 
 is said to exclude such suppositions, it is manifest that a 
 more useless and absurd argument never was maintained 
 upon any grave and important subject. The merit of 
 the book lies in its learning and its collateral argument ; 
 indeed nearly the whole is collateral, and unconnected 
 with the purpose of the reasoning. But much even of 
 that collateral matter is fanciful and unsound. The fancy 
 that the descent of vEneas to hell in the sixth book of 
 the ^Eneid is a veiled account of the Eleusinian Mysteries, 
 has probably made as few proselytes as the main body 
 of the " Demonstration ;" and if any one has lent his ear 
 to the theory that the ancients had no belief in a future 
 state of retribution, it can only be from being led away 
 by confident assertion from the examination of the facts. 
 
 This position of Bishop Warburton is manifestly
 
 284 NOTES. 
 
 wholly unnecessary to the proof of his general theory. 
 But he thought it would show more strongly the opinion 
 entertained of the uses to be derived from inculcating 
 the doctrine of a Future State, if he could prove that they 
 who held it in public and with political views, did not 
 themselves believe it. 
 
 The way in which he tries to prove this is by ob- 
 serving that there prevailed among the old philosophers 
 as well as lawgivers a principle of propagating what 
 they knew to be false opinions for the public benefit, 
 and of thus holding one kind of doctrine in secret, the 
 esoteric, and another, the exoteric, in public. Of this 
 fact there is no doubt, but its origin is hardly to be thus 
 traced to design always prevailing. The most ancient 
 notions of religion were the birth of fear and ignorance 
 in the earliest ages, and the fancy of the poets mingled 
 with these, multiplying and improving and polishing the 
 rude imaginations of popular terror and simplicity. 
 The rulers of the community, aiding themselves by the 
 sanctions which they drew from thence, favoured the 
 continuance and propagation of the delusions ; and 
 philosophers who afterwards arose among the people 
 were neither disposed themselves nor permitted by the 
 magistrate openly to expose the errors of the popular 
 faith. Hence they taught one doctrine in private, 
 while in public they conformed to the prevailing creed, 
 and the observances which it enjoined. 
 
 But whatever be the origin of the double doctrine, 
 Bishop Warburton cannot expect that its mere existence 
 and the use made of it by ancient writers and teachers
 
 NOTES. 285 
 
 will prove his position, unless he can show that the 
 future state of retribution is only mentioned by them 
 upon occasions of an exoterical kind, and never when 
 esoterically occupied. Now this he most signally fails 
 to do ; indeed he can hardly be said fairly to make the 
 attempt, for his rule is to make the tenor of the doctrine 
 the criterion of esoteric or exoteric, instead of showing 
 the occasion to be one or the other from extrinsic cir- 
 cumstances, which is manifestly begging the question 
 most unscrupulously. It seems hardly credible that so 
 acute and practised a controversialist should so conduct 
 an argument, but it is quite true. As often as any 
 thing occurs in favour of a Future State, he says it was 
 said cxoterically ; and whenever he can find any thing 
 on the opposite side, or leaning towards it, (which is really 
 hardly at all in the Platonic or Ciceronian writings,) 
 he sets this down for the esoteric sentiments of the 
 writer. But surely if there be any meaning at all in 
 the double doctrine, whatever may have been its origin, 
 the occasion is every thing, and there can be no diffi- 
 culty in telling whether any given opinion was main- 
 tained cxoterically or not, by the circumstances in which, 
 and the purposes for which, it was propounded. 
 
 The argument on which he dwells most is drawn from 
 the allusion made by Csesar in the discussion upon the 
 punishment of the conspirators as related by Sallust, 
 " Ultra (mortem) neque curse neque gaudio locum esse;" 
 and from the way in which Cato and Cicero evade, he 
 says, rather than answer him, appealing to the traditions 
 of antiquity and the authority of their ancestors instead
 
 286 NOTES. 
 
 of arguing the point. (Div. Leg. III. 2. 5.) Can any 
 thing be more inconclusive than this ? Granting that 
 Sallust, in making speeches for Csesar and Cato (whom 
 by the way he makes speak in the self-same style, that 
 is, in his own Sallustian style), adhered to the sentiments 
 each delivered ; and further, that Csesar uses this strange 
 topic not as a mere rhetorical figure, but as a serious 
 reason against capital punishment, and as showing that 
 there is mercy and not severity in such inflictions (a 
 very strong supposition to make respecting so practised 
 and so practical a reasoner as Caius Csesar) ; surely so 
 bold a position as practical atheism brought forward in 
 the Roman senate was far more likely to be met, whether 
 by the decorum of Cato or the skill of Cicero, with a 
 general appeal to the prevalence of the contrary belief, 
 and its resting on ancient tradition, than with a meta- 
 physical or theological discourse singularly out of season 
 in such a debate. To make the case- our own : let us 
 suppose some member of Parliament, or of the Cham- 
 ber of Deputies, so ill judged as to denounce in short 
 but plain terms the religion of the country, would any 
 person advert further to so extravagant a speech than 
 to blame it, and in general expressions signify the in- 
 dignation it had excited? Would not an answer out 
 of Lardner, or Paley, or Pascal be deemed almost as 
 ill timed as the attack ? To be sure neither Cato nor 
 Cicero are represented as testifying any great disgust 
 at the language of Caesar, but this, as well indeed as 
 the topic being introduced at all by the latter, only 
 shows that the doctrine of a Future State was not one
 
 NOTES. 287 
 
 of the tenets much diffused among the people, or held 
 peculiarly sacred by them. Had the orator vindicated 
 Catiline by showing how much less flagitious his bad 
 life was than that of some of the gods to whom altars 
 were erected and worship rendered, a very different 
 burst of invective would have been called down upon 
 the blasphemous offender. 
 
 In truth, the passage thus relied upon only shows, 
 like all the rest of the facts, that the doctrine of retri- 
 bution was rather more esoteric than exoteric among the 
 ancients. The elaborate dissertation of Bishop War- 
 burton's upon the Mysteries, proves this effectually, and 
 clearly refutes his whole argument. For to prove that 
 the doctrine of future retribution was used at all as an 
 engine of state, he is forced to allege that it was the secret 
 disclosed to the initiated in the Sacred Mysteries ; which, 
 according to Cicero, were not to be viewed by the im- 
 prudent eye. (Ne imprudentiam quidem oculorum 
 adjici fas est, De Lcgg. II. 14.) Surely this would 
 rather indicate that such doctrines were not inculcated 
 indiscriminately, and that at all events, when a philo- 
 sopher gives them a place in his works, it cannot be in 
 pursuance of a plan for deceiving the multitude into a 
 belief different from his own. It is indeed plain enough 
 that the bulk of the people were restrained, if by any 
 sanctions higher than those of the penal laws, rather by 
 the belief of constant interposition from the gods. An 
 expectation of help from their favour or of punishment 
 from their anger in this life and without any delay, 
 formed the creed of the Greeks and Romans ; and
 
 288 NOTES. 
 
 nothing else is to be found in either the preamble to Za- 
 leucus the Locrian's laws quoted by Bishop Warburton, 
 or in the passages of Cicero's treatise, to which he also 
 refers. (Div. Leg. II. 3.) 
 
 Among the many notable inadvertencies of his argu- 
 ment, concealed from himself by an exuberant learning 
 and a dogmatism hardly to be paralleled, is the neglect- 
 ing to observe how difficultly the appearance of the doc- 
 trine in the places where we find it is reconciled with 
 his notion of its having formed the subject of the Mys- 
 teries. What part in those Mysteries did Cicero's and 
 Plato's and Seneca's and Xenophon's writings bear ? 
 There we have the doctrine plainly stated ; possibly to 
 the world at large possibly, far more probably, to the 
 learned reader only but assuredly not by the Hierophant 
 or the Mystagogue, to the initiated. This is wholly 
 inconsistent with the notion of its being reserved for 
 these alone. It is equally inconsistent with the theory 
 that it was promulgated for the purposes of deception ; for 
 such purposes would have been far better served by de- 
 cidedly making it a part neither of the instruction given 
 to the select and initiated few, nor of the doctrine confined 
 to the students of philosophy, but of the common, 
 vulgar, popular belief and ritual which it is admitted 
 not to have been. The truth undeniably is, that as, on 
 the one hand, it was not universally preached and in- 
 culcated, so neither was it any mystery forbidden to be 
 divulged that it was no part of the vulgar creed, nor 
 yet so repugnant to the religion of the country as to be 
 concealed from prudential considerations, like the unity
 
 NOTES. 
 
 289 
 
 of the Deity, the fabulousness of the ordinary poly- 
 theistic superstitions, as to the gods and goddesses, the 
 demigods, and the Furies. These opinions were indeed 
 esoteric, and only promulgated among the learned. A 
 few allusions, and but a few, are found to them in any of 
 the classical authors whose writings were intended fur 
 general perusal, and chiefly to the parts which had in 
 process of time become too gross even for the vulgar, 
 such as the Furies, Cerberus, &c., which Cicero describes 
 as unfit for the belief of even an ignorant or doting old 
 woman (Quae anus tarn excors, &c. De Nat. Dcor., and 
 Tusc. Qucest.\ and which are treated as fables both by 
 Demosthenes in that noble passage where he exclaims 
 that the Furies, who are represented in the scene as 
 driving men with burning torches (eAauefy Sayriv ^ ( ae- 
 va<f), are our bad passions, and by Cicero in words (Hi 
 faces, hee flammse, &c.) almost translated from the 
 Greek. 
 
 After all, can any thing be more violent than the 
 supposition that those philosophers, for the purpose of 
 deceiving the multitude, delivered opinions not held by 
 themselves, and delivered them in profound philoso- 
 phical treatises ? It is in the Phsedo and the TimEeus 
 (hardly intelligible to the learned), and the Tusculan 
 Questions, and the Somnium Scipionis, in an age when 
 there were hardly any readers beyond the disciples of 
 the several sects, that those exoteric matters are supposed 
 to be conveyed for accomplishing the purposes of popular 
 delusion not in poems and speeches, read in the Portico 
 or pronounced in the Forum. If then the records of their
 
 290 
 
 opinions on the most recondite subjects were chosen for 
 the depositories of exoteric faith, where are we to look for 
 their esoteric doctrines ? Bishop Warburton must needs 
 answer, in the very same records ; for to this he is driven, 
 because he has none other; and he cannot choose but 
 admit that the whole argument is utterly defective, if it 
 stops short at only showing those opinions to have been 
 delivered, even if proved to be exolerical, unless he can 
 also show opposite doctrines to have been esolericalhj en- 
 tertained inasmuch as a parson might grant the former 
 to have been delivered for popular use (which, however, 
 Bishop Warburton does not prove), and yet deny that 
 they were assumed for the purpose of deception. Ac- 
 cordingly he is driven to find, if he can, proofs of those 
 opposite doctrines in the self-same writings, where he 
 says the exoteric ones are conveyed. However, nothing 
 surely can be more absurd than this ; for it is to main- 
 tain that Plato and Cicero pretended to believe a future 
 state of retribution in order to deceive the multitude, 
 by stating it in the same writings in which they 
 betrayed their real sentiments to be the very reverse. 
 And this absurdity is the same, and this argument 
 is as cogent, if we take the double doctrine to apply, 
 not as we are, in favour of the Bishop's argument, 
 generally supposing to a difference between what was 
 taught in the face of the people and what was reserved 
 for the scholars, but to a division of the scholars into 
 two classes, one only of whom was supposed to see the 
 whole truth for the same writings on this subject are 
 said to contain both the statements of it. Nevertheless,
 
 NOTES. 291 
 
 let us shortly see how he finds any such contrary state- 
 ments, or any means of explaining away the positive and 
 precise dicta, and even reasonings, cited in the former 
 note (Note VIII.) 
 
 1. There can be no doubt that both the Greek and 
 Roman philosophers disbelieved part of the popular 
 doctrine as to future retribution, those punishments, to 
 wit, which are of a gross and corporeal nature ; and, 
 accordingly, what Timseus the Locrian and others have 
 said of the Tipouptat %zvcx.i proves nothing, for it applies 
 to those only. Strabo plainly speaks of these only in 
 the passage where he observes that women and the 
 vulgar are not to be kept pious and virtuous by the 
 lessons of philosophy, but by superstition, which cannot 
 be maintained without mythology (fable-making) and 
 prodigies (oia Ssun^ai^oviaf fovfo ' ovx. avsv p,v$OTfoia,; 
 AOLI 7 'spar ia.$), for he gives as examples of these, Jupiter's 
 Thunder, the Snakes of the Furies, &c. 
 
 2. Nothing can be more vague than the inference 
 drawn from such passages as those in Cicero and Seneca, 
 where a doubt is expressed on the subject of a Future 
 State, and a wish of more cogent proofs seems betrayed 
 as where Cicero makes one of his prolocutors, in the 
 Tusculan Questions, say, that when he lays down the 
 Phscclo, which had persuaded him, " Assensio omiiis ilia 
 elabitur" (i. 11.), and when Seneca speaks of the philoso- 
 phers as " rem gratissimam promittentes magis quam 
 probentes," and calls it " bellum somnium." Epist. 102. 
 No one pretends that the ancients had a firm and 
 abiding opinion, founded on very cogent reasons, re- 
 
 o 2
 
 292 NOTES. 
 
 specting a Future State ; and with far sounder theolo- 
 gians than they were, the anxiety naturally incident to 
 so momentous an inquiry may well excite occasional 
 doubts, and even apprehensions. Who questions Dr. 
 Johnson's general belief in Revelation, because in mo- 
 ments of depression, when desiderating some stronger 
 evidence, he was kindly told by a religious friend that 
 he surely had enough, and answered, " Sir, I would hare 
 more?" 
 
 3. When Strabo speaks of the Brahmins having in- 
 vented fables, like Plato, upon future judgment, it is 
 plain that he alludes to those speculations in the Phsedo, 
 which are avowedly and purposely given as imaginary 
 respecting the details of another world. To no other 
 part of the Plutonic doctrine can the Brahminical my- 
 thology be likened : nor would there be any accuracy of 
 speech at all in comparing those fables to the more 
 abstract doctrines of the immortality of the soul, as the 
 words literally do (wcrifsg v.ai nXxrx-v tfz^i rr,s oupfas- 
 ffias fyvxTjs). 
 
 4. The quotation from Aristotle may refer to this 
 world merely, but it is certainly made a good deal 
 stronger in Bishop Wavburton's translation o/3sfcura- 
 fov $s fa'/zros' itsoa.; yap, KO.I ouSsv z7i fw rshsun ' VJK 
 i, ovrs aya5ov, wfs X.S.KOV sivsu. " Death (as our author 
 renders it) is of all things the most terrible ; for it is 
 the final period of existence, and beyond that, it appears 
 there is neither good nor evil for the dead man to dread 
 or hope." This is, at the best, a mere paraphrase. Aris- 
 totle says Death is most terrible, for it is an end (of
 
 NOTES. 293 
 
 us), and there appears to be nothing further," good or 
 bad, for the dead. Even were we to take this as an 
 avowal of the Stagyrite's opinion in the sense given it by 
 Bishop Warburton, it proves nothing as to Plato. 
 
 4. Some of the Stoics seem certainly to have held that 
 the dissolution of the body closed the scene, and that 
 the body ceased to exist by the resolving of its mortal 
 frame into the kindred elements. Nevertheless, many of 
 their observations may be conceived to regard the vulgar 
 superstitions, and many of their sayings to flow from the 
 habit of grandiloquent contempt for all bodily suffering. 
 However, no one maintains that all the ancient sects of 
 Theists, and each disciple of every sect, firmly believed 
 in a future state; and it must be remarked that the 
 question raised by Bishop Warburton being as to the 
 belief in a state of retribiition, his citations from Seneca 
 and Epictetus go to deny the future continuance of the 
 soul altogether. Now he does not deny that at least 
 some of the ancients did believe in this. 
 
 5. But the authority of Cicero presses our author the 
 most closely, and accordingly he makes great efforts to 
 escape from it. After showing some circumstances, 
 rather of expression than any thing else, in his philoso- 
 phical treatises, he cites the oration Pro Cluentio, where, 
 speaking of the vulgar superstition, he says it is gene- 
 rally disbelieved, and then asks, " Quid aliud mors eri- 
 puit praeter sensum doloris ?" But this at best is a rhe- 
 torical nourish ; and being deli vered in public (though 
 before the judges) never could be seriously meant as 
 an esoteric attack on the doctrine. The doctrines in
 
 294 NOTES. 
 
 the De Officiis relate only to the Deity's being incapable 
 of anger or malevolence, on which account he praises 
 Regulus the more for keeping his oath when all philo- 
 sophers knew nee irasci Deum nee nocere ; which shows, 
 according to our author, that Cicero could not believe in 
 future retribution. But this is said by Cicero only in 
 reference to immediate punishments, or judgments, as 
 the vulgar term them. At any rate, the passage is quite 
 capable of this sense, and every rule of sound construc- 
 tion binds us to prefer it as consistent with the other 
 passages on a future state, while those passages will bear 
 no meaning but one. We may here observe, in passing, 
 the gratuitous manner in which works are held esoteric 
 and exoteric, just as suits the purposes of the argument. 
 The Offices contain the above passage, and therefore, 
 Bishop Warburton says it is the work which "bids the 
 fairest of any to be spoken from the heart." The passage 
 in the Somnium Scipionis, " Omnibus qui patriam con- 
 servarint, adjuverint, auxerint, certum esse in ccelo, ad 
 definitum locum ubi beati aevo sempiterno fruantur," 
 (Som. Scip. 87,) is got rid of, by saying that the ancients 
 believed souls to be either human, or heroic and demonic, 
 and that the two last went to heaven to enjoy eternal 
 happiness, but that the former, comprehending the bulk 
 of mankind, did not. This is begging the question to 
 no purpose, for it is also giving up the point, and at 
 the utmost only reduces the author's position to a denial 
 that the ancients believed in the immortality of all souls. 
 It must, however, be observed, that unless he is allowed 
 to assume also something like election and predestina-
 
 NOTES. 295 
 
 tion, he gains hardly even this in his argument ; for if a 
 man by patriotic conduct can become one of the heroic 
 souls, and so gain eternal life, what more distinct admis- 
 sion can be desired of a future state of retribution ? That 
 the doctrine of immortality was, by many at least, con- 
 ferred in some such way, may be true. The beautiful 
 passage in Tacitus seems to point that way, " Si non 
 cum corpore extinguuntur magnce animae." (Vit. Ag. 
 sub Jin.) The main proof, however, against Cicero's 
 belief is drawn from the Epistles, where alone, says our 
 author, we can be sure of his speaking his real senti- 
 ments. Yet never did proof more completely fail. 
 Writing to Torquatus, he says, " Nee enim dum ero, 
 angar xilla re, cum omni vacem culpa et si non ero, 
 sensu omnino carebo," (Lib. vi. Ep. 31.); and to 
 Toranius, " Ima ratio videtur, ferre moderate, praesertim 
 cum omnium rerum mors sit extremum," (Lib.vi.Ep.21.) 
 And this, which really means nothing more than a com- 
 mon remark on death ending all our pains and troubles, 
 the learned author calls " professing his disbelief in a 
 future state of retribution in the frankest manner." 
 Div. Leg. iii. 3. 
 
 It seems, therefore, not too much to say that the 
 Divine Legation does not more completely fail in proving 
 the grand paradox which forms the main object of the 
 argument, and which has been parodied by Soame 
 Jenyns, in his most injudicious defence of Christianity, 
 than it does in supporting the minor paradox which is 
 taken up incidentally as to the real opinions of the 
 ancients, and which, it must be admitted, is indeed quite
 
 296 NOTES. 
 
 unnecessary to the general argument, and as little da- 
 mages it by its entire failure, as it could help it by the 
 most entire success. 
 
 NOTE X. SECTION VI., p. 138. 
 
 A LEARNED and valuable work upon the life of Lord 
 Bacon is prepared for publication by Mr. B. Montague, 
 and will soon be before the world. Some very important 
 facts are proved satisfactorily by the ingenious author, 
 and show how much the criminality of this great man is 
 exaggerated in the common accounts of his fall. But 
 it is clearly shown, that he was prevailed upon by the 
 intrigues of James I. and his profligate minister to aban- 
 don his own defence, and sacrifice himself to their base 
 and crooked policy a defence which disgraces them 
 more than it vindicates him. One thing, however, is 
 undeniable, that they who so loudly blame Bacon, over- 
 look the meanness of almost all the great statesmen of 
 those courtly times. 
 
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 vantage from the illustrated system of instruction published at the expense of its go- 
 vernment. 
 
 The present Work is submitted to the public as a specimen of the manner in which 
 the author conceives a manufacture should be discussed. After an experience of 
 twenty-five years as a public professor in teaching the scientific principles of the arts, 
 and extensive practice in their processes, he trusts he is not unprepared to discharge 
 the task in hand with credit to himself and advantage to his country. He has, more- 
 over, been liberally aided in his researches by some of the most accomplished manu- 
 facturers and engineers in the kingdom. 
 
 Wealth of Nations. 
 
 A New Edition of 
 
 ADAM SMITH'S WEALTH OF NATIONS. With a Preface and 
 Notes, critical and explanatory, by the Author of ' England and America.' 
 To be completed in 5 vols., royal 18mo., of about 500 pages, at 5*. each 
 volume, bound in cloth, and published at intervals not exceeding three 
 months. 
 
 This publication has been undertaken with the following objects: First, to explain 
 the grounds on which a few of the doctrines of the illustrious author of the ' Wealth of 
 Nations' are now generally allowed to be erroneous; secondly, to vindicate, by illus- 
 trating, some of his doctrines which modern writers have impugned ; thirdly, to point 
 out some apparent errors in his great work which have been overlooked by his critics; 
 fourthly, to ascertain in what respects the ' Wealth of Nations,' and other celebrated 
 works on the same subject, seem to be deficient as treatises on political economv ; 
 lastly, and above all, by means of cheapness, to place within the reach of the middle 
 and working-classes a book which, even if its subject matter had not " come home to 
 the business and bosoms of all men," would have been classical on account of its ad- 
 mirable English. Hitherto, only the richer classes have had ready access to the most 
 valuable treatise on the most important worldly subject that can occupy the human 
 mind. No book, perhaps, is so commonly borrowed as the ' Wealth of Nations ;' be- 
 cause, while it must be read by every one who would acquire but a decent stock of 
 political knowledge, it has not been published at a moderate price. Concerning the 
 proposed additions 10 the text, all that can be promised is, that they shall have one 
 general and constant aim the pursuit, with regard to the question examined, of the 
 truth, and nothing but the truth ; from which it may appear that, in the science of 
 political economv, a great deal remains to be discovered before the whole truth shall 
 be established. " 
 
 Table Talk. 
 
 The BOOK OF TABLE TALK. To be published in occasional 
 Volumes, price 5*. each volume, bound in cloth. 
 
 The object of this Work is to bring together, in the most complete, and at the same 
 time compendious lorm, a great body of the most interesting and curious tacts which 
 are Scattered over the manifold volumes comprising the Public, Social, and Literary 
 History of our own and of other countries. The Work will aim at a higher character than 
 that of being a mere book of anecdote. The subjects will be groaned in a manner that 
 will appear as the reflection of actual conversation; and ths reader, who at first takes: 
 up the book for amusement only, will be ultimately enabled, by the ;ud of an analytical
 
 Preparing for Publication by CHARLES KNIGHT. 7 
 
 index, to refer to a mass of information upon the chief subjects of permanent conver- 
 sational interest, more full and exact than in any other work of so miscellaneous a cha- 
 racter. The object proposed will be principally attained by tiie co-operation of many 
 writers, whose range of information upon particular branches of knowledge is well 
 delined. 
 
 Health. 
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HEALTH; Or, an Exposition of the 
 Physical and Mental Constitution of Man, with a view to thy Promotion 
 of Human Longevity and Happiness. Vol.11. By SOI;TII\VO>>L> SMITH, 
 
 Lord's Prayer. 
 
 EIGHT ILLUSTRATIONS of the LORD'S PRAYER, from the 
 designs of the late JOHN FLAXMAN, R.A., drawn oa stone by RICHAKU 
 LANE, A.R.A., and now first published. 
 
 In royal 8vo., on India paper, price 5s. sewed. 
 
 China. 
 
 CHINA. An Account of the Progressive European Intercourse, the 
 present Commercial Relations, the Productions, Government, Littrature, 
 Arts, and Customs of that country. With Wood-cuts ; one volume, 
 post 8vo. 
 
 Force and Reason. 
 
 CAPTAIN SWORD AND CAPTAIN PEN. A Poem. By LEIGH 
 HUNT. With some remarks on War and Military Statesmen. 
 
 If there be in glory an 
 
 ghtofgood, 
 be attained, 
 
 It may, by means far different, be attained, 
 Witho'ut ambition, war, or violence." Milton. 
 Small 8vo., illustrated with Engravings on Wood, price 3*. 6d. sewed, 
 or 4s. 6d. bound in cloth. 
 
 London. 
 
 The STREETS of the METROPOLIS, their MEMORIES and 
 GREAT MEN. By LEIGH HUNT. With numerous Wood-cuts, Vol. I. 
 royal 18mo. 
 
 Arithmetic. 
 
 CONVERSATIONS ON ARITHMETIC. By Mrs. G. R. PORTER, 
 Author of ' Alfred Dudley,' &c. One vol. 12mo. 
 
 Latin Poets. 
 CORPUS POETARUM LATINORUM. Edited by W. S. WALKER, 
 
 Esq., Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. One large vol. 8vo., bound 
 in cloth, M. 5*; 
 
 The Authors comprised in this volume constitute THE WHQI.E OF THE 
 CLASSICAL LATIN POETS, chronologically arranged, with brief notices of 
 their Lives. 
 
 The TEXTS of the CORPUS POKTARTTM have not only been selected by the Editor from 
 the best editions, but the Orthography and Punctuation have been by him reduced 
 to a uniform standard. The greatest care lias been taken to insure correctness in 
 Printing. 
 
 The peculiar advantages of this Edition are its PORTABILITY and its CHEAPNESS. 
 The whole body of Latin Poetry may now lie FOR REFERENCE ON THE TABLE OF THE 
 STUDENT, in a single volume, printed in a type of great distinctness. The very lowest 
 price of a Pocket Edition of these authors, who are here given ENTIRE, WITHOUT THE 
 OMISSION OF A SINGLE LiNE.isabout Six GUINEAS. In the common Delphiu Edition, 
 they amount to EIGHT GUINEAS. The CORPUS POETARUM, at the PRESENT REDUCED 
 PRICE, is not equal to one-fourth of the cost of any edition, even of the Text only, of 
 .he Latin poets.
 
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