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 PALEY'S 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY; 
 
 WITH 
 
 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES, 
 
 BY 
 
 IIEXRY, LORD BROUGHAM, F.R.S., and SIR C. BELL, K.G.H., &c. 
 
 AND AN INTRODUCTORY 
 
 DISCOURSE OF NATURAL THEOLOGY, 
 
 BY^ LORD BROUGHAM: 
 
 TO WHICH ARE ADDED, 
 
 SUPPLEMENTARY DISSERTATIONS, 
 AND A TREATISE ON ANIMAL MECHANICS, 
 
 BY' SIR CHARLES BELL. 
 
 WITH NUMEROUS WOODCUTS. 
 
 IN FOUR VOLS. VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON: 
 CHARLES KNIGHT & CO., LUDGATE STREET. 
 
 1845.
 
 L0ND0:M : WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STBEET.
 
 ■fe L ( iii ) 
 
 ,./ CONTENTS 
 
 A DISCOURSE OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 
 
 Dedication 
 
 Introduction — Arrangement of Subjects and Expla- 
 nation of Terms . . . • . 
 
 Analysis of the Work , . . . . 
 
 PART I. 
 
 NATURE OF THE SCIENCE AND OF ITS EVIDENCES. 
 
 Section I. — Introductory View of the Method of In- 
 vestigation pursued in the Physical and Psycholo- 
 gical Sciences ...... 
 
 Section II. — Comparison of the Physical Branch of 
 Natural Theology with Physics . * 
 
 Section III. — Comparison of the Psychological 
 Branch of Natural Theology with Psychology . 
 
 Section IV. — Of the Argument a priori 
 
 Section V. — Moral or Ethical Branch of Natural 
 
 Theology .....•• 
 Section VI. — Lord Bacon's Doctrine of Final Causes 
 Section VII. — Of Scientific Arrangement, and the 
 
 Methods of Analysis and Synthesis -
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PART IT. 
 
 OK THE ADVANTAGES OF THE STUDY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Section I. — Of the Pleasures of Science . . 132 
 
 Section II. — Of the Pleasure and Improvement pecu- 
 liar to Natural Theology . . . . 141 
 
 Section III. — Of the Connexion between Natural and 
 
 Revealed Relisrion , . • , .149 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 Note I. — Of the Classification of the Sciences . . 161 
 
 II. — Of tlie Psychological Argument from Final 
 
 Causes 163 
 
 III.— Of the Doctrine of Cause and EflTect . 168 
 
 IV. — Of the * Systeme de la Nature,' and the 
 
 Hypothesis of Materialism . . . 171 
 
 V. — Of Mr. Hume's Sceptical Writings, and the 
 
 Argument respecting Providence . . 181 
 
 YI. — Of the Ancient Doctrines respecting Mind' 191 
 
 VII. — Of the Ancient Doctrines respecting the 
 
 Deity and Matter . . . .193 
 
 Vm. — Of the Ancient Doctrine of the Immortalitv 
 
 of the Soul . . . . '.197 
 
 IX. — Of Bishop Warburton's Theory concerning 
 
 the Ancient Doctrine of a Future State 203 
 
 X.— Of Lord Bacon's Character . . . 212 
 
 Translation of Passages in the Text . . . 213 
 
 Translation of Passages in the Notes . . . 214
 
 DISCOURSE 
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY, 
 
 SHOWING 
 
 THE NATURE OF THE EVIDENCE AND THE 
 ADVANTAGES OF THE STUDY. 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY, LORD BROUGHAM, F.R.S., 
 
 AND MEMBER OF THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF FRANCE. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 A DISCOURSE 
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 
 
 TO 
 
 JOHN CHARLES VISCOUNT ALTHORPE.* 
 
 The composition of this discourse was undertaken 
 in consequence of an observation which I had often 
 made, that scientific men are 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 
 appeared to me desirable to define, more precisely 
 than had yet been done, the place and the claims of 
 
 * Now Earl Spencer. 
 
 b2
 
 8 A DISCOURSE 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 
 scientific 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 fundamental principles ; and the scheme 
 was abandoned. I regarded it, however, as expe- 
 dient to carry this plan into execution by individual 
 exertion ; and our worthy and accomplished col- 
 league, Sir C. Bell — whose admirable treatise on 
 Animal Mechanics pointed him out as the fellow- 
 labourer I should most desire — fortunately 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 L, and the 
 greater portion of the Notes, written at the end of 
 1830, in 1831, and the latter part of 1833, and a 
 portion was added in the autumn of 1834. In 
 those days I held the Great Seal of tliis 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 
 
 * For the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. y 
 
 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 sub- 
 ject needs the patronage of a great name — for it 
 would be affectation in me to pretend any such 
 motive; but because you have devoted much of 
 your time to such inquiries — are beyond most men 
 sensible of their importance — concur generally 
 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 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 
 liave 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 
 opinions — " Proficiscar enim non ad eos solum 
 viros de quibus ante dixi, sed etiam ad Catonem 
 meum, quo nemo vir melior natus est, nemo pietate 
 praestantior ; cujus a me corpus crematum est,
 
 10 A DISCOURSE OP 
 
 animus vero non me deserens seel respectans, in ea 
 profecto loca discessit quo mihi ipsi cernebat esse 
 veniendum ; quern ego meum casum fortiter ferre 
 visus sum, non quod aequo animo ferrem ; sed me 
 ipse consolabar, existimans, non longinquum inter 
 nos digressum et discessum fore." * 
 
 * De Senect.
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 11 
 
 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 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 he uses the word 
 Religion as synonymous with TJieology, 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
 
 12 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 sense equally restricted, but certainly little war- 
 ranted by custom ; 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 Theo- 
 logy. The older writers, Clarke, Bentley, Der- 
 ham, seem to have sometimes used the words indif- 
 ferently, but never to have regarded Natural 
 Religion in the restricted acceptation. The an- 
 cients generally used Religion in a qualified sense, 
 either as connected witli*an obligation, or as syno- 
 nymous with superstition. 
 
 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 nature 
 of the evidence upon which it rests — to show that 
 it is a science, the truths of which are discovered 
 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 rela- 
 tion 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
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 13 
 
 speak of " moral science," " moral truths,'' " mo- 
 ral philosophy .'' But it is also used in contradis- 
 tinction to " intellectual or " mental^' and in 
 connexion with or in reference to obligation ; and 
 then it relates to rights and duties, and is synony- 
 mous with ethical. It seems advisable to use it 
 always in this sense, and to employ the words spi- 
 ritual and mental in opposition to natural and ma- 
 terial ; and psychological, as applied to the science 
 of mind, in opposition to physical. Again, a dis- 
 tinction is sometimes made between the intellectual 
 and moral powers or faculties — the former being 
 those of the understanding, the latter those of the 
 will, or, as they are often called, the " active 
 poioers,'' — that is, the passions and feelings. It 
 seems better to use the word active for this purpose 
 as opposed to intellectual. Thus we shall first 
 have these general terms, spiritual or mental, as 
 applied to the immaterial part of the creation, and 
 psychological, as applied to the science which treats 
 of it. We shall next have a subdivision of the 
 mental faculties 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 duties, 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 
 termed with great accuracy, Ontology, speaking of 
 that which is; the other. Deontology, speaking 
 of that which ought to be. The former, however, 
 
 B 3
 
 14 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 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 
 either psyclwlogical^ 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 psychological, 
 though plainly connected M'ith it nearly as corol- 
 laries are with the propositions from whence they 
 flow. Then physical truths, in one respect, come 
 under the same head with the first branch of meta- 
 physical truths. Physical as well as psychological 
 science treats of existences, while moral science 
 alone treats of duties. 
 
 According to a like arrangement. Natural The- 
 ology consists of two great branches, one resem- 
 bling Ontology, the other analogous to Deontology, 
 The former comprehends the discovery of the ex- 
 istence 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 
 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 ex- 
 hibited both in the natural and spiritual Morlds. 
 
 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 tliree compartments, Natural, 
 Mental, and Moral ; or, taking the Greek terms, 
 Physical, Psychological, and Ethical.
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 15 
 
 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 clas- 
 sification and technology. Having so stated the 
 divisions of the subject, and the meaning of the 
 terms used in relation to those divisions, I shall as- 
 sume this arrangement and adhere to this phraseo- 
 logy, as convenient, though far from represent- 
 ing it to be the best. In such discussions it is far 
 more important to employ one uniform and pre- 
 viously explained language or arrangement, than 
 to be very curious in adopting the best. No clas- 
 sification indeed can, from the nature of things, 
 be rigorously exact. All the branches of science, 
 even of natural philosophy, much more of meta- 
 physical, run into each other, and are separated by 
 gradations rather than by lines of demarcation. 
 Nor could any scientific language we possess help 
 breaking down under us in an attempt to maintain 
 a perfectly logical arrangement.* 
 
 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 de- 
 rived 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 
 
 * Note I.
 
 16 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 Psychological science are investigated, and shows 
 there is as great an appearance of diversity be- 
 tween the manner in which we arrive at the 
 knowledge of different truths in those inductive 
 sciences, as there is between the nature of any 
 such inductive investigation and the proofs of the 
 ontological branches of Natural Theology. But 
 that diversity is proved to be only apparent ; and 
 hence it is inferred, that the supposed difference 
 in 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 in- 
 ductive science as Physics or Natural 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 in- 
 duction. 
 
 The fourth section shows that the argumentum 
 a priori is unsound to a great degree — that it is 
 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 argumentum a posteriori. 
 
 The Jrfth section treats of the second or Moral, 
 the deontological branch of Natural Theology, and
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 17 
 
 shows that it rests upon the same kind of evidence 
 with moral science, and is, strictly speaking, 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 points out 
 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 subject, 
 and therefore the third and the Jifth 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 
 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 advan- 
 tages 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.
 
 18 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 The second treats of the pleasures which are 
 peculiar to this study. 
 
 The third treats of the connexion of Natural 
 with Revealed Religion.* 
 
 * I have heard it said that some ideas in one part of this 
 Discourse had been anticipated by a work of Dr. Crombie. 
 That such coincidence is purely accidental must appear from 
 this, that having mislaid his book when it reached me, I have 
 never read one line of it to this hour. — Sept. 1845.
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 19 
 
 PART THE FIRST. 
 
 NATURE OF THE SCIENCE, AND OF ITS 
 EVIDENCES. 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY VIEW OF THE METHOD OF INVES- 
 TIGATION PURSUED IN THE PHYSICAL AND 
 PSYCHOLOGICAL 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 immediately 
 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 under- 
 standing, or the passions, or both together, are, 
 with nearly the whole of mankind, employed dur- 
 ing the greater portion of their existence, and, 
 with the bulk of mankind, during 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 occu- 
 pies the majority only occasionally and at consi-
 
 20 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 derable intervals, comprehends within its scope all 
 the subjects of meditation and reflection — of merely- 
 speculative reasoning and discussion : it is com- 
 posed of all the efforts which our understanding 
 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 constantly 
 furthers the progress of science merely speculative. 
 But the two provinces are nevertheless perfectly 
 distinguishable, and ought not to be confounded. 
 The corollary from a scientific discovery may be 
 the improvement of a very ordinary machine or a 
 common working tool ; yet the establishment of 
 the speculative truth may have been the primary 
 object of the philosopher who discovered it ; and 
 to learn that truth is the immediate purpose of 
 him who studies the philosopher'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 mental 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 feel- 
 ings are primarily engaged in some active exertion. 
 Some physical law, or some psycliological truth, 
 may be discovered by one only intent upon supply- 
 ing a physical want, or obtaining a mental enjoy-
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 21 
 
 ment. But here, as in the former case, the scientific 
 or speculative object is only incidental or collateral 
 to the main pursuit : the matter of contemplation 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 suffici- 
 ently defined. The objects of our inquiry and 
 meditation appear to be either those things in the 
 physical and spiritual worlds with which we are 
 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 
 evidence of things unseen and unfelt. We either 
 discuss 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 con- 
 templation 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 in- 
 quiries 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 
 Tlieology. 
 
 It is not to be denied that this classification may 
 be convenient ; indeed, it rests upon some real
 
 22 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 foundation ; for the speculations which compose 
 these two branches have certain common differ- 
 ences and common resemblances. Yet it is equally 
 certain, that nothing but an imperfect knowledge 
 of the subject, or a superficial attention to it, can 
 permit us to thiiik that there is any well-defined 
 boundary which separates the two kinds of philo- 
 sophy ; that the methods of investigation are dif- 
 ferent 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 inac- 
 curacy of classification ; for it materially impairs 
 the force of the proofs upon which Natural 
 Theology rests. The proposition which I 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 establisiied by a fuller 
 explanation ; and we shall best set about this task 
 by showing, in the first place, that the same ap- 
 parent diversity of evidence exists in the different 
 subjects or departments of the branch which we 
 have termed Human science. It seems to exist 
 there on a superficial examination : if a closer 
 scrutiny puts that appearance to flight, the in- 
 ference is legitimate, that there may be no better 
 ground for admitting an essential difference be- 
 tween the foundations of Human Science and 
 Divine. 
 
 The careless inquirer into physical truth would 
 certainly tiiink he had seized on a sound prin- 
 ciple of classification, if he sliould divide the ob- 
 jects with which piiilosopliy, Natural and Mental,
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 23 
 
 is conversant, into two classes — those objects of 
 which we know the existence by our senses or our 
 consciousness ; 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 
 existence 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 sup- 
 posing- him to be so far capable of reflection as to 
 know that the proof of the mind's separate ex- 
 istence is, at the least, as short, plain, and direct, 
 as that of the body, or of external objects. Under 
 the second head he would range generally what- 
 ever objects of examination are not directly per- 
 ceived by the senses, or felt by consciousness. 
 
 But a moment's reflection will show both how 
 very short a way this classification would carry 
 our inaccurate logician, and how entirely his prin- 
 ciple fails to support him even during- that little 
 part of the journey. Thus the examination of 
 certain visible objects and appearances enables us 
 to ascertain the laws of light and of vision. Our 
 senses teach us that colours difi'er, 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 under- 
 stand that the organ of vision performs its func- 
 tions by a natural apparatus resembling, though 
 far surpassing, certain instruments of our own 
 constructing, and that therefore it works on the 
 same principles. But that light, which can be
 
 24 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 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 the dimensions of whatever 
 matter it penetrates ; we feel its effects upon our 
 own nerves when subjected 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 ex- 
 istence 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 pro- 
 duces a certain effect ; but to infer from thence 
 the existence of a rare, light, invisible, and im- 
 palpable fluid, is clearly an operation of reasoning, 
 as much as that which enables us to infer the 
 existence of liglit or heat from their perceptible 
 effects. But furthermore, we are accustomed to 
 speak of seeing motion ; and the reasone'r whom we 
 are supposing would certainly class the phenomena 
 of mechanics, and possibly 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 know- 
 ledge of motion is a deduction of reasoning, not a 
 perception of sense ; it is derived from the com- 
 parison of two 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 reason- 
 ing and of recollection. Thus, then, there is at 
 once excluded from the first class almost the whole
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 25 
 
 range of natural philosophy. But are we quite 
 sure that anything remains which when severely 
 examined 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 be- 
 longed 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 
 sensations is the reasoning which makes us believe 
 in the existence of a body called light. The same 
 may be said of heat and tlie phenomena of heated 
 bodies. The existence of heat is an inference from 
 certain phenomena, that is, certain effects produced 
 on our external senses by certain bodies, or certain 
 changes which those senses undergo in the neigh- 
 bourhood 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 comparing our sensations 
 occasioned by the external objects placed in varying 
 circumstances. 
 
 But can we say that there is no process of rea- 
 soning even in the simplest case whicli we have 
 supposed our reasoner to put — the existence of the
 
 26 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 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 cer- 
 tain 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 unaided 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 experience, and the indica- 
 tions of other senses ; for the young man whom 
 Mr. Cheselden couched for a cataract at first be- 
 lieved that everything 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 requires a process of abstraction alien from the 
 ordinary habits of most men, to be persuaded that 
 we have a more undeniable evidence of its separate 
 existence than we even have of tlie separate exist- 
 ence of the body. 
 
 It thus clearly appears that we have been justi- 
 fied in calling the classifier whose case we have 
 been supposing, a careless inquirer, a superficial 
 reasoner, an imperfect logician ; that tliere is no
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 27 
 
 real foundation for the distinction which we have 
 supposed him to take between the different 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 
 different kinds of human science, has it any better 
 grounds when we apply it to draw the line between 
 that branch of ' philosophy itself, and the other 
 which has been termed Divine, or theology ? In 
 other words, is there any real, any specific differ- 
 ence between the method of investigation, the 
 nature of the evidence, in the two departments of 
 speculation ? Although this preliminary discourse, 
 and indeed the work itself which it introduces, and 
 all the illustrations of it, are calculated 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 same fallacy which we have been 
 exposing, in regard to the classification of objects 
 in ordinary 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.
 
 28 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 COMPARISON OF THE PHYSICAL BRANCH OF NA- 
 TURAE THEOLOGY WITH PHYSICS. 
 
 The two inquiries— that into tlie 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 and mental, and the fundamental branch of 
 Natural Theology, — ^are not only closely allied one 
 to the other, but are to a very considerable extent 
 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 refracting 
 light, and making it converge to a focus upon the 
 retina ; and that the peculiar combination of its 
 lenses, and the ditl'erent materials they are com- 
 posed of, correct the indistinctness wliich would 
 otherwise arise from the different refrangibility 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 reasoning, we arrive 
 at a theological truth — namely, that the instrument 
 so successfidly performing a given service by means 
 of this curious structure, must have been formed
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 29 
 
 with a knowledge of tlie properties of light. The 
 position from which so easy a step brings us to this 
 doctrine of Natural Theology was gained by strict 
 Induction. Upon the same evidence which all na- 
 tural science rests on, reposes the knowledge that 
 the eye is an optical instrument : this is a truth 
 common to both Physics and Theology. Before 
 the days of Sir Isaac Newton men knew that they 
 saw by means of the eye, and that the eye was con- 
 structed upon optical principles ; but the reason 
 of its peculiar conformation they knew not, because 
 they were ignorant of the different refrangibility 
 of light. When his discoveries taught this truth, 
 it was found to have been acted upon, and conse- 
 quently known, by the Being who created the eye. 
 Still our knowledge was imperfect ; and it was re- 
 served for Mr. Dollond to discover another law of 
 nature — the different dispersive powers of different 
 substances — which enabled him to compound an 
 object-glass that more effectually corrected the 
 various refrangibility of the rays. It was now ob- 
 served that tliis 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 circum- 
 stances, as in different animals ; and the truths thus 
 learnt are in like manner common to Physical and 
 Theological science ; that is, to Natural History, 
 or Comparative Anatomy, and Natural Theology. 
 
 VOL. I. c
 
 30 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 That beautiful instrument, so artistly contrived 
 that the most ingenious workman could not imagine 
 an improvement of it, becomes still more interest- 
 ing and more wonderful, when we find that its 
 conformation is varied with the different 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 am- 
 phibious animal has occasionally to dive into the 
 water, with the change of the medium through 
 which the rays pass there is an accommodation in 
 the condition of the humours, and the eye partakes 
 of the eye both of the quadruped and of the fish. 
 
 So, having contemplated the apparatus for pro- 
 tection 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 accomplish it 
 by other modes than the eyelids, an additional eye- 
 lid, a new apparatus, is provided for this purpose. 
 
 Again, in fishes, whose eye is washed by the ele- 
 ment in which they move, all the exterior apparatus 
 is unnecessary, and is dismissed ; but in the crab, 
 and especially in that species whicli lies in mud, 
 the very peculiar and horny prominent eye, which 
 every body must have observed, would be quite 
 obscured were it not for a particular provision. 
 There is a little brush of hair above the eye, against 
 which the eye is occasionally raised 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 tlie instrument compared with 
 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
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 31 
 
 reasoning : that it is contrived for this purpose is 
 equally a discovery of observation and reasoning. 
 Both propositions are strictly propositions of phy- 
 sical 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 appointed 
 use, is learnt by an induction of the strictest kind. 
 But it is impossible to deny, that what induction 
 thus teaches forms the great bulk of all Natural 
 Theology. The question which the theologian 
 always puts upon each discovery of a purpose 
 manifestly accomplished is this: "Suppose I had 
 this operation to perform by mechanical means, 
 and were acquainted with the laws regulating the 
 action of matter, should I attempt it in any other 
 way than I here see practised ?" If the answer is 
 in the negative, the consequence is irresistible, 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 in- 
 duction, 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 
 
 c2
 
 32 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 ligliter than the white ; and is attached to it at two 
 points by the treadles. If a line were draw^n 
 through these tw^o points it would pass below the 
 centre of gravity of the yolk. From this arrange- 
 ment it must follow that the chick is always upper- 
 most, 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 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 suspension ? Assuredly 
 not ; for in no other way could his purpose be ac- 
 complished. This position is attained by a strict 
 induction ; it is supported by the same kind of evi- 
 dence on which all physical 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 with 
 the knowledge of dynamics. 
 
 The forms of the bones and joints, and the ten- 
 dons or cords which play over them, afford a variety 
 of instances of the most perfect mechanical adjust- 
 ment. Sometimes the power is sacrificed for ra- 
 pidify of motion, and sometimes rapidity 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 enable us to rise or to 
 leap. We have a mechanism of precisely the same 
 kind in the lesser joints, where the bones, answer-
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 33 
 
 ing 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. 
 All 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 relative 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 nothing 
 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 tight when 
 the creature bends its leg, and is relaxed 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 pressure of the heel- 
 bone, and the toes are permitted to be fully ex- 
 tended and at the same time expanded, 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 
 * Hence called Sesamoid, from Sesainum, a kind of grain.
 
 34 A DISCOURSE 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, and they must fall. 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 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 tendon is stretched, or would be stretched, were 
 it not that its divided extremities, inserted into the 
 last bones of the toes, draw those toes, so that they 
 contract, and grasp the branch on which the bird 
 roosts, without any effort whatever on its part. 
 
 These are facts learnt by induction ; the inductive 
 science of dynamics shows us that such mechanism 
 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. 
 
 Consider now, in land animals, the structure of 
 the larynx, the upper part of which is so contrived 
 as to keep the windpipe closely shut by the valve 
 thrown over its orifice, wliile 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 ascribing tliis curious me- 
 chanism to the intention that the same opening of 
 the throat and mouth should serve for conveying
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 35 
 
 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 porpoise, we find the valve is not 
 flat, but prominent 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 
 complete the communication beween 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 plea- 
 sure 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 and fill the 
 hollows with air, in order to rise. No one (;an 
 doubt that such facts afford direct evidence of an 
 apt contrivance directed towards a specific object, 
 and adopted by some power thoroughly acquainted 
 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 planetary system. 
 There is one particular arrangement which pro- 
 duces 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 influence quite universal, per- 
 vading all space, and equally regulating the mo-
 
 36 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 tions of the smallest particles of matter and of its 
 most prodigious masses. This arrangement con- 
 sists in making the planets move in orbits more or 
 less elliptical, but none diftering 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 connected with all matter as far as 
 we know, extends 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 accom- 
 panied wqth a similar and probably a coeval rota- 
 tory motion in some of them round their axis, and 
 the attraction of each towards every other body, 
 ^diich attraction produces three several effects — con- 
 solidating the mass of each, and, in conjunction with 
 the rotatory motion, moulding their forms — retain- 
 ing each planet in its orbit round the sun, and each 
 satellite in its orbit round the planet — altering or dis- 
 turbing what would be the motion of each round the 
 sun if tliere were no other bodies in the system to 
 attract and disturb. Kow it is demonstrated by the 
 strictest process of mathematical reasoning, that 
 the result of the whole of these mutual actions, 
 proceeding from the universal influence of gravita- 
 tion, must necessarily, in consequence of the pe- 
 culiar arrangement which has been described of 
 the orbits and masses, and in consequence of the 
 law l)y whicli gravitation acts, produce a constant 
 alteration in the orbit of each body, which altera-
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 37 
 
 tion 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 exceed- 
 ing on either side a certain point. All changes in 
 the system are tlius periodical, and its perpetual 
 stability is completely secured. It is manifest that 
 such an arrangement, so conducive to such a pur- 
 pose, and so certainly accomplishing that purpose, 
 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 wholly admirable a harmony, 
 out of such numberless disturbances — and that this 
 power was actuated by the intention of producing 
 this effect.* The reasoning upon this subject, I 
 have observed, is purely mathematical ; but the 
 facts respecting the system on which all that rea- 
 soning 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 astrono- 
 mical observation whereon the analysis is grounded 
 * Earum autem perennes cursus atque perpetui cum ad- 
 mirabili incredibilique constantia, declarant in his vim et 
 mentem esse divinam, ut hsec ipsa qui non sentiat deorum 
 vim habere, is nihil omnino sensurus esse videatur. — Cicero 
 JDe Nat. Deo. 11. 21. 
 
 C 3
 
 38 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 — 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 phe- 
 nomena of his system. 
 
 But let us examine further this matter. The 
 position which we reach by a strict process of in- 
 duction, is common to Natural Philosophy and 
 Natural Theology — namely, that a given organ 
 performs a given function, or a given arrangement 
 possesses a certain stability, by its adaptation to 
 mechanical laws. I have said that the process of 
 reasoning is short and easy, by which we arrive 
 at the doctrine more peculiar to Natural Theology 
 — namely, that some power acquainted with and 
 acting upon the knowledge of those laws, fashioned 
 the organ with the intention of having the function 
 of vision performed, or constructed the system so that 
 it might endure. Is not this last process as much 
 one of strict induction 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 example, we pass over a com- 
 mon 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 mechanic made it, and that 
 some one dropt it on the ground. Why do we 
 draw this inference ? Because all our former ex- 
 perience had told us that such machinery is the 
 result of human skill and labour, and that it no- 
 where grows wild about, or is found in the earth.
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY". 39 
 
 When we see tliat a certain effect, namely, distinct 
 vision, is performed by an achromatic instrument, 
 the eye, why do we infer that some one must have 
 made it? Because we nowhere and at no time 
 have had any experience of any one thing fashion- 
 ing 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 similar 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 superintend er of these 
 operations, why do we draw this conclusion ? Be- 
 cause we know by experience that if we ourselves 
 desired to accomplish a similar purpose, we should 
 do so by the like adaptation ; we know by expe- 
 rience that this is design in us, and that our pro- 
 ceedings 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 wdth which we made them, 
 they Avould 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, tliat 
 the members of the body were fashioned for certain 
 uses by a maker acquainted 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
 
 40 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 by Cuvier, Buckland, and others, in its connexion 
 with Zoological and Geological researches. 
 
 A comparative anatomist, of profound learning 
 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 extremities (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 be- 
 longed, 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 un- 
 derstood ; where the connexion of the 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 compared 
 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 tlie print of a cloven 
 foot, or that he had horns from his wanting cer- 
 tain teeth, or that he wanted the collar-bone from 
 his having cloven hoofs. Limited experience hav- 
 ing 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 tliey proceed upon 
 the strictest rules of induction. It is shown that
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 41 
 
 animals formerly existed on the globe, being un- 
 known 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, 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 rep- 
 tiles. 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 elephants and river-horses, while the 
 water was tenanted by lizards, sixty or seventy feet 
 long, and by others with 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 long jaws and 
 expanding wings, armed at the tips with claws. 
 
 No less strange, and yet no less proceeding from 
 induction, are the discoveries made respecting the 
 former state of the earth ; the manner in whicli 
 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 suddenly exterminated by drown-
 
 42 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 ing. His researches have been conducted by ex- 
 periments with living animals, as well as by obser- 
 vation upon the fossil remains.* 
 
 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 purpose 
 in referring to it. We learn from it that as a world 
 existed without human beings, for no human bones 
 are found in the earlier strata, it must be true that 
 a superior power, a divine and creative power, in- 
 terfered with the established order of things, and 
 made man. But for another reason I have intro- 
 duced these details. There can be as little doubt 
 that the investigation of the former world from its 
 scanty remains, forms, in the strictest sense of 
 the term, 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 investigate — the 
 kind of evidence used to demonstrate — its truths, 
 
 * The researches both of Cuvier and Bucklaud, far from 
 impugning the testimony to the great fact of a deluge borne 
 by the Mosaic writings, rather fortify it ; and bring addi- 
 tional 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 illustrated, than in the correction which it enabled 
 him to give the speculation of President Jetferson upon the 
 Meyaloni/x — 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 in- 
 duction, 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. 4^ 
 
 is the modern analysis or induction taught by 
 Bacon and practised by Newton. Now wherein, 
 with reference to its nature and foundations, does 
 it vary from the inquiries and illustrations of Na- 
 tural Theology, one of whose propositions I have 
 given as a corollary from this science ? When from 
 examining a few bones, or it may be a single frag- 
 ment 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 different 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 exis- 
 tence we ever heard, we assuredly are led to this re- 
 mote conclusion, by a strict and rigorous process of 
 reasoning ; but, as certainly, we come through that 
 same process to the knowledge and belief of things 
 unseen, both of us and of all men — things respect- 
 ing which we have not, and cannot have, a single 
 particle of evidence, either by sense or by testi- 
 mony. Yet we harbour no doubt of the fact in fossil 
 osteology ; we go farther, and not only implicitly 
 believe the existence of this creature, for which we 
 are forced to invent a name, but we 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 ourselves how it 
 looked, what it fed on, and how it continued its kind. 
 Now, the question is this : What perceivable 
 difference is there between the kind of investiga- 
 tions we have just been considering, and those of 
 Natural Theology — except, indeed, that the latter 
 are far more sublime in themselves, and incom- 
 parably more interesting to us? Where is the 
 logical precision of the arrangement which would
 
 44 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 draw a broad line of demarcation between the two 
 speculations, giving to the one the name and the 
 rank of a science, but refusing it to the other, and 
 affirming that 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 testi- 
 mony 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 testimony of 
 eye-witnesses, we believe in the existence and qua- 
 lities 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 it less a 
 doctrine of the same philosophy, that the eye could 
 not have been made without a knowledge of optics, 
 and as it could not make itself, and as no human 
 artist, though possessed of the knowledge, has the 
 skill and power 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 ? Is the corollary which I have given 
 from the proposition that these lost animals once 
 existed before man was created, a corollary of Natu- 
 ral Theology, less tlie result of induction than that 
 proposition itself a proposition of physical science ? 
 Has the Natural Theology any other foundation 
 than the Natural Philosophy ?* 
 
 * See the treatise of Fossil Osteology, published with the 
 Dialogues on Instinct in this -work.
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 45 
 
 SECTION III. 
 
 COMPARISON OF THE PSYCHOLOGICAL BRANCH OF 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY WITH PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 Hitherto, our arg-ument 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 intel- 
 lectual system is equally fruitful in proofs of an in- 
 telligent cause, although these have occupied little 
 of the philosopher's attention, and may, indeed, be 
 said never to have found a place among the specu- 
 lations 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 cele- 
 brated book of Ray on the Wonders of the Creation 
 seems to assume that the human soul has no se- 
 parate existence — that it forms no part of the 
 created system. Derham 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 intellectual nature is in the single 
 
 * Note II.
 
 46 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 chapter of the Physico-theology on the soul, in 
 which he is content 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, de- 
 riving 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 
 portion of the works or operations of nature. Thus, 
 all these authors view the revolutions of the hea- 
 venly bodies, the structure of animals, the organi- 
 zation 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 con- 
 stitution and habits of matter alone tiie proof that 
 one Intelligent Cause formed and supports the 
 universe ? Ousfht we not rather to consider 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 improved state of physical science — a 
 merit the more remarkable, that Paley wrote his Natural 
 Theology at the close of his life.
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 47 
 
 phenomena of the mind as more peculiarly adapted 
 to help this inquiry, and as bearing a nearer rela- 
 tion to the Great Intelligence which created and 
 which maintains the system ? 
 
 There cannot be a doubt that this extraordinary 
 omission had its origin in the doubts which men 
 are prone to entertain of the mind's existence in- 
 dependent of matter. The eminent persons above 
 named* were not materialists, that is to say, if 
 you had asked them the question, they would have 
 answered in the negative ; the}'' would have gone 
 farther, and asserted their belief in the separate 
 existence of the soul independent 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 existence — as that which composed 
 the universe — as alone forming the subject of our 
 contemplations — as furnishing the only materials 
 for our inquiries, whether respecting structure or 
 habits and operations. They had no firm, definite, 
 abiding, precise idea of any other existence respect- 
 ing 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 
 
 * Some have thought, unjustly, that the language of Paley 
 rather savours of materialism : but it may at least be doubted 
 ■whether he was fully impressed with the evidence of mental 
 existence. His unexercised powers of abstract discussion, 
 and the natural predilection for what he handled so well — a 
 practical argument level to all comprehensions — appear not 
 to have given him any taste for metaphysical speculations.
 
 48 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 the mind, and, if forced to the point, would have 
 acknowledged a belief in it, they never were fully 
 and intimately persuaded of its separate existence. 
 They thought of it and of matter very differently ; 
 they gave its structure, and its habits, and its ope- 
 rations, no place in theii^ 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, tliere 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 ex- 
 istence, the perpetual sense that we are thinking, 
 and that we are performing the operation 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 material 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 in- 
 dicate that which has no reality at all. Some 
 inferences which we draw respecting it are con- 
 founded with direct sensation or 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 tlie 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 )iothing is more certain than that
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 49 
 
 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 percep- 
 tions which we have of the material world 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 
 " M?e," and which thinks, feels, reasons — should 
 have no existence, is a contradiction in terms. Of 
 the two existences, then, that of mind as inde- 
 pendent of matter is more certain than that of 
 matter apart from mind. In a subsequent 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 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.f Now 
 
 * Sect. V. and Note IV. 
 
 t An instance will occur in the Fifth Section of this Part, 
 in which experiments upon the course of our thoughts in 
 sleep are described.
 
 50 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 the phenomena of mind, at the knowledge of which 
 we arrive by this inductive process, the only legi- 
 timate 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 same species 
 of reasoning, the induction of facts. A few illus- 
 trations of these positions may be useful, because 
 this branch of the science has, as we have seen, 
 been unaccountably neglected by philosophers 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 tiie most remarkable of these is the power 
 of reasoning^ or first comparing ideas and drawing 
 conclusions from the comparison, and then com- 
 paring 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 upon a subject, and its operations are facili- 
 tated by many contrivances of nature, without 
 which the effort would be painful, if not impos- 
 sible — voluntary attention being the most difficult 
 of all acts of the understanding. 
 
 Observe, tlien, in the second place, the helps 
 wliich are provided for the exertion of this faculty. 
 Curiosity, or the tliirst of knowledge, is one of the 
 chief of these. This desire renders any new idea 
 the source of attraction, and makes the mind almost
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 51 
 
 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 whicli gives pleasure oftentimes as sensible as 
 that of novelty, though of an opposite kind. Then, 
 again, habit, in this, as in all other operations of 
 our faculties, has the most powerful influence, and 
 enables us to undergo intellectual labour with ease 
 and comfort. 
 
 Thirdly. Consider the phenomena of memory. 
 This important faculty, without which no intel- 
 lectual progress whatever could be made, is sin- 
 gularly 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, while they pass 
 through the mind or before it, we cause them to 
 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, what- 
 ever excites it, helps the memory, as we some- 
 times say ; 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 them- 
 selves most important. In proportion, therefore, 
 as anything is most useful or for any reason most
 
 52 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 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 recollection 
 with surprising facility and certainty ; as any one 
 must be aware who has remarked the extraordinary 
 feats performed by boys trained to learn things by 
 heart, and especially to recollect numbers in calcu- 
 lating. From the same force of habit we derive 
 the important power of forming artificial or con- 
 ventional associations between ideas — of tacking, 
 as it were, one to the other, in order to have them 
 more under our control ; and hence the relation 
 between arbitrary signs and the things signified, 
 and the whole use of language, whether ordinary 
 or algebraical : hence, too, the formation of what 
 is called artificial memory, and of all the other 
 helps to recollection. But a help is provided for 
 quickness of memory, independent of any habit or 
 training, in what may be termed the natural asso- 
 ciation of ideas, whereby one thing suggests another 
 from various relations of likeness, contrast, conti- 
 guity, and so forth. The same association 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 ima- 
 gination, but in conducting all processes of original 
 investigation by pure reasoning. 
 
 Fifthly. The effect of habit upon our whole 
 intellectual system deserves to be further considered, 
 though we liave already adverted to it. It is a law 
 of our nature that any exertion becomes more «isy
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 53 
 
 tlie more frequently it is repeated. This might 
 have been otherwise : it might have been just the 
 contrary, so that each successive operation shouki 
 have been more difficult ; 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 learn- 
 ing, which must have been the result of such an 
 intellectual conformation. But the influence of 
 habit upon the exercise of all our faculties is valu- 
 able 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. AYhoever 
 has observed the extraordinary feats performed by 
 calculators, 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 exertions. 
 The performances of the Italian Improvvisatori, or 
 makers of poetry off-hand upon any presented sub- 
 ject 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 displayed, at least 
 in this country. A practised orator will declaim 
 in measured and in various periods — 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 illustrations to which it gives 
 rise — mould his diction with a view to attain or to 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 54 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 shun an epigrammatic point, or an alliteration, or a 
 discord ; and all this with so much assured reli- 
 ance 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 discover 
 the least difference between all this and the portion 
 of his speech which he has got by heart, or mark 
 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 affections., to the 
 rearing of the young ; and the former is 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 attach- 
 ment 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, encou- 
 rages all our labours, and sustains us in every vicis- 
 situde of fortune, as well as under all the toils of 
 our being. Fear, again, is the teacher of caution, 
 prudence, circumspection, R;:d preserves us from 
 
 * This experiment has been tried with perfect success to 
 my knowledge.
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 55 
 
 danger. Even anger ^ generally so painful, is not 
 without its use : for it stimulates to defence, and it 
 oftentimes assuages the pain given to our more 
 tender feelings by the harshness, or ingratitude, or 
 injustice, 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 re-action excited to deaden and to protect 
 it. Contempt^ or even "pity^ is calculated to exer- 
 cise the same healing influence,* The opera- 
 tion of these reagents, so to speak, resembles the 
 vis medicatrix in our bodily system, the form it 
 has of throwing off foreign matter, or of heal- 
 ing injuries sustained. Then, to go no farther, 
 curiosity is implanted in all minds to a greater 
 or a less degree ; it is proportioned to the no- 
 velty of objects, and consequently to our igno- 
 rance, 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 perfectly contrived 
 as an instrument of instruction, and an instrument 
 precisely adapted to the want of knowledge, by 
 being more powerful in proportion to the ignorance 
 in wliich 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 
 
 * " Atque illi (Grantor et Panaetius) quidem etiam utiliter 
 a natura dicebant permotiones istas animis nostris datas, 
 metura cavendi causa ; misericord iam aegritudineruque cle- 
 mentise ; ipsam iracundiam fortitudinis quasi cotem esse 
 dicebant." — Acad. Qua-st. iv. 44. 
 
 d2
 
 I 
 
 06 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 as moral existence. In riper years it smooths the 
 Avay for further acquirements to most men ; to some 
 in whom it is strongest, it opens the paths of 
 science ; but in all, without any exception, it pre- 
 vails 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 j 
 the most ignorant possess it, whatever additions the J 
 greatest pliilosophers are enabled to build upon it 1 
 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 propensity i 
 of our nature, and conduces to the same important J 
 end. There is a positive pleasure as well in teach- (^ 
 ing others what they knew not before, as in learn- 
 ing what we did not know ourselves ; and it is 
 undeniable that all this might have been differently 
 
 arrano:ed without a material alteration of our in- 
 
 ... I 
 
 tellectual and moral constitution in other respects, j 
 
 The propensity might have been, like the perverted j] 
 
 desires of the miser, to retain what we know with- ^ 
 
 out communication, as it might have been made J 
 
 painful instead of pleasurable to acquire new ideas, 
 
 by novelty being rendered repulsive and not agree- ' 
 
 able. The stagnation of our faculties, the sus- ^ 
 
 pension of mental exertion, tlie obscuration of the 
 
 intellectual world, would have then followed as cer- ^ 
 
 tainly as universal darkness would veil the universe 
 
 on the extinction of tlie sun. ' 
 
 Thus far we have been considering the uses to 
 
 which the mental faculties and feelings are subser H
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 57 
 
 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 swiftness of 
 thought — the boundless range which our fancy can 
 take — the vast objects which our reason can em- 
 brace. That we should have been able to resolve 
 the elements into their more simple constituents — 
 to analyze 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 sur- 
 face 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 an- 
 ticipate by ages the discovery of truths the farthest 
 removed above ordinary 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
 
 o8 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 of a Newton learnedly and sagaciously inferring, 
 from the refraction 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 
 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 own 
 powers alone. The most abstruse investigations of 
 the mathematician are conducted without any re- 
 gard to sensible objects ; and the helps he derives 
 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 facili- 
 tate and abridge his labour, and not at all essential 
 to his progress. Nay, strictly speaking, there are 
 no trutlis in the whole range of the pure mathe- 
 matics which might not, by possibility, 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 most sublime speculations, 
 the calculus which he invented, and the astonishing 
 systems reared by its means, which have given im- 
 mortality to the names of Euler, Lagrange, La- 
 place, all are the creatures of pure abstract thought, 
 
 * Further induction may add. to the list of these wonder- 
 ful conjectures, the thin ether, of which he even calculated 
 the density and the effects upon planetary motion. Cer- 
 tainly the acceleration of Encke's comet does seem to render 
 the existence of some such medium by no means improbable.
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 59 
 
 and all might, by possibility, have existed in their 
 present magnificence and splendour, witliout owing 
 to material agency any help whatever, except such 
 as might be necessary for their recording and com- 
 munication. These are, surely, the greatest of all 
 the wonders of nature, when justly considered, 
 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 pro- 
 ceed from any but an intellect of infinite power? 
 
 At first sight, it may be deemed that there is an 
 essential difierence between ihe 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 
 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 pro- 
 duce a mechanism by which 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 regulated ; — 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 dif- 
 ference between the two branches of science disap- 
 pears 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 alto- 
 gether analogous to our power of modulating
 
 eO A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 matter. By means of the properties of matter we 
 can form instruments, machines, and figures. So 
 by availing- ourselves of the properties of mind, we 
 can affect the intellectual faculties — exercising 
 them, training them, improving them, producing, 
 as it M'ere, new forms of the understanding. Nor 
 is there a greater difference between the mass of 
 rude iron from which we make steel, and the thou- 
 sands 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 unquestionably 
 mental faculties, which we discover by observa- 
 tion and consciousness, but which are themselves 
 wholly unconnected with any exercise of reason. 
 They exhibit, however, tlie most striking proofs 
 of design, for they all tend immediately to the 
 preservation or to tlie comfort of the animals en- 
 dowed 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 
 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 tiiat we are endowed with 
 any instincts, because so much is accomplished by
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 61 
 
 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 in- 
 fants learn almost all those animal functions which 
 are of a voluntary nature, by an early exercise of 
 reason, it is plain that instinct alone guides them 
 in others which are necessary to continue their 
 life, as well as to begin their instruction : for ex- 
 ample, 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 rea- 
 soning 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 water of a deep pitcher nearer 
 their beaks by throwing in pebbles. These are 
 different from the operations of instinct, because 
 they are acts which vary with circumstances 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 iiave no evidence of design, that is, of reason, 
 in otiier 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 well as 
 of a unity of design in the world. The work of 
 
 d3
 
 62 A DISCOURSE 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 was only made about 
 a century ago ; nay, the instrument that enabled us 
 to find it out — the Jluxiojial or diffei^ential cal- 
 culus — 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 pos- 
 sible angle, but also choosing the same exact 
 angles of 110 and 70 degrees for the parallelo- 
 grams of the roof, which no one had ever disco- 
 vered till the 18th century, when Ka?nig solved 
 that most curious problem o^ maxima and minima, 
 the means of investigating which had not existed 
 till the century before, when Newton and Leibnitz 
 invented 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- 
 
 * See Dialogues on Instinct, where the subject of the Bee- 
 architecture is more fully treated.
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 63 
 
 nation which we have just gone through of psy- 
 chological phenomena are drawn according to the 
 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 adjoin- 
 ing provinces of reason and instinct — are all dis- 
 covered by consciousness or by observation ; 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 show 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 (tlian ourselves) with whom we have daily 
 intercourse. The kind of evidence is not like, but 
 identical with, that by wliich we conduct all the 
 investigations of intellectual 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 ad- 
 dition of great importance remains to be made. 
 The whole reasoning proceeds necessarily upon 
 the assumption that there exists a being or thing 
 separate from, and independent of, matter, and
 
 64 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 conscious of its own existence, which we call mind. 
 For the argnment is — " Had I to accomplish this 
 purpose, I should have used some such means ;" 
 or, " Had I used these means, I should hav^ 
 thought I was accomplishing some such purpose." 
 Perceiving 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 
 tJie 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 — and intelligence like our own, 
 though incomparably more powerful and more 
 skilful. The Being of whom we thus acquire a 
 knowledge, and whose operations as well as exist- 
 ence w^e 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 wdiole 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 
 anotlier 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 
 
 * Sect. V. and Note IV.
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 65 
 
 given of a First Cause, or of the creation or govern- 
 ment of the universe.* 
 
 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 De'ity^ s personalift/, that is, His individuality, 
 His unity ; all tlie evidence wliich we have of His 
 worlds, showing throughout not only that they pro- 
 ceeded 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 inductive. 
 
 * 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 Theo- 
 logy. Not only does this author leave entirely untouched 
 the argument a priori (as it is called), and also all the in- 
 ductive arguments derived from the phenomena of mind, 
 but he does not even advert to the argument upon, 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 his inferior capacity 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 certainly they do not deny, at least in modern 
 times, the fact of adaptation. As to the fundamental doc- 
 trine 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.
 
 66 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 SECTION IV. 
 
 OF THE ARGUMENT A PRIORI. 
 
 Hitherto we have confined our attention to the 
 evidences of Natural Religion afforded by the phe- 
 nomena of the universe — what is commonly termed 
 the argument a posteriori. But some ingenious 
 men, conceiving that the existence and attributes 
 of a Deity are discoverable by reasoning merely, 
 and without reference to facts, have devised what 
 they term the argument a priori, of which it is 
 necessary now to speak. 
 
 The Jirst 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 impossible for 
 his attributes to be other than the argument is sup- 
 posed to prove they are. Thus tiie 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
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 67 
 
 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 dis- 
 prove the conclusions drawn a priori. The universe 
 might by possibility be so constructed that every 
 contrivance might fail to produce the desired effect 
 — the eye might be chromatic and give indistinct 
 images — the joints might be so unhinged as to im- 
 pede motion — every smell, as Paley has it, might 
 be a taint, and every touch a sting. Indeed, we 
 know that, perfect as the frame of things actually 
 is, a few apparent exceptions to the general beauty 
 of the system have made many disbelieve the per- 
 fect power and perfect goodness of the Deity, and 
 invent Manichean theories to account for the exist- 
 ence of evil. Nothing can more clearly show the 
 absurdity of those arguments by which it is at- 
 tempted 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 propositions
 
 68 A DISCOURSE OP 
 
 in the discourse itself are, That something must 
 have existed from all eternity, and that this some- 
 thing must have been a being independent and self- 
 existent. In the letters he condenses, perhaps 
 explains, certainly illustrates, these positions (see 
 Answers to letters 3, 4, and 5) by arguing that the 
 existence of space and time (or, as he terms it, 
 duration) proves the existence of something where- 
 of these are qualities, for they are not themselves 
 substances; he cites the celebrated Scholium 
 Generale 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 anything else, is assuming 
 that those two things have a real being independent 
 of our conceptions of them ; for the existence of 
 certain ideas in our minds cannot be the foundation 
 on which to build a conclusion that anything ex- 
 ternal 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 dis- 
 tinct meaning at all wiiich predicates space and 
 time as qualities of anything. What, for example, 
 is time but the succession of ideas, and the con- 
 sciousness 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 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 beino^ ? Here is a cube of one foot w itliin
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 69 
 
 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 round space are to be deemed as qua- 
 lities ? Is distance; that is, the supposed move- 
 ment of a point in a straight line, ad iiijinitum^ 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 dis- 
 tinct 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 
 directions. Again, if infinite distance shows an 
 infinite being of whom it is the quality, finite dis- 
 tance must be the quality of a finite being. What 
 being ? Of what kind of being is the distance be- 
 tween two trees or two points a quality ? There 
 can be no doubt that this arsrument rests either 
 
 o 
 
 upon the use of words without meaning, or it is a 
 disguised form of the old doctrine of the anima 
 mundi, or of the hypothesis that the whole universe 
 is a mere emanation 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 speaking, 
 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
 
 70 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 and generalization enable us to conceive infinite 
 space by imagining the limits indefinitely removed 
 of a particular portion of space. But the founda- 
 tion of the wliole reasoning is the experience of 
 certain finite portions of space first observed in con- 
 nection with matter. Therefore our ideas of space 
 are the result of our experience as to external ob- 
 jects. Even if we would fancy figure (which is 
 possible) without liaving seen or touched any ob- 
 jects 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 in- 
 definite 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 know- 
 ledge of the mind's existence. 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 witli the arguments derivetl 
 from the observation of external objects, the ground 
 of our reasoning a posteriori as to matter, or, at 
 the utmost, with the information given by con- 
 sciousness, the whole groiuid of our reasoning a 
 posteriori 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 Deity 
 — those wiiich we learn from experience — and 
 thinks he can derive them all from the simple pro-
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 7l 
 
 positions that lie at the foundation of his argument. 
 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 proposition, that 
 therefore this being must be infinitely 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 su- 
 preme 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 either deserve 
 the name of an argument a priori, or be re- 
 garded as the demonstration 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 infi- 
 nitely just ruler or judge ; and equally certain it 
 is that this demonstration, if it proves the exist- 
 ence of an infinite and eternal ruler or judge to be 
 a necessary and not a contingent truth (wliich is 
 Dr. Clarke's whole argument), would 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 with- 
 out governors and judges.
 
 (2 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 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, 1 am unable 
 to determine." 
 
 To this Mr. Stewart adds—" After this candid 
 acknowledgment from Dr. Reid, I need not be 
 ashamed to confess my own doubts and difficulties 
 on the same subject."* 
 
 That the argument a priori has been most ex- 
 plicitly handled by Dr. Clarke, and that its accep- 
 tation rests principally upon his high authority, 
 cannot be denied. Nevertheless, other great men 
 preceded him in this field ; and beside Sir Isaac 
 Newton's Scholium Generale, which 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 difler, in its fundamental po- 
 sition, 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 
 
 Philosophy of the Active Powers, i. 334.
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 73 
 
 to two rig^ht ano^les." From this, and the know- 
 ledge we have of our own existence, it is shown to 
 follow, that, " from eternity there has been some- 
 thing ;" and again, " that this eternal being must 
 have been most powerful and most knowing," and 
 *' therefore God." The only difference between 
 this argument and Dr. Clarke's is, that Mr. Locke 
 states, as one of his propositions, 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 sup- 
 position that " the things which now are were pro- 
 duced out of nothing." He therefore assumes the 
 existence of those things, while Mr. Locke more 
 strictly assumes the existence of ourselves only, 
 and indeed states it as a proposition. The other 
 arguments 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 that the Deity's existence is a necessary- 
 truth. Were it to be so considered, tlie objections 
 formerly stated would apply to it. Indeed, if Dr. 
 Clarke had stated the different steps of his reason- 
 ing as distinctly as Mr. Locke has done, he would 
 have perceived it to be inconclusive beyond a very 
 limited extent, and to that extent inductive.* 
 
 Dr. Cudworth, in the fifth chapter of his great 
 work,! has, in answering the Democritick argu- 
 
 * See particularly Mr. Locke's proofs of his first position. 
 (Hum. Uuderstandiug, IV. x. sec. 2.) 
 t Intellectual System, Book I. c. v. s. 3, par. 4. The
 
 74 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 ments, so plainly anticipated Dr. Clarke, that it is 
 hardly possible to conceive how the latter should 
 have avoided referring to the passage,* " 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 Democri- 
 tists), that there must be incorporeal space ; and 
 (this space being supposed by them also to be infi- 
 nite) 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 sub- 
 stance, which is impossible ; or els^e the extension 
 or affection of some other incorporeal substance 
 that is infinite." He then supposes a reply (founded 
 on the doctrines of Gassendi), 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, consequently, that nothing cannot be extended 
 nor mensurable. But if space be neither the ex- 
 tension of body, nor yet of substance incorporeal, 
 then must it of necessity be the extension of no- 
 thing, and the affection of nothing, and nothing 
 must be measurable by yards and poles. We con- 
 clude, therefore, that from this very hypothesis of 
 
 profound learning of this unfinished work, and its satisfac- 
 tory exposition of the ancient philosophers, are above all 
 praise. Why are the manuscripts of the author still buried 
 in the British Museum? 
 
 * Cudvvorth's book was published in 1C78. The "De- 
 monstration" was delivered in 1704-5 at the Boyle Lecture.
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 75 
 
 the Democritick and Epicurean atheists, that space 
 is a nature distinct from body, and positively infi- 
 nite, 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, ^iven in his correspondence, 
 is manifestly, if not taken from this, at least coin- 
 cident with it in every important 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 diflftculty of conceiv- 
 ing the possibility of creation, whether of matter 
 or spirit ; and their inaccurate views of physical 
 science made them consider this difl^iculty as pecu- 
 liar to the creative act. They were thus driven to 
 the hypothesis that matter and mind are eternal, 
 and tliat 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 everything could be 
 made out of nothing they could not understand. 
 
 * Notes VI. and VII.
 
 76 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 When rightly considered, however, there is no 
 more difficulty in comprehending 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 existing 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 in 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 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 questions 
 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 argu- 
 ment 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
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 77 
 
 particulars. First, it illustrates, if it does not 
 indeed prove, the possibility of an Infinite 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 Me have, by the argument 
 a posteriori (I should rather say the other parts of 
 the Sirgument a posteriori), satisfied ourselves of the 
 existence of an intelligent cause, we naturally con- 
 nect 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 he had arrived at nearly the same conclusion 
 upon the merits of the argument a priori. 
 
 VOL.
 
 78 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 appli- 
 cation to the first or ontological Ijranch of the 
 science, or that relating to the existence and attri- 
 butes of the Creator, whether proved by physical 
 or by psychological reasoning. The second brand), 
 liice the first, rests upon the same foundation with 
 all the other indiictive 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 Philosophy. 
 
 The means which we have of investigating the 
 probable designs of the Deity are derived from 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 distinguisliing 
 them from the former brancii of Natural Theology. 
 They are far less abundant in doctrine ; they have 
 been much less cultivated by scientific inquirers ; 
 and the truths ascertained in relation to tliem are
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. (9 
 
 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 exist- 
 ence and attributes. But, on the other hand, the 
 identity of the evidence w ith 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 appa- 
 rent 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 Philoso- 
 phy — than it is that the deductions from the 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 consti- 
 tution, than we found there was for entering into the 
 evidences of his existence and attributes, although 
 there will not be so much labour required for prov- 
 ing that this is a branch of inductive science. 
 
 I. PSYCHOLOGICAL ARGUMENT, OR EVIDENCE OF 
 THE deity's DESIGNS DRAWN FROM THE NA- 
 TURE 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 con- 
 nected with any combination of material elements, 
 
 e2
 
 80 A DISCOURSE OP 
 
 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 seems to 
 follow as a necessary consequence from the dissolu- 
 tion 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 conformation, 
 the particular arrangement of material particles 
 with which the soul is supposed to have been inse- 
 parably connected, or in which it is supposed to 
 consist, is gone and destroyed even in the sense 
 of annihilation ; for that arrangement or conforma- 
 tion has no longer an existence, any more than a 
 marble statue can be said to have an existence when 
 it is burned into a mass of pounded quick-lime. Now 
 it is to the particular conformation and arrangement, 
 and not to the matter itself, that the soul is consi- 
 dered 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, independent 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 
 rest upon no solid foundation, either 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 propo- 
 sition that mind is inseparably connected with a 
 particular arrangement of the particles of matter ; it 
 is more difficult to say what they mean who vaguely
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGr. 81 
 
 call it a modification of matter ; but to consider 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 ma,yjirst 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 ; 
 Ave know of no case in which the combination of 
 certain elements produces something quite different, 
 not only from each of the simple ingredients, but 
 also different from the whole compound. We can, 
 by mixing an acid and an alkali, form a third 
 body, having the qualities of neither, and possess- 
 ing 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 engen- 
 dered for the first time by that salt coming into 
 existence. So when, 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 memor)^, 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, beside 
 the marble, a new existence created by the forna
 
 82 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 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 weight, nor colour, nor 
 form. They have to maintain 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 some- 
 thing different from the marble and the statue, and 
 which exists at the same time with both and with- 
 out 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 operations to be performed and relations 
 to exist of which we see nothing that bears the 
 least resemblance 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 experience. 
 The evidence which we have of the existence of 
 the mind is complete in itself, and wholly inde- 
 pendent of the qualities or the existence of matter. 
 It is not only as strong and conclusive as the evi- 
 dence which makes us believe in the existence of 
 matter, but more strong and more conclusive ; the 
 steps of tlie demonstration are fewer ; the truth to 
 which tliey conduct the reason is less remote from 
 the axiom — the intuitive or self-evident position 
 whence the demonstration springs. We believe 
 that matter exists because it makes a certain im-
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 83 
 
 pression upon our senses, that is, because it pro- 
 duces 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 thinking 
 beings implies the existence of the mind which has 
 sense and thought. To know, therefore, that we 
 are, and that m'c 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 whatever 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 existence of either, it would be far more rea- 
 sonable 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 phe- 
 nomena which matter is supposed to exhibit. 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 derange- 
 ment. But no effect produced by material agency 
 ever produced a spiritual existence, or engendered 
 the belief of such an existence ; indeed, the thing 
 is almost a contradiction in terms. Tliat all 
 around us should only be the creatures of our 
 fancy, no one can affirm to be impossible. But
 
 84 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 that our mind — that which remembers — compares — 
 imagines — in a word, that which thinks — that of 
 the existence of which we are pei-petually con- 
 scious—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 contra- 
 diction in terms. We liave, therefore, evidence of 
 the strictest kind — induction of facts the most pre- 
 cise and unerring — to justify the conclusion that 
 the mind exists, and is different from and inde- 
 pendent of matter altogether.* 
 
 Now this proposition not only destroys the doc- 
 trine of the materialists, but leads to the strongest 
 inferences in favour of the mind surviving the body 
 with which it is connected through life. All our 
 experience shows no one instance of annihilation. 
 Matter is perpetually changing — never destroyed ; 
 the form and manner of its existence are endlessly 
 and ceaselessly varying — its existence never ter- 
 minates. 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 in- 
 animate, but not a single particle of it is annihi- 
 lated ; 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 is abso- 
 lutely one and simple ; therefore it is incapable of 
 resolution or dissolution. These words, and the 
 
 * See, on the Hypothesis of Materialism, Note IV.
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 85 
 
 operations or events they refer to, have no appli- 
 cation to a simple and immaterial existence. 
 
 Indeed, our idea of annihilation is wholly derived 
 from matter, and what we are wont to call de- 
 struction means only change of form and resolution 
 into parts, or combination into new forms. But 
 for the example of the changes undergone by mat- 
 ter, we should not even have any notion of destruc- 
 tion or annihilation. When we come to consider 
 the thing itself, we cannot conceive it to be pos- 
 sible ; 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 continue to exist in a 
 different state, and in new combinations, appears 
 inconceivable. We cannot 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 tlie 
 mind, 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 
 unconnected 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 w hich it used to be 
 acted on ; when its entire severance took place 
 that matter underwent a great change, but a change 
 arising from its being of a composite nature. The 
 same separation cannot liave affected the mind in 
 the like manner, because its nature is simple and 
 
 E 3
 
 86 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 not composite. Our ceasing to perceive any effects 
 produced by it on any portion of matter, the only 
 means we can iiave 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 anni- 
 hilation has taken place, and to conceive in what 
 way it is effected, than to suppose that the mind 
 continues 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 com- 
 binations or relations of these parts are unremit- 
 tingly 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 per- 
 petually 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 this ; for no-
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 87 
 
 thing can more strongly illustrate the diversity 
 between mind and matter, or more strikingly show 
 that the one is independent of the otlier. 
 
 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 influence 
 of the body — is withdrawn. A multitude of facts, 
 chiefly drawn from and connected with the Phe- 
 nomena of Dreams, throw a strong light upon this 
 subject, and seem to demonstrate the possible dis- 
 connexion 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* and hearing, espe- 
 cially, 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 tliose powers connected 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 
 enough 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 sug- 
 
 * 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 rea- 
 son for ranging this under touch, as for ranging sight, smell, 
 hearing, and taste under the same head.
 
 88 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 gestions of the impression, and making* all its 
 thoughts chime in with that ; and, secondly, by the 
 prodigiously long succession of images that pass 
 through the mind, with perfect distinctness and 
 the greatest liveliness, in an instant of time. 
 
 The facts upon this subject are numerous, and of 
 undeniable certainty, because of daily occurrence. 
 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, as in an 
 open carriage, varies this experiment in a ver}^ in- 
 teresting, and, indeed, instructive manner. You 
 will, instantly that the wind begins to blow, dream 
 of being upon some exposed point, and anxious for 
 shelter, iDut 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 changes, so 
 that it still blows upon you — you are driven to the 
 cabin, but the ladder is removed, 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 bel- 
 lows 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 suc- 
 
 * This happened to me many years ago when travelling 
 in Sweden by night. Lord Stuart, who was with me, slept 
 sounder, and did not feel it.
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 89 
 
 cession of ideas, cannot be ascertained by this 
 experiment : it is most satisfactorily proved by 
 another. Let any one who is extremely over- 
 powered with drowsiness — as after sitting up all 
 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 who 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 be- 
 lieve 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, extending through 
 half a lifetime. This experiment 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 pro- 
 bability 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 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.* 
 
 * The experiment related in the text was made by myself 
 after I had been in court all night on a trial, and had not 
 slept next day.
 
 90 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 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 show the infinite rapidity of 
 thought ; for the puncture and discharge of the 
 gun took place in an instant, and their impression 
 on the senses was as instantaneous ; and yet, during 
 that instant, tiie mind went through a long opera- 
 tion 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 sucli sensations. But that sensation is lost or 
 forgotten for a portion of tlie short instant during 
 
 * 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 I have 
 been referring.
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 91 
 
 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 hurrj'ing 
 to the post, are suggested by the sensation begin- 
 ning. Then follow many things unconnected with 
 that sensation, 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 pro- 
 ducing an effect on the mind wholly different from 
 the train of ideas the dream consists of, nay, de- 
 structive of that train — namely, the effect of rous- 
 ing it from the state of sleep, and restoring its 
 dominion 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 terminating 
 in some event, some result consistent with the im- 
 pression 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 trans- 
 ition into and out of sleep, and when our sleep is not 
 complete. 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 un- 
 easy and restless night passed in bed is always a night 
 studded full with dreams. So, too, a night passed
 
 92 A DISCOURSE OP 
 
 on the road in travelling, by such as sleep well in 
 a carriage, is a night of constant dreaming. 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 question 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 interrupted 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 w'e 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 re- 
 member separate dreams. 
 
 Nothing can be conceived better calculated than 
 these facts to -demonstrate tlie extreme agility of 
 the mental powers, their total diversity from any 
 material substances or actions ; notliing 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 
 fundamental 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 clianges, 
 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 ouglit to say, that, in 
 ordinary cases, its improvement is contemporane- 
 ous with the growth of the body, and its decline
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 93 
 
 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 abate- 
 ment 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 extinction of the corporeal endowments. It 
 is certain that the strength of the body, its agility, 
 its patience of fatigue, indeed all its qualities, de- 
 cline 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 sensibly 
 decaying, 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 in- 
 stances 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 authorised to con- 
 clude, from these facts, that unless some unusual 
 and violent accident interferes, such as a serious 
 illness or a grave contusion, the ordinary course of 
 life presents the mind and the body running courses
 
 94 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 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 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 surviving 
 the body, remains, and it is drawn from the strictest 
 induction of facts. The body is constantly under- 
 going change in all its parts. Probably no person 
 at tlie 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 was born with con- 
 tinue 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 turning." 
 None of its parts can be resolved or dispersed ; 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 complete, and 
 though some small portion of its harder parts* were 
 supposed to continue with us through life. 
 
 But observe how strong the inferences arising 
 from these facts are, both to prove that the exist- 
 ence of the mind is entirely independent of tlie 
 existence of the body, and to sliow the probability 
 of its surviving ! If the mind continues the same 
 while all or nearly all the body is changed, it fol- 
 
 * Except the enamel of the teeth none such appear to 
 exist ; and the teeth of course grow long after the mind 
 exists.
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 95 
 
 lows that the existence of the mind depends not in 
 the least degree upon the existence 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 elements and form it into 
 new combinations than 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 per- 
 sonal 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
 
 96 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 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 independent 
 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 re- 
 ferred to prove that after the body's death, that is, 
 after the chronic dissolution which the body under- 
 goes 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 dis- 
 solution of the bodily frame with which it was con- 
 nected. The two cases cannot, in any soundness of 
 reasoning, be distinguished ; 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 consi- 
 dered the proofs of the separate and future existence 
 of the soul aflfbrded 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 kind of evidence with that upon 
 which the doctrines respecting the constitution and 
 habits of the mind are founded. In truth, the sub- 
 jects 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 
 conducted. That mind has an existence perceivable
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 97 
 
 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 disso- 
 lution of the body, is a truth proved exactly in the 
 same manner, by induction of facts. The pheno- 
 mena 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 exist- 
 ence independent of the body. The facts, partly 
 physical, partly psychological, 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 separating the two classes of truths, those 
 of Psychology 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 tlie latter. The only difference 
 between the two is that the Theological propo- 
 sitions are of nmch greater importance to human 
 happiness than the Metaphysical. 
 
 II. MORAL ARGUMENT, OR EVIDENCE OF THE 
 deity's designs DRAWN FROM HIS ATTRI- 
 BUTES IN CONNECTION WITH THE CONDITION 
 OF THE SPECIES. 
 
 The probable designs of Divine Providence with
 
 98 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 respect to the future lot of man are to be gathered 
 in part from the nature of the mind itself, the work 
 of the Deity, and in part from the attributes of the 
 Deity, ascertained by an examination of his whole 
 works. It thus happens that a portion of this head 
 of the argument has been anticipated in treating 
 the other head, the nature of the mind. Whatever 
 qualities of the soul show 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 what- 
 ever facts show that it can survive a total change 
 of the body during life, show likewise the proba- 
 bility 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 undergoes at death. 
 
 The argument built upon the supposed designs of 
 the Creator requires to be handled in a humble and 
 submissive spirit ; but, if so undertaken, there is 
 nothing in it which can be charged with presump- 
 tion, or deemed inconsistent with perfect though 
 rational devotion. In truth, all the investigations 
 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 benevolence 
 presides over their formation and maintenance — in 
 other words, to deduce from what we see, the ex- 
 istence 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, as to speculate upon His 
 probable intentions with respect to the future des- 
 tiny of man. 
 
 The contemplation of the Deity's goodness, as 
 deducible from the great preponderance of instances
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 99 
 
 in which benevolent design is exhibited,* when ac- 
 companied 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 com- 
 pared with which its other wishes and solicitudes 
 are but faint and occasional. That a benevolent 
 being should have implanted this propensity with- 
 out 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 instinctive 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 des- 
 tiny, is intimately related to our dread of dissolu- 
 tion. But the inference acquires additional strength 
 from the 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 univer- 
 sally operating in our nature afford another argu- 
 ment 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 inconsistent 
 with the provisions of a benevolent Power to sup- 
 pose that we should be made susceptible of such 
 vehement feelings, and be suffered to indulge in 
 
 * See Dissertation on Evil, in which it is shown that our 
 ignorance and partial views are probably the cause of our 
 believing evil to exist.
 
 100 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 them, so as to make our happiness chiefly consist in 
 their gratification, and that then we should sud- 
 denly be made to undergo the bitter pangs of sepa- 
 ration, while, by our surviving, those pangs are 
 lengthened out without any useful effect resulting 
 from our sufferings. That such separations should be 
 eternal appears irreconcilable with the strength of 
 the affections wounded, and with the goodness so ge- 
 nerally perceived in the order of the universe. The 
 supposition of a re-union hereafter overcomes the 
 difficulty, and reconciles the apparent inconsistency. 
 
 The unequal distribution of rewards and punish- 
 ments 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 
 ^^'uture State. 
 
 But perhaps there is nothing more strongly in- 
 dicative 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 bar- 
 barous 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 permits 
 them ; he made and preserves the faculties which 
 have invented the false ones, as well as those Avhich 
 comprehend and treasure up the true faith. Reli- 
 gious belief, religious observance, the looking for- 
 ward to a future existence, and pointing to a 
 condition in which the deeds done on earth sliall 
 be visited with just recompense, are all facts of 
 universal occurrence in tiie history and intellectual 
 habits of the species. Are tliey all a mere fiction ? 
 Do tliey indeed signify nothing? Is tiiat a mere 
 groundless fancy, which in all places, in all ages,
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 101 
 
 occupies and has occupied 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 ob- 
 vious to reply, that so great a mechanism to pro- 
 duce this effect very imperfectly and precariously, 
 appears little consistent with the ordinary efficacy 
 and simplicity of the works of Providence, and that 
 the disposition to shun vice and debasement could 
 have been more easily and more certainly 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, 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 un- 
 dergo have struck men's imaginations so power- 
 fully in contemplating this subject, that the soul 
 
 * Notes VIII. and IX. 
 VOL. I. I'
 
 102 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 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 occupied the 
 attention of modern inquirers into this interesting 
 subject. Marking the entire difference in one state 
 of existence before and after birth, and the di- 
 versity of every one animal function at those two 
 periods, philosophers have inferred, that as on pass- 
 ing from the one to the other state of existence so 
 mighty a change is wrought, without any destruc- 
 tion 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 contemplation, perhaps 
 lend even some illustration to the argument. 
 Nevertheless they must be regarded 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 properties and the fortunes of corporeal 
 existences. Now the stronghold of those who 
 maintain the Immortality of the Soul, and, indeed, 
 all the doctrines 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.
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 103 
 
 Upon the particulars of a future state — the kind 
 of existence reserved for the soul — the species 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 hopelessness of attain- 
 ing 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 investigation, or what may 
 more fitly be termed the imagination. Those ideas 
 are, for the most part, eitlier directly connected 
 with the senses, or derived 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 affec- 
 tions 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 tlie 
 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 re- 
 vealed, or most carefully hidden from its view — 
 that it may 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 plea- 
 sures 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. 
 
 f2
 
 104 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 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 movement — 
 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 is pro- 
 vided 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 endeavours to 
 reach the seats of the blessed with our imperfect 
 organs of perception, and our inveterate and only 
 habits of thinking.* 
 
 * The part of Dean Swift's satire which relates to the 
 Stulbrugs may possibly occur to some readers as bearing 
 upon this topic. That the staunch admirers of that singu- 
 larly-gifted person should have been iiung 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
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 105 
 
 It remains to observe, that all the speculations 
 upon wliich 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 per- 
 fectly ascertained ; but the investigation is con- 
 ducted upon the same principles. The most satis- 
 factory 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 philosophy. 
 
 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 that he only could make out this position by 
 a most undisguised begging of the question. How could any 
 man of the most ordinary reflection expect to wean his fel- 
 low-creatures from love 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 
 treated by the law and by his fellow men as in hopeless in- 
 curable dotage? The passage in question is much more 
 likely to have proceeded from Swift's exaggerated misan- 
 thropy, and to have been designed as an antidote to human 
 pride, by showing that our duration is necessarily limited — 
 if, indeed, it is not rather to be regarded as the work of mere 
 whim and caprice.
 
 106 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 speculation of Final Causes from his system, as 
 if it were no branch of inductive science ? A 
 more attentive consideration of the question will 
 show.^rs^, that the sentence which lie pronounced 
 has been not a little misunderstood by persons who 
 looked only at particular aphorisms, without duly 
 regarding the context and the occasion ; and, se- 
 condbj, that Lord Bacon may very probably have 
 conceived 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 pliilosophy. 
 
 That Lord Bacon speaks disparagingly of the 
 inquiry concerning Final Causes, both when he 
 
 * Note X.
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 107 
 
 handles it didactically, and when he mentions it 
 incidentally, 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 mis- 
 chiefs which have arisen in the schools from mixing 
 the doctrines of natural religion with those of 
 natural philosophy ; j and he more than once treats 
 of the inquiry concerning Final Causes as a barren 
 speculation, comparing it to a nun or a vestal con- 
 secrated to heaven. I But a nearer examination 
 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 
 Parasceve 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 — 
 *' voluraen operum Dei, et tanquam altera scrip- 
 tura."§ In the first book of the De Dignitate, he 
 says there are two books of religion to be consulted 
 
 * Nov. Org. lib. i. Aph. 48. 
 t lb. Aph. 96 ; and De Dig. et Aug. lib, i. 
 X " Sterilis et tanquam virgo Deo sacra non parit." c. 5, 
 De Dig. lib. iii. 
 § Parasceve, c. 9.
 
 108 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 — the Scriptures, to tell the will of God, and the 
 book of creation, to show his power.* Accord- 
 ingly he maintains elsewheref that a miracle was 
 never yet performed 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 
 Philosophy as the cure for superstition and the 
 support of true religion. " Naturalem Philoso- 
 phiam, post verbum Dei, certissimam superstitionis 
 medicinam, eandem probatissimum fidei alimentum 
 esse. Itaque merito religioni tanquam fidatissi- 
 mam et acceptissimam ancillam attribui, cum 
 altera voluntatem Dei, altera potestatem mani- 
 festet."! If the earlier part of the passage left 
 any doubt of the kind of service wliich 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 de- 
 scription only the doctrines of revelation, and 
 under the latter all human science. Now, after 
 expressly excluding Natural Keligion§ from the 
 first class, he treats it as a part of the second. 
 The second, or philosophy, is divided into three 
 
 * Lib. i. t lb. lib. iii. c. 13. 
 
 \ Francisci Baconi, Cogitata et Visa. 
 § De Dig. lib. iii. c. 1.
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 109 
 
 parts, according as its object is the Deity, Nature, 
 or Man. Tlie first of. these subdivisions consti- 
 tutes 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 na- 
 turalis censeri potest."*) That he places it in a 
 different subdivision from Natural Philosophy 
 proves nothing ; for he clcisses anatomy, medicine, 
 and intellectual philosophy also in a different sub- 
 division : 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 medicine f 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 
 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 antiquity. 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 
 
 * De Dig. lib. iii. c. 2. 
 
 t lb. lib. iv. c. 3. He treats of the desiderata in optics 
 under the head of the human mind — the senses. 
 
 F 3
 
 110 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 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 sup- 
 port the body ;* and he is naturally apprehensive 
 of the danger which may result from men intro- 
 ducing 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 
 which are apt to mix themselves with such specu- 
 lations, and to consecrate error. f 
 
 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 w^hich occurs 
 twice in his books, where tiie Platonists are ac- 
 cused of mixing Natural Religion with philosophy, 
 the latter Platonists (or Eclectics) are in the same 
 words charged with corrupting it by the mathe- 
 matics, and the Peripatetics by logic.| Not cer- 
 
 * De Dig. lib. iii. c. 4. 
 
 f This idea is expressed by Bacon, with his wonted feli- 
 city, in the 75th Aphorism. " Pessima enim res est errorum 
 apotheosis ; et pro peste iutellectus habenda est, si vanis ac- 
 cedat veneratio." (Nov. Org. lib. i.) He gives an instance 
 of this folly in the perverted use made of some portions of 
 the Bible history — " Huic vanitati nonnulli ex modernis 
 sunima levitate ita indulserunt, ut in primo capitulo Gene- 
 seos et in libro Job et aliis scriptm-is sacris, Philosophiam 
 Naturalem fundare conati sint; inter vicaquicrentes mortua." 
 
 I Nov. Org. lib. i. Aph. 96 ; De Dig. lib. i.
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. Ill 
 
 taiiily that the greatest logician of modern times 
 could undervalue either his own art or the skill of 
 the analyst, but because Aristotle through dialec- 
 tic, and Proclus through geometrical pedantry, 
 neglected that humbler but more useful province 
 of watching and interpreting nature, and used the 
 instruments furnished by logic and the mathema- 
 tics, not to assist them in classifying facts or in 
 reasoning- from them, but to construct phantastic 
 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 pos- 
 sible that a strong impression of the evils occa- 
 sioned 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 con- 
 ceived some prejudice against logic and the ma- 
 thematics from a similar cause ; and he manifests 
 it, not only in the passages 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 wdth some asperity against both logicians 
 and mathematicians.* High as is the authority of 
 this great man — and upon the subject of the pre- 
 sent 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 
 
 * De Dig. lib. iii. c. 6. — " Delicias et festum mathematico- 
 rum, qui banc scientiam physicse fieri imperare cupiimt. 
 Nescio enim quo fato fiat ut matbematica et logica, quce an- 
 cillarum loca erga physicam se gerere debebant, nihiloniinus, 
 certitudinem prae se jactautes, dominationem exercere pe- 
 tuut."
 
 112 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 bound to admit it within the circle of legitimate 
 human knowledge, 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 unhesi- 
 tatingly ranges among the objects of sound philo- 
 sophy.* It is equally undeniable that he would 
 have treated others with greater respect than he 
 has shown them.f Above all, it is certain that he 
 would never have suffered that the veneration due 
 to his own name should enshrine an idol J 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 
 
 * 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 doc- 
 trine of fascination, the discovery of futurity from dreams 
 and ecstaeies, 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. — (lb. lib. iv. c. 3, and 
 lib. ii. c. 2.) 
 
 f He complains of treatises of Natural History being 
 *' swelled with figures of animals and plants, and other super- 
 fluous matter, instead of being enriched with solid observa- 
 tions."- — (De Dig. lib. ii. c. 3.) 
 
 X Idolum theatri.
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 113 
 
 would be difficult to find in any other author, an- 
 cient or modern, as much of very miscellaneous 
 matter upon almost all physical subjects as he has 
 brought together in the Sylvia 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 
 faculties. Among the one thousand observations 
 of which it consists, hardly one — of the two hun- 
 dred and eighteen pages certainly not one — can be 
 found in which there is not some instance of cre- 
 dulity, superstition, groundless hypothesis, mani- 
 fest 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 philoso- 
 phizing ; for a superficial examination of facts, a 
 hasty induction, and a proneness to fanciful theory, 
 form the distins^uishino^ characters of the whole 
 book. Assuredly it is a proof that the doctrine 
 of Final Causes is not the only parent of a " phan- 
 tastic philosophy," though the other base under- 
 growth of " heretical religion "* may no<^^ be found 
 in the recesses of the Sylva. 
 
 * This striking and epigrammatic antithesis occurs more 
 than once in his writings. Thus, in the Nov. Org. lib. i. 
 Aph. 65 — " Ex divinorum et humanorum malesana admix- 
 tione, non solum educitur philosophia phantastica, sed etiara 
 religio hseretica ;" and again, in De Dig. et Aug. lib. iii. c. 
 2, speaking of the abuse of speculations touching natural 
 religion, he remarks on the " incommoda et pericula quae 
 ex eo (abusu) turn religioni, turn philosophite impendent, 
 utpote qui religionem htei'eticam procudit et philosophiam 
 phantasticam et superstitiosam." _.
 
 114 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 Descartes, whose original genius for the abstract 
 sciences fixed an aera in the history of pure mathe- 
 matics, as remarkable as Bacon's genius did in 
 that of logic, like him failed egregiously as a cul- 
 tivator 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 phy- 
 sical science have, as if under the influence of an 
 irresistible impulsion, indulged in the sublime con- 
 templations of Natural Religion. Nor have they 
 fallen into this track from feeling and sentiment ; 
 they have pursued it as one of the paths which 
 inductive philosophy opens to the student of na- 
 ture. To say nothing of Mr. Boyle, one of the 
 earliest cultivators of experimental philosophy, 
 whose works are throughout embued 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 transi- 
 tion from its most difficult investigation, the de- 
 termination and correction of a comet's trajectory 
 upon the parabolic hypothesis,* to that celebrated 
 scholium, upon which Dr. Clarke's argument a 
 priori for the existence of a Deity is built. But 
 whatever may be deemed the soundness 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 at- 
 tention to the demonstration from induction, and 
 
 * Principia, lib. iii. Prop. xli. and xlii.
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 115 
 
 in the most distinct and positive terms sanctions 
 the doctrine, that this is a legitimate branch of 
 natural knowledge. " Hunc (Deum) cognoscimus 
 per proprietates ejus et attributa et per sapientis- 
 simas et optimas rerum structuras et causas finales, 
 et admiramur ob prospectiones." — " Deus sine 
 dominio, providentia, et causis finalibus, nihil aliud 
 est quam fatum et natura." — " Et haec de Deo — 
 de quo utique ex phaenomenis disserere ad philoso- 
 phiam naturalem pertinet." — {Scholium Gene- 
 rale.) 
 
 And if he could not rest from his immortal 
 labours in setting forth the system of the Universe, 
 without raising his mind to the contemplation 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 rising towards Him who said 
 " Let there be light." The most exquisite inves- 
 tigation 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 Natural Theology, and with admissions that the 
 business 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 phi- 
 losophy is to be highly valued, because it brings us 
 nearer to the First Cause." * 
 
 * Optics, Book iii. Query 28. — " How came the bodies of 
 animals 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.)
 
 116 A DISCOURSE OP 
 
 SECTION VII. 
 
 OP SCIENTIFIC ARRANGEMENT, AND THE ME- 
 THODS 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 
 importance 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 pro- 
 positions in Natural Philosophy which immediately 
 relate to the human body — whereby we should have 
 portions of dynamics, pneumatics, optics, chemistry, 
 electricity, and all human anatomy and pathology as 
 contradistinguished from comparative, reduced 
 under one and the same head — a classification, in- 
 deed, 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 im- 
 portance of the subject is sufficient, to justify the 
 making a separate head of Natural Theology. The 
 question is entirely one of convenience ; notiiing of 
 essential moment turns upon the classifi'cation ; 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
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. Il7 
 
 is needful is, constantly to keep in mind the identity 
 of the evidence on which these truths rest with that 
 which is the groundwork 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 theo- 
 logy must still be found intermingled with physics 
 and psychology, and there only ; for the truths of 
 Natural Theology being sufficiently demonstrated 
 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 encumbering the sub- 
 ject with superfluous proofs, while the collection 
 would still remain incomplete, as every day is 
 adding to the instances discovered of design appear- 
 ing in the phenomena of the natural 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 suffi- 
 cient, that, at all events, a certain definite number 
 of instances are 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 im- 
 portance ; they are to be carefully noted and 
 treasured up ; they form most valuable parts of 
 those scientific inquiries, conveying, in its purest 
 form and in its highest degree, the gratification of 
 contemplating abstract truths, in which consists the
 
 118 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 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 corporeal kind. 
 
 An apprehension has frequently been entertained 
 by learned and pious men — men of a truly philo- 
 sophical spirit — lest the natural desire of 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 reasoning. They have 
 dreaded the introduction of what Lord Bacon calls 
 a " phantastic philosophy," and have also felt alarm 
 at the injuries which religion may receive from 
 being exposed to ridicule, in the event of the spe- 
 culations proving groundless upon a closer examin- 
 ation. But it does not appear reasonable that 
 philosophers should be deterred by such consider- 
 ations from anxiously investigating the subject of 
 Final Causes, and giving it the place which belongs 
 to it in all their inquiries ; 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 phi- 
 losophy to guard ; but it is no more an error in 
 this, than in the other investigations of science. 
 He who imagines design where there is none; he 
 who eitlier assumes facts in order to build upon 
 them an inference favourable to Natural Religion, or 
 from admitted facts draws such an inference fanci- 
 fully, and not logically, comes within the descrip- 
 tion of a false philosoplier : he prefers tiie hypo- 
 thetical to the inductive method ; he cannot say
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 119 
 
 with his master, " hypotheses non Jingo ;"* he re- 
 nounces 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 commit- 
 ting 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 principle 
 of classifying admitted phenomena, instead of rigor- 
 ously deducing it from examining their circum- 
 stances of resemblance and of diversity. 
 
 That any serious discredit can be brought upon 
 the science of Natural Tlieology itself, from the 
 failures to which sucli hypothetical reasonings may 
 lead, seems not very easy to conceive. Vain and 
 superficial minds may take any subject for their 
 ridicule, and may laugh, as they heretofore have 
 laughed, at the mechanician and the chemist as well 
 as the theologian, when they chance to go astray in 
 their searches after truth. Yet no one ever thought 
 of being discouraged from experimental inquiries, 
 because even the strictest prosecution of the induc- 
 tive method cannot always guard against error ; nor 
 did the Scriblerus of the combined wits ever deter 
 one student of Nature. 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 
 
 * Principia, lib. iii. Sch. Gen.
 
 120 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 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 discredited, much less the science he cultivated 
 be degraded, if the undulatory hypothesis should, 
 as appears likely enough on a fuller inquiry, be- 
 come established by strict proof. Yet such errors, 
 or rather such imperfect and partial views, were 
 the result of a strict obedience to the inductive 
 rules of philosophising. How much less ground 
 for cavil against either those rules, or the sciences 
 to which they are applicable, would be afforded by 
 the observations 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 the first head, the doc- 
 trine of the pressure of the atmosphere, and its 
 connexion with respiration, and with the suspension 
 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 beneficent design.
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 121 
 
 Under the third head, it teaches the construction 
 of barometers, steam-engines, &c., while the con- 
 templation 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 phenomena. 
 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 re- 
 versed order, become the subjects of the synthetical 
 operation : that is, the things to be explained by 
 means of the proposition or discovery, 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 prismatic spectrum prove 
 the sun's light to be composed of rays of ditferent 
 refrangibility. This 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 diflfer in colour differ in refrangi- 
 bility — as that a parallelogram of two colours 
 refracted through a prism has its sides no longer 
 parallel ; or, having shown the different refrangi- 
 bility 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
 
 122 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 one of the most cogent proofs of the different re- 
 frangibility. 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 ham- 
 mering it, the power of being thus heated is ex- 
 hausted, until by exposing it to the fire that power 
 is restored. Yet, suppose we had proved the doc- 
 trine of the absorption of heat by other experiments 
 — as by the effects on the thermometer of liquids 
 of different temperatures mixed together — the phe- 
 nomenon of the iron bar would be explicable by 
 that doctrine thus learnt. Again, another proof 
 of the same truth is the production of heat by the 
 sudden 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 did not affect the thermometer, we 
 should by means of that doctrine have been able to 
 account for the refrigerating effect of evaporation, 
 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 thing, 
 which depends on the accident of the one set of 
 facts having been chosen for the instruments of the 
 analytical, and the other set for the subjects of the 
 synthetical operation, each set being alike appli- 
 cable to either use. For, in order that the synthesis 
 may be correct, nay, in order that it may be strict 
 and not hypothetical, it is obviously necessary that
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 123 
 
 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 generalization of particulars — the ar- 
 ranging or classifying facts so as to obtain a more 
 general or comprehensive fact ; and the explanation 
 of phenomena is just as much a process of gene- 
 ralization or classification as the investigation of 
 the proposition 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 diflPerently refrangible, and then explain the 
 rainbow — or show by the air-pump that the atmo- 
 sphere 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 ob- 
 serve 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 spectrum 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, are all 
 the same fact, and come within a description 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 re- 
 solvable into a fact much more comprehensive.
 
 124 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 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 convenience. 
 On the contrary, it is calculated to introduce in- 
 accurate habits of philosophising, and holds out a 
 temptation to hypothetical reasoning. Having 
 obtained a general law, or theory, we are prone to 
 apply it where no induction shows that it is appli- 
 cable ; and perceiving that it would account for 
 the observed phenomena, if certain things existed, 
 we are apt to assume their existence, 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 of induction re- 
 quire 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 doctrine. 
 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 ex- 
 amine each fact in all its parts, and bring it legi- 
 timately within the rule by means of its ascer- 
 tained reseml)lances — that is, classify it with those 
 others to which we actually find that it bears the 
 common relation. Induction gives us the right to 
 expect tliattlie same result will always liappen from 
 the same action 0})erating in like circumstances; 
 but it is of tlie essence of tliis inference that the 
 similarity be first shown.
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 125 
 
 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 
 uEpinus is admitted by all to be admirably con- 
 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 are rather against them : there- 
 fore, the theory is purely gratuitous ; and although 
 it would be difficult to find any other, on any sub- 
 ject, 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 scien- 
 tific research. The inductive method consists in 
 only admitting those things which the facts prove 
 to be true, and excludes the supposing things 
 merely because they square with the facts. Who- 
 ever makes such suppositions upon observing a 
 certain number of facts, and then varies those sup- 
 positions when new facts come to his knowledge, 
 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 in- 
 quirer — a fancier, and not a philosopher. 
 
 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 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 126 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 conclusion 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, and 
 leaving tlie external atmosphere to press against 
 them : they will cohere. But if from thence we 
 explain the support given to the walrus 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 produce the cohesion, 
 and thus account for the phenomena — we really 
 only propound a hypothesis. ^Ve suppose certain 
 circumstances to exist, in order to classify the fact 
 witli other facts actually observed, and the exist- 
 ence of which circumstances is necessary, in order
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 127 
 
 that the phenomena may be reducible under the 
 same head. 
 
 There is no reason vvliatever for asserting that 
 this view of the subject restricts the use of induc- 
 tion by requiring too close and constant a reference 
 to actual observation. The inductive principle 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 happen in certain 
 circumstances, we expect the same thing to happen 
 in the like circumstances. This is to generalize ; 
 but then this assumes that we first show the iden- 
 tity of the facts, by proving the similarity of the 
 circumstances. If not, we suppose or fancy, and 
 do not reason or generalize. The tendency of tlie 
 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 generalizing or classifying of facts by observed 
 resemblances 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 gratuitous ; and it con- 
 stantly 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 wiiich the facts 
 could be explained, becomes legitimate on a fur- 
 ther induction, whereby we show that, though the 
 
 G 2
 
 128 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 facts first observed might be explained by some 
 other supposition, yet tliose facts newly observed 
 could to no other supposition be reconciled. Thus, 
 the analytical experiment on the constitution of 
 water, by passing steam over red hot iron, is not 
 conclusive, because, although it tallies well with 
 the position that water consists of oxygen and hy- 
 drogen, yet it would also tally with another sup- 
 position, 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 oxy- 
 gen and hydrogen were compounded and in fact 
 produced by the process. But when, beside the 
 analytical, we have the synthetical experiments of 
 Mr. Cavendish and Dr. Priestley* — 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 recon- 
 cilable 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 
 
 * 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 disco- 
 verer, in point of time, although it is very possible that Mr. 
 Cavendish may have arrived at the same truth from his own 
 experiments, without any knowledge of Mr. Watt's earlier 
 process of reasoning. — See Life of Watt, and Paper annexed 
 to M. Arago's Eloge.
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 129 
 
 or straight, because it answers one of the condi- 
 tions — it may be the right point, or it may not, for 
 all the other points of tlie line equally ansvA^er that 
 condition ; but when we also show that the re- 
 maining conditions require the point to be in an- 
 other 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 re- 
 quired, none other fulfilling all the conditions. 
 
 We have used the words analytical and synthe- 
 tical as applicable to the experiments of resolution 
 and composition ; and in this sense these terms are 
 strictly correct in reference to inductive operations. 
 But the use of the terms analysis and syiithesis as 
 applicable to the processes of 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. we reason upon the assumption that the pre- 
 scribed conditions have been complied with, and 
 proceed till we find something which we already 
 possess the means of doing. This gives us the 
 construction ; 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
 
 130 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 true, the syntliesis being the same operation re- 
 A-ersed. The two operations consist here, of mani- 
 fest necessity, of the very same steps — the one 
 being the steps of the other taken in the reverse 
 order. In physics, to make the operations similar 
 to these, the same facts should be the ground or 
 component 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 
 particular 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 proposition 
 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 proposition 
 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 between the 
 inductive analysis and the geometrical synthesis, 
 than between those operations which go by the 
 same name ; and I hardly know anything in ex- 
 perimental investigation resembling the mathema- 
 tical analysis, unless it be when, from observing 
 certain facts, we assume a position, and then infer, 
 that if this be true, some other facts must also exist, 
 which we find (from other proofs) really do exist. 
 This bears a resemblance rather to the analytical 
 investigation than to the composition 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
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 131 
 
 example of it occurs in the second part of Dr. 
 Black's experiments on Magnesia Alba and Quick 
 Lime, the foundation of the modern gaseous che- 
 mistry. 
 
 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 ob- 
 servations 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 reversed the use 
 of the terms analysis and synthesis in experimental 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.)
 
 132 • A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 PART THE SECOND. 
 
 OF THE ADVANTAGES OF THE STUDY OF 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 
 
 The uses of studying the science to which our in- 
 quiries have been directed now demand some con- 
 sideration. These consist of the pleasures which 
 attend all scientific pursuits, the pleasures and the 
 improvement peculiar to the study of Natural The- 
 ology, and the service rendered by this study to the 
 doctrines of Revelation. 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 OF THE PLEASURES OF SCIENCE. 
 
 As we have established the position that Natural 
 Theology is a branch of Inductive Science, it fol- 
 lows that its truths are calculated to bestow the 
 same kind of gratification which the investigation 
 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 neces-
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 133 
 
 sities, is quite undeniable. The ascertaining by 
 demonstration any of the great truths in the mathe- 
 matics, or proving by experiment any of the im- 
 portant 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 hypo- 
 thenuse 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 absolute certainty of 
 tliis proposition is established is gratifying, even if 
 we 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 discovery of Pytha- 
 goras (the 47th proposition of 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 pro- 
 position is of no use in navigation, nor indeed in 
 any other practical art. In like manner, the plea- 
 sure derived from ascertaining 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 flies 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 expermient, 
 which had conferred all its practical benetits long 
 before the cause of the fly's power was found out. 
 
 G 3
 
 134 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 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 Avhich 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 perfect order all 
 the apparent irregularities of the system : so that 
 the handful of sand which for an instant ruffles 
 the surface of the lake, acts by the same law which 
 governs, through myriads of ages, the mighty 
 system composed of myriads of worlds. There is 
 a positive pleasure in generalizing facts and argu- 
 ments — in perceiving the wonderful production of 
 most unlike results from a few very simple princi- 
 ples — in finding the same powers or agents re-ap- 
 pearing in different situations, and producing the 
 most diverse and unexpected effects — in tracing 
 unexpected resemblances and differences — in ascer- 
 taining that truths or facts apparently unlike are 
 of the same nature, and observing wherein those 
 apparently similar are various : and this pleasure 
 is quite independent of all considerations relating 
 to practical application ; nay, the additional know- 
 ledge that those truths are susceptible of a bene- 
 ficial application gives a further gratification of 
 the like kind to those who are certain never to have 
 the opportunity of sharing the benefits obtained, 
 and wlio indeed may earnestly desire never to be 
 in the condition of being able to share them. 
 Thus, in addition to the pleasure received from 
 contemplating a truth in animal physiology, we 
 have anotlier gratification from finding that one of 
 its corollaries is the construction of an instrument 
 useful in some painful surgical operation. Yet,
 
 KATURAL THEOLOGY. 135 
 
 assuredly, we have no desire ever to receive advan- 
 tage from this corollary ; and our scientific gratifi- 
 cation was wholly without regard to any such view. 
 In truth, generalizing — the discovery of remote 
 analogies — of resemblances among unlike objects 
 — forms one of the most pleasing employments of 
 our faculties in every department of mental exer- 
 tion, from the most severe investigations of the 
 mathematician to the lightest efforts of the wit. 
 To trace the same equality, or other relation, be- 
 tween 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, unde- 
 niable connexion, is the very definition of wit. 
 Nay, the proposition which we have just enun- 
 ciated is a striking instance of the same general 
 truth ; for we have been surveying the resemblance, 
 or rather the identity, in one important particular 
 of two pursuits, in all other respects the most 
 widely remote from each other — mathematics and 
 wit. 
 
 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 investig-ations 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 consciousness of 
 power which it imparts, and the feeling of diflii- 
 culty overcome which it involves. We feel grati-
 
 136 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 fied when we have closely followed the brilliant 
 induction which led Newton to the discovery that 
 white is tlie union of all colours, and when we 
 have accompanied him in the series of profound 
 researches, from the invention of a new calculus 
 or instrument of investig'ation, throuQ:h innumera- 
 ble original geometrical lemmas, to the final de- 
 monstration 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 marvel- 
 lous propositions are indeed true — 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 accomplished a task of con- 
 siderable difficulty. In these gratifications, de- 
 rived from the contemplation and the investig-ation 
 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 regard 
 to our own individual advantage, and even though 
 we may desire never to be in a condition to reap 
 benefit from it. We sympathize, perhaps, with 
 those who may be so unfortunate as to require the 
 aid afibrded by such applications to relieve and 
 assuage pain ; but the mere knowledge that such 
 a corollary follows from the discovery of the scien- 
 tific truth is pleasing. Of course the gratification
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 137 
 
 is increased, if we know that individually we shall 
 profit by it, and we may perhaps always more or 
 less contemplate this possibility ; but this is a plea- 
 sure, properly speaking, of a different kind from 
 
 that which science, as such, bestows. 
 
 The branch of science which we are here particu- • 
 
 larly considering differs in no respect from the I 
 
 other departments of philosophy in the kind of ; 
 
 gratification which it affords to those who cultivate j 
 
 it. Natural Theology, like the other sciences, i 
 
 whether physical or mental, bestows upon the I 
 
 student the pleasures of contemplation — of gene- I 
 
 ralization ; and it bestows this pleasure in an emi- I 
 
 nent degree. To trace design in the productions | 
 
 and in the operations of nature, or in those of the I 
 human understanding, is, in the strictest sense of 
 
 the word, generalization, and consequently pro- ! 
 
 duces the same pleasure with the generalizations ; 
 of physical and of psychological science. Every 
 
 part of the foregoing reasoning, therefore, applies j 
 
 closely and rigorously 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 j 
 
 motion of the moon and the fall of an apple from j 
 the tree are 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 I 
 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 
 
 lieavenly bodies, the inclination of the planes they | 
 
 move in, and the directions of their courses, are all ^
 
 138 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 SO contrived as to make their mutual actions, and 
 the countless disturbances thence arising, all secure 
 a perpetual stability to the system which no other 
 arrangement 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 M'e had overlooked as unimportant, or even 
 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 eflfort v.hich 
 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 arrange- 
 ments 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, 2i personality , in the kind of the contriv- 
 ances 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 contemplating ge- 
 neral resemblances in the other sciences. 
 
 We may close this branch of the subject with
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 139 
 
 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 phyisiology both of animals and 
 plants owe their origin 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 Har- 
 vey, 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 venal 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 tlie veins whose valves did not 
 oppose its course that way."* Even the 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 
 
 * Disquisition about the Final Causes of Natural Things. 
 — Works, vol. V. p. 427. 4to.
 
 140 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 machinery is constructed. Nor can anj^ abuse 
 arise from this employment of the argument, so 
 long as we take care only to let it occupy the sub- 
 ordinate 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 con- 
 clusions. The ancients were ignorant of this cau- 
 tion, 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. 141 
 
 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 whicli 
 flows from the speculations of this than any which 
 the other sciences confer. 
 
 In the^r^^ 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 contrivance. Nothing can be more gra- 
 tifying 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 new 
 aspect to the most ordinary appearances ; they im- 
 part life, as it were, to dead matter ; they are con- 
 tinually surprising us with novel and unexpected 
 proofs of intentions plainly directed to a manifest 
 object. If some scoffers and superficial persons 
 despise the enthusiasm with which these investiga- 
 tions have at times been pursued, and hold the 
 exercise given by them to the ingenuity of inquirers 
 to be rather a play of imagination than of reason- 
 ing, it is equally undeniable that in some of the
 
 142 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 most important and most practically useful of the 
 sciences, desig-n, so far from being: a matter of fan- 
 ,ciful conjecture, is always assumed as incontestable, 
 and the inquiry, often with a merely practical 
 view, is confined to discovering wliat the object of 
 the desig-n is. Thus, when the physiologist has 
 discovered some part of the animal body before un- 
 known, or observed some new operation of the 
 known organs, 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 
 endeavours to find out what the purpose is — what 
 use the part can have — what end the operation is 
 intended to accomplish ; never supposing it possible 
 that either the part could be created, or the func- 
 tion appointed, without an object. The investiga- 
 tion conducted upon the assumption of this postu- 
 late has frequently led to the most brilliant dis- 
 coveries — among others, as we have just seen, to 
 by far the most important ever made in physiolo- 
 gical science. For the mere exercise of tlie intel- 
 lectual faculties, or gratification of scientific curi- 
 osity, we may refer to almost all the singular 
 phenomena which form the ba^es 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 womb, 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 struc- 
 ture of the eye and the nictitating membrane in 
 different birds, and the haw in certain quadrupeds — 
 the powers of the eye in birds of prey — perhaps 
 more than anything else, the construction of their 
 cells by bees, according to the most certain prin-
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 143 
 
 ciples 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 assumption that the bee 
 works as the heavenly bodies roll, and that its 
 mathematically correct operations are no more to 
 be wondered at than the equally mathematically 
 adjusted movements of the planets — a truly vio- 
 lent assumption, and especially of those who 
 angrily deny that men have a soul differing in 
 kind from the sentient principle in the lower 
 animals. 
 
 Seco7idly. 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 of Natural Religion are not 
 distributed in ample measure. It is equally true 
 that those evidences continually meet us in all the 
 otlier branches of science. A discovery made in 
 these almost certainly involves some new proofs of 
 design in the formation and government of the 
 universe.
 
 144 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 Tliirdly 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 existence and 
 attributes its high prerogative is to bring us ac- 
 quainted. If we prize, and justly, tiie delightful 
 contemplations of the other sciences ; if we hold it 
 a marvellous gratification to have ascertained ex- 
 actly the swiftness of the remotest planets — the 
 number of grains that a piece of lead would weigh 
 at their surfaces — and the degree 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 confidently, to ascend from the 
 universe to its Great First Cause, and investigate 
 the unity, the personality, 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 independent
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 145 
 
 of any views of practical benefit resultiug' from the 
 science of Natural Theology. The pleasure in 
 question is merely that double gratification which 
 every science bestows — namely, the contemplation 
 of truth, in tracing resemblances and differences, 
 and the perception of the evidence by which that 
 truth is established. Natural Theology gives this 
 double pleasure, lilvc all other branches of science 
 — like the mathematics — like physics — and would 
 give it if we were beings of an order diffierent from 
 man, and whose destinies 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 derived 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 gratifica- 
 tion from contemplating the truths of Natural 
 Theology, and from follov/ing the chain of evi- 
 dence 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 derives 
 an interest incomparably greater from the con- 
 sideration 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 sciences, and 
 sheds on the other branches of philosophy an in- 
 terest beyond that which otherwise belongs to 
 them, rendering them more attractive in propor-
 
 146 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 tion as they connect themselves with this grand 
 branch of human knowledge, 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 — exploring worlds beyond the solar way — 
 giving out the law which binds the universe in 
 eternal order ! He rests, as by an inevitable ne- 
 cessity, 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 instances 
 of design, as sufficient proofs of the Deity's power 
 and skill in the creation of the world. Tliat one 
 sufficient proof of this kind is in a certain sense 
 enough cannot be denied : a single such proof over- 
 throws the dogmas of the atheist, and dispels the 
 doubts of the sceptic ; but is it enough to the gra- 
 tification of the contemplative 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 con- 
 tingent truth, that the evidence is sufficiently cogent 
 w ithout variety and repetition. But, independently 
 altogether of this consideration, the gratification is 
 renewed by each instance of design which we are
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 147 
 
 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 enjoy- 
 ment. Tliis would be true if the science in ques- 
 tion were one of an ordinary description. But 
 when we consider what its nature is — how inti- 
 mately connected with our highest concerns — how 
 immediately and necessarily leading to the religious 
 adoration of the Supreme Being— can we doubt 
 that tlie perpetually renewed proofs of his power, 
 wisdom, and goodness tend to fix and to transport 
 the mind, by the constant nourishment thus af- 
 forded to feelings of pure and rational devotion ? 
 It is, in truth, an exercise at once intellectual and 
 moral, in which the highest faculties of the under- 
 standing and the warmest feelings of the heart alike 
 partake, 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 enjoyment, 
 than to feel, wherever we tread the paths of scien- 
 tific inquiry, new evidence springing up around our 
 footsteps — new traces of divine intelligence 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 sus- 
 tains at every instant what the word of his power 
 made. The delight is renewed at each step of our 
 progress, though as far as evidence is concerned we
 
 148 A DISCOURSE OP 
 
 have long ago had proof enough. But that is no 
 more a reason for ceasing to contemplate the sub- 
 ject in its perpetually 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 evi- 
 dences of design and skill in the universe, as sub- 
 servient in a threefold way to purposes of use and 
 of gratification : first^ as strengthening the founda- 
 tion whereupon the system reposes ; secondly, 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 whole- 
 some 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, re- 
 quire that every occasion should be taken of exhi- 
 biting those evidences upon which the system of 
 Natural Theology rests. I'he professed treatises 
 upon that science do not suffice for this purpose, 
 although they ought unquestionably to enter largely, 
 and with 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 doc- 
 trines of Natural Theology.
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 149 
 
 SECTION III. 
 
 ON THE CONNEXION BETWEEN NATURAL ANB 
 REVEALED RELIGION. 
 
 The ordinary arguments against Natural Theology 
 M'ith which we have to contend are those of atheists 
 and sceptics ; of persons who deny tlie existence of 
 a First Cause, or who involve the whole question 
 in doubt ; of persons who think tliey see a balance 
 of reason for denying the existence of a Deity, or 
 who consider the reasons on both sides as so equally 
 poised that it is impossible to decide either way. 
 An objection of a very different nature has some- 
 times 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 abso- 
 lutely nothing of God and a Future State. They 
 appear to be alarmed lest the progress of Natural 
 Religion should prove dangerous to the acceptance 
 of Revealed ; lest the former should, as it were, 
 be 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 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 150 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 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 con- 
 sideration that the greatest advocates of Natural 
 Theology have always been sincere and even zeal- 
 ous Christians. The names of Ray, Clarke, Der- 
 ham, Keill, Paley, attest the truth of this asser- 
 tion. None of these was likely to lend his support 
 to any system, the evidence of which put the out- 
 works of Christianity in jeopardy. Some of them, 
 as Clarke and Paley, have signalized themselves as 
 strenuous and able defenders of tiie truth of Reve- 
 lation. Derham actually delivered his celebrated 
 work on the great truths of Natural Theology as 
 a series of sermons preached in Bow Church, at a 
 Lecture for the promotion of the Christian religion, 
 founded by Mr. Boyle. At the same Lecture, in 
 8t. Paul's, was delivered Dr. Clarke's argument 
 a priori, and indeed hi^ whole " Evidence of Na- 
 tural and Revealed Religion," as well as his " De- 
 monstration of the Being and Attributes of God ;" 
 and Dr. Bentley, the first preacher upon that foun- 
 dation, 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 tlie eiglit ser- 
 mons is to be, in the words of the will, " The proof 
 of tlie Christian religion against notorious infidels, 
 viz. atheists, theists, Pagans, Jews, and Mahorae-
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 151 
 
 tans, not descending lower to any controversies 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 Re- 
 ligion among the most essential 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 doc- 
 trines of Natural Theology as to those of Revela- 
 tion. 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 presup- 
 pose the former to be admitted. Witness the pro- 
 found 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 Theo- 
 logy, and in the course of their reasonings assume 
 its truth as postulates. 
 
 We may suppose that those practised controver- 
 sialists and zealous Christians did not make such 
 assumptions gratuitously. We may safely give 
 them credit for not resting their case upon more 
 postulates than the exigency of the argument re- 
 quired. Such a course, if unnecessary, would Iiave 
 been most unskilful, and might have proved dan- 
 gerous by opening the door to new attacks. But 
 
 * If any one will read the vituperation rather than sermon 
 against infidels with which Dr. Bentley commences his dis- 
 courses upon Natural Eeligion, he will see no reason to 
 doubt the zeal for Christianity of that most learned preacher. 
 
 h2
 
 152 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 they are not peculiar in their view of the subject. 
 Boyle and Newton were as sincerely attached to 
 Christianity as any men in any age, and they are 
 likewise the most zealous advocates of Natural 
 Religion. Lord Bacon, though imbued perhaps 
 with a certain degree of prejudice 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 pre- 
 vious demonstration of Natural 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 it down as clear that atheism is 
 to be refuted not by miracles but by the contem- 
 plation of nature, and accurately takes the distinc- 
 tion between Revelation and Natural Religion ; 
 that the former declares tlie will of God as to the 
 worship most acceptable, while the latter teaches 
 his existence and powers, but is silent as to a 
 ritual. "I" 
 
 3. Accordingly we proceed a step farther, and 
 assert, thirdhj, tliat it is a vain and ignorant thing 
 to suppose that Natural Theology is not necessary 
 to the support of Revelation. The latter may be 
 untrue, though the former be admitted. It may 
 ])e proved, or allowed, tliat there is a God, though 
 it be denied that he ever sent any message to man, 
 tlirough men or otlier intermediate agents ; as in- 
 
 -' Do Dig. et Aug. lib. i. f De Dig. lib. iii. c. 2.
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 153 
 
 deed the Epicureans believed in the existence of 
 tiie gods, but held them to keep wholly aloof from 
 human affairs, leaving the world, physical as well 
 as moral, to itself, without the least interference in 
 its concerns.* But Revelation cannot be true if 
 Natural Religion is false, and cannot be demon- 
 strated 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 mes- 
 senger arrived in our own days, nay appeared 
 before our eyes, and showed 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 as- 
 sumes all the ordinary difficulties in the way of 
 Revelation to be got over. Now, even this strong 
 evidence would not at all establish the truth of the 
 doctrine promulgated by the messenger ; for it 
 would not show that the story he brought was 
 worthy of belief in any one particular except his 
 supernatural powers. These would be demon- 
 strated by his working miracles. All the rest of 
 
 * It is singular, too, that this sect inculcated religious 
 duties towards the gods, whom nevertheless they neither be- 
 lieved to be the creators nor governors of the universe. 
 Cicero says of its founder, " De sanctitate, de pietate adver- 
 sus deos libros scripsit Epicurus. At quomodo in his loqui- 
 tur ? ut Coruncanum, ut Scsevolam, pontifices maxinios, te 
 audire dicas." " You would think," says he, " to hear him, 
 it was our high-priests descanting upon holiness and piety,"
 
 154 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 his statement \vould 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 necessity exclude either fraud or 
 malice. This messenger 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 
 Christianity 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 con- 
 sistent with the kind of belief to which the votaries 
 of polytheism were accustomed. They were habi- 
 tually credulous of miracles and of divine inter- 
 positions. But their argument was not at all 
 unphilosophical. There is nothing whatever in- 
 consistent in the power to work miracles being 
 conferred upon a man or a minister by a super- 
 natural being, Nvho is either of limited power him- 
 self, or of great malignity, or who is one of many 
 such beings. Yet it is certain that no means can 
 be devised for attesting the supernatui*al 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 with- 
 out 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 miglit be true, indeed ; but 
 its truth would rest only on the messenger's asser- 
 tion, and upon whatever internal evidence the
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 155 
 
 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 possessed 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 commu- 
 nication by miracles could convey, but of wisdom 
 and goodness. Built upon this foundation, the 
 message of Revelation becomes at once unimpeach- 
 able, and invaluable. It converts every inference 
 of reason into certainty, and, above all, it commu- 
 nicates 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 M'ith 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 tlie slight in- 
 ference which the nature of the message might 
 afford. The portion of his credentials which con- 
 sisted of his miraculous powers could not prove 
 it. For unless we had first ascertained the unity
 
 lo6 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 and the benevolence of the being that sent him, as 
 those miracles only prove power, he might be sent 
 to deceive us ; and thus the hopes held out by him 
 might be delusions. The doctrines of Natural 
 Eeligion here come to our aid, and secure our 
 belief to the messenger of one Being, whose good- 
 ness they have tauglit 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 interposition. 
 Tradition, or the evidence of testimony, 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 contradic- 
 tion in terms ; for the exception to, or suspension 
 of, the laws of nature so often repeated would 
 destroy the laws themselves, and with the laws 
 the force of the exception 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 wit- 
 nessed them— indeed, all the people of tliat country 
 itself save those actually present — must receive 
 the proofs which they afford of Divine interposi- 
 tion upon the testimony of eye-witnesses, and of 
 those to whom eye-witnesses told it. Even if the 
 miracles were exiiibited before all the nations of 
 one age, the next must believe upon the authority 
 of tradition ; and if we suppose the interposition 
 to be repeated from time to time, each repetition 
 would incalculably weaken its force, because the
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 157 
 
 laws of nature, thoiioh not wholly destroyed, as 
 tliey 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 strengtliens and 
 extends them. We are by no means affirming that 
 Revelation would lose its sanction by lapse of 
 time, as long as it had the perpetually new and 
 living evidence of Natural Religion to support it. 
 We are only showing the use of that evidence to 
 Revelation, by examining the inevitable conse- 
 quences of its entire removal, and seeing how ill 
 supported the truths of Revelation would be, if the 
 prop were withdrawn which they borrow from 
 Natural Theology ; 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. Accustomed 
 to handle the truths of Revelation in connexion 
 with, and in addition to, those of Natural Tiieology, 
 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 requires a 
 violent fit of abstraction to figure to ourselves the 
 state of our belief in Revelation were the lights of 
 
 * Note V. 
 
 u 3
 
 158 A DISCOURSE OF 
 
 natural religion withdrawn. The existence 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 authentic, 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 Re- 
 vealed 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 inculcate sen- 
 timents of devotion towards him. " How excel- 
 lent," 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 singularly 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 
 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 
 
 * 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. 159 
 
 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.* 
 
 * Archbishop Tillotson has pronounced an authoritative 
 opinion in favour of Natiiral Religion, as essential to the 
 proof of Revealed. His admirable Sermons abound in such 
 statements — thus, in the 41st, " Unless we be first firmly per- 
 suaded of the providence of God, and of his particular care 
 of mankind, why should we suppose that he makes any re- 
 velation of his will to us "? Unless it be first naturally 
 proved that God is a God of truth, what ground is there for 
 believing his word ? So that all religion is founded upon 
 right notions of God and his perfections, insomuch that 
 Divine Revelation itself does suppose these for its founda- 
 tion, and can signify (i. e. disclose or reveal) nothing to us 
 unless they be first known and believed." "So that the 
 principles of Natural Religion are the foundations of that 
 which is revealed." This sermon was preached before the 
 King and Queen (William and Mary) on the Thanksgiving 
 for the naval victory in 1692. The sermon on Steadfastness 
 in Religion, one of the archbishop's great masterpieces, and 
 in which he demonstrates against Rome the right of private 
 judgment, tallies with the 41st in the doctrine on Natural 
 Religion.
 
 ( 161 ) 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 Note I. — Page 15. 
 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, psycho- 
 logical, and ethical or moral. It may be said that one part 
 of the moral branch of Natural Theology belongs to psycho- 
 logy — 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 ontological branch, are confined to the doctrine of ex- 
 istences — 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 argun\,ents respecting 
 these prospects are partly of a psychological nature, yet they 
 relate to the future, and not at all to tlie past or present — not 
 at all to the doctrine of existence or attributes. This is 
 therefore a sufficiently distinct ground for the separation. In 
 all such classifications we should be guided by views of con- 
 venience, rather than by any desire to attain perfect sym- 
 metry ; and that arrangement may be best suited to a par- 
 ticular 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
 
 162 NOTES. 
 
 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 j 
 term in its more ordinary sense) belongs to ontology comes ; 
 within the second, and not the third, subdivision, and that i 
 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 cal- 
 culated to illustrate the difficulty of a perfect arrangement. < 
 The Greek philosophers distinguished them into physics, I 
 ethics, and logic. Under the first head was comprehended I 
 both the nature of mind and of the Deity ; consequently, i 
 under physics were classed what we now term psychology i 
 and theology, as well as natural philosophy. Mr. Locke ' 
 mainly adopted the same order when he ranged the objects j 
 of science into physical, practical, and loc,ical {(pvaiKT], irpoK- ; 
 riKt], aTj/xeLcoTiKT), or \oyiKrj); or, 1. Things in themselves 
 knowable, 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 philo- 
 sophers, he classed natural philosophy, psychology, 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 fii-st head. One 
 thing, too, is quite clear in this arrangement, — that pure | 
 mathematics becomes part of the science of ontology, that is, j 
 of existences, natural and mental ; and yet it bears a more ] 
 close relation 'to the third, or logical division. It certainly i 
 appears somewhat violent to class fluxions "with anatomy, i 
 metallurgy with psychology, and entomology with theology ; j 
 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 I 
 objection. Not only is it doing unnecessary violence to i 
 common language, to make that which bears no exclusive I 
 relation to natural objects a part of physics, but to make \ 
 history a science at all is perhaps yet more objectionable, {
 
 NOTES. 163 
 
 unless in the sense in ■which inductive science is deemed 
 historical by Lord Bacon — being considered by him as the 
 history of facts. But this, too, is incorrect; for the history 
 or record of facts is only the foundation of inductive science, 
 which consists in the comparison, or reasoning from the 
 comparison, of these facts, and marking their differences and 
 resemblances ; whereas histoi-y 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 separated from theo- 
 logy, 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 chemical nature of the blood and bones of all 
 other animals is ranged under another head — Natural Phi- 
 losophy. As for logic and the mathematics, they are treated 
 as a kind of appendix to physics, rather than as deserving 
 the name of sciences. 
 
 Note II. — Page 45. 
 
 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 iu 
 the phenomena of the material with those exhibited in the 
 phenomena of the intellectual world, as to show that the 
 designs or inteutions of the Deity are more easily perceived 
 in the arrangements of the world with which we are most
 
 164 NOTES. 
 
 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 inter- 
 spersed with his reasonings upon the constitution of the 
 affections and feelings, reflections upon the purposes to 
 which they are subservient ; and Mr. Stewart's writings 
 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 conviction of its separate 
 and immaterial nature, which prevail through all his writ- 
 ings, could fail to perceive the application of the argument 
 a posteriori to our mental constitution. But these indica- 
 tions of this admirable writer's attention to the subject are 
 accidental, and scattered through his works ; and it is ex- 
 ceedingly 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 
 50 large a part — 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 quotation 
 from Locke, which relates more to the bodily than to the 
 mental powers, there occurs nothing whatever upon this im- 
 portant part of the subject in that excellent work, where it 
 would have been so peculiarly appropriate. 
 
 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 appearances 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. 
 I-Ie 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 i)rogre^s
 
 NOTES. 165 
 
 in Natural Philosophy -vvas extremely limited, bestow more 
 attention, and Mith considerably greater success, upon Intel- 
 lectual Philosophy; and accordingly we find that they drew 
 their arguments a posteriori for the existence of design in 
 the universe as much from moral as from physical consi- 
 derations. 
 
 The discussion held by Socrates with Aristodemus, as 
 recorded by Xenophon, is well known. After enumerating 
 the various convenient arrangements of the bodily organs, 
 he adds — Ov roivw p.ovov ripK^cre t^ OetS tov crwiuaros e7ri,ue- 
 \r]67]uai' aAA' {oirep jx^yicxTov ecrrt.) kul rrfv ■\\ivxw Kpariarriv 
 TCf aydpcoiraS ei^€(puac ripos yap aWov (^wov xl^vxv Trpwra juej/ 
 Oeui/, ruv ra jx^-yiara Kai KaWiara avvra^ai'Tccu, T]a6-)]TaL on 
 €i<ri : Tt Se (pvXov aWo ?; audpcOTroi, Oeovs depairsuovai ; noLa Se 
 ^vxv TTjs avdpwinv7)s iKavwrepa irpoipuWaTTeaOai, 7] Xi/xou, 77 
 Si\pos, 7] ^vx^h V SaATTTj, 7} vocroLs eiriKovpT]crai, 7} poofxTiv acr- 
 K7}(rai. 7] irpos fxad7]aiv eKTrov7]aai, tj oaa av aKovarj, t) idr), 77 
 fxadj), 'iKavwripa ^ari Sia/j.c/xi'r](rdai ; — " A^or has the Deiti/ 
 been satisfied ivith takiiuj care of the hodij alone ; he has im- 
 planted in man what is a far greater work to hare made — a 
 most excellent soul ; for ivhat other animal possesses a mind 
 that can perceive the existence of the Gods by whom all these 
 vast and fair works have been formed I 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 i 01 in curing diseases, or in exercising strength, 
 or in cultivating learning, or in storing up the recollection of 
 things heard, and seen, and learnt y"*— It may 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 unlike the original. Mr. Stewart justly 
 praises the " almost divine simplicity " of the whole conver- 
 sation, which is a just eulogy ; but the translation, although 
 well written, little resemhles the Greek in that })articular. 
 The one I have here given is at least faithful. 
 
 In like manner, the discussion with Euthyderaus, 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 nature, and, lastly, the use of 
 reason. To 5e Kai Koyiajjiov tj/xiu ifxtpvaai, Sec. &c. — " Thei/ 
 have implanted reason in our nature, ivherebij we inquire 
 touching external things ; and, arguing and remembering, we 
 * Xen. Memor. I. iv. 13.
 
 166 NOTES. 
 
 learn the use cf each, and hit xipon many contrivances for at- 
 taining 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 existence as twofold — 
 the nature of the mind, and the order of the worldly system. 
 The first of his reasons is drawn from considering the quali- 
 ties of the mind ; its greater antiquity than that of the body, 
 and its immortality ; 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 exist- 
 ence of a Deity. 
 
 The Stoics reasoned in like manner, with an equal regard 
 to mental and to natural phenomena. Epictetus, after de- 
 ducing the inference of design from the adaptations of sen- 
 sible objects, as of the eye to light, adds, correctly and 
 philosophically, that " the constitution of the understanding, 
 whereby it not only receives impressions 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 con- 
 trivance could not," he contends, " exist spontaneously, and 
 without design.' f 
 
 The same train of reasoning is followed by Cicero in all 
 those parts of his writings in which he treats of tlie 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 fre- 
 quently attended to. " An vero si domum magnam pul- 
 chramque videris, non possis adduci ut, etiamsi domiuum 
 non videas, muribus illam et mustelis aedificatam putes; 
 tautum vero ornatum mundi, tantam varietatem pulchritu- 
 dinemque rerum coelestium, tantam vim] et magnitudinem 
 maris atque terrarum, si^tuum ac non deorum immortalium 
 domicilium putes, nonne plane desipere videare ?" Thus far 
 as to sensible objects. 13ut he proceeds, " Aliud a terra 
 sumsimus, aliud ab humore, aliud ab igne, aliud ab acre, eo 
 * Xi'n. Memor. IV. iii. 11. f Epict. Encliir. i. G.
 
 NOTES. 167 
 
 quern spii-itu ducimus ; illud autem quod vincit hsec omnia, 
 rationem dico, et si placet, pluribus verbis, meiitem, con- 
 silium, cogitationem, prudentiam, ubi inveuimus? uude 
 sustulimus ? " * 
 
 And again, in the same book, after speaking at large on 
 the structure of the body, and the uses to which its various 
 parts are adapted, he adds, " Jam vero animum ipsum men- 
 temque horaiuis, rationem, consilium, prudentiam, qui non 
 diviua 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 intelli- 
 gitur quam vim habeat, qualis sit, qua ne in deo quidem est 
 res ulla prsestantior ;" and he closes with the well-known 
 passage in praise of eloquence.f 
 
 In the Tusculan Questions he alludes to mind in a diflferent 
 manner. After going through the various provisions made 
 for human enjoyment in the economy of nature, he adds, 
 " Sic mentem hominis, quamvis earn non videas, ut deum non 
 vides; tamen, ut deum agnoseis ex operibus ejus, sic ex 
 memoria rerum et inventione et celeritate motus omnique 
 pulchritudine virtutis, vim divinam mentis agnoscito." I 
 
 The course 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, therefore, 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 introductory to his statement 
 of the soul's independent nature. 
 
 In these speculations of the ancient philosophers, we can- 
 not 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 consistent method of philosophising, than the 
 moderns have done when speculating upon the same subject. 
 
 * De Nat. Deor. ii. 6. f Ibid. ii. 59. J Tusc. Qu. i. 28.
 
 168 NOTES. 
 
 Note III.— Page 65. 
 
 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 prin- 
 ciple. 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 consequence. 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 * Phi- 
 losophy 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 causation except by observing a 
 constant junction between two events or two facts. This is 
 unquestionably true. We expect that heat being applied 
 to combustible bodies, they will take fire ; and that air being 
 excluded they will cease to burn. We expect this, because 
 between the application of heat and the ignition of the heated 
 body, between the exclusion of air and the extinction of the 
 fire, we have constantly observed the relation of sequence — 
 the one event being always followed 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 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 controversy we are now
 
 NOTES. 169 
 
 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 calling 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 successive 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 unfolding itself, because if the 
 spring is prevented from relaxing, the hand no longer points; 
 and so it is also 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 inhei*ent 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 moye 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 relation on which it is founded between our own will and 
 
 * Mr Stewart's observation, that day follows night as mucli as nij^ht 
 follows day, makes no dift'erence in this illustration : for we may suppose 
 tlie case of a person seeing day for the first time, or tw elve o'clock for the 
 first time, and the conclusion'in the text would still hold good.
 
 170 NOTES. 
 
 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 applied should 
 not ignite, nor air excluded extinguish — so might our voli- 
 tion cease to make our limbs move, as it does cease in 
 paralysis. As it is, and because our will has hitherto had 
 the power to move our limbs, we have acquired the idea of 
 power and of causation. But if it had always been other- 
 wise, and that no connexion of succession had ever existed 
 between our volition and our movements, I do not see how 
 the idea of power or causality 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, additional reason 
 for resting the evidences of Natural Theology 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 be- 
 cause the relation is contingent and not necessary, is suffi- 
 ciently 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 proposition quite true, to which we 
 affix a precise and definite meaning, and which we have 
 learnt from observation and from consciousness, althougli 
 the order of nature might easily have been so constituted 
 as that the two events should never have been found in 
 sequence, iit present the order of nature connects them, 
 and we affirm that there exists the relation of cause and 
 effect — a relation contingent, however, and not necessary. 
 Of necessary causation we can by no possibility know any- 
 thing ; but causation may be real enough though contingent.
 
 NOTES. 171 
 
 Note IV.— Page 49, 64. 
 
 Of the ' Systeme de la Nature ^^ and the Hypothesis 
 of Materialism. 
 
 There is no book of an atheistical description which has 
 ever made a greater impression than the famous Si/steme de 
 la Nature. It bears the impression of London, 1780, but 
 was manifestly printed in p' ranee ; also, it purports to be 
 written by Mirabaud, secretary of the Academic Francaise ; 
 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 17(30; and it was twenty years before 
 the work appeared — found, says the writer, among a collec- 
 tion of manuscripts made by a " savant curieux de rassem- 
 bler des productions de ce genre." Kobinet, 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 probability, 
 by Diderot, Helvetius, and other members of the freethink- 
 ing society, who frequented the Baron's 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 placing his' name in the title-page without any 
 doubt expressed, and reserving the doubts for the preface, 
 was a man of unimpeachable integrity and amiable disposi- 
 tion. 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, liis 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 Si/stcme de la 
 Nature. The work of a great writer it unquestionably is ; 
 but its merit lies in the extraordinary eloquence of the com- 
 position, and the skill with which words substituted for
 
 172 NOTES. 
 
 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 de- 
 monstration, while he builds various conclusions upon 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 ob- 
 jections, 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 attention is be- 
 stowed upon this work. The reason is, that its bold cha- 
 racter has imposed on multitudes of readers, seducing some 
 by its tone of confidence, but intimidating others by its ex- 
 treme 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 an- 
 ticipated by its author; for the supposed editor, in his ad- 
 vertisement, describes it somewhat complacently, if not 
 boastingly, as " I'ouvrage le plus hardi et le plus extra- 
 ordinaire que I'esprit humain ait ose produire jusqu'a pre'- 
 sent." 
 
 The grand object of the book being to show that there is 
 no God, the author begins by endeavouring to establish the • 
 most rigorous materialism, by trying to show that there is 
 no such thing as mind — nothing beyond or different from 
 the material ft-orUl. His whole fabric is built on this founda- 
 tion ; and it would be difficult to find in the history of meta- 
 physical controversies such inconclusive reasoning, and such 
 
 * Tlie treatise of Robinet, De la Nature, which, though far less 
 eloquent and dexterous, is superior in real merit, has never attracted 
 anvthin-' like the same notice.
 
 NOTES. 173 
 
 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 existence. 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 any- 
 thing of mathematical truth ? And in case a cavil should 
 arise upon geometrical science (though it would be but a 
 cavil) we shall speak only of analytical ; and then it is cer- 
 tain that the whole science of numbers, from the rules of 
 elementary arithmetic up to the highest branches of the 
 modern calculus, could by possibility have been discovered 
 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 : in- 
 deed, we might even go so far as to say, who had never heard 
 a sound uttered ; for the primitive 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, indeed, 
 is known to every one, how moderately soever imbued Avith 
 matliematical learning, to satisfy him how little the iutima- 
 VOL. I. I
 
 174 NOTES, 
 
 tions received from the senses have, or can have, to do with 
 the Avhole science of number and quantity. That those in- 
 timations of the senses are themselves not at all of a material 
 nature, we shall presently 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, — 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 afi'ects to show the impossibility of 
 the doctrines which it combats ; and while perpetually com- 
 plaining of dogmas, it is perhaps the most dogmatical work 
 that was ever written. The sixth and seventh chapters, but 
 the seventh especially, treat of this 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 distin- 
 guishable 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' relative- 
 ment a quelqu'unes de ses fonctions ou a, quelques fa(;ons 
 d'etre et d'agir dont il est susceptible tant qu'il jouit de la 
 vie). Or when he describes those faculties which are vul- 
 garly called intellectual, 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 famous d'etre et d'agir resultant de I'organisation 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 constant 
 assumption of the thing in question, and even an involuntary 
 assumption of that very separate and spiritual existence 
 which it is the author's object to disprove. 
 
 Like all materialists, but far more grossly and dogmati- 
 cally 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
 
 NOTES. 175 
 
 knowledge of it ? How do we assure ourselves of its exist- 
 ence ? What evidence at all have we respecting either its 
 being or its qualities ? We feel, or taste, or smell some- 
 thing — 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 something 
 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, pro- 
 duced no doubt by, and connected with, our bodily senses, 
 but independent of, and separate from them, we draw cer- 
 tain conclusions by reasoning, and those conclusions are in 
 favour of the existence of something other than our sensa- 
 tions and our reasonings, and other than that which ex- 
 periences the sensations and makes the reavsonings — passive 
 in the one case — active in the other. That something is 
 what we call Mind. But plainly, whatever it is, we 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 m ould 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 existence. 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 Si/steme 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 quali- 
 ties of Mind. But, in truth, the materialists cannot stir one 
 step without the aid of that Mind whose existence they deny. 
 
 i2
 
 176 NOTES. 
 
 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 INIatter upon the Mind 
 through the senses? A remarkable instance, 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 existence of mind : " La matiere 
 seule pent 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, expressions, six times 
 over, all drawn from the assumption of a something existing 
 separate from and independent of Matter. Our — senses— 
 which — us — known — bi/ ns — 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 duubted 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 possi- 
 bility of Mind existing in any form apart from Matter, 
 should be so little competent to discuss questions like this, as 
 to speak in these terms of Berkeley ? " Que disons nous 
 d'un Berkeley qui seffbrce de nous prouver que tout dans ce 
 monde n'est qu'une illusion chimerique ; que I'univers entier 
 n'existe que dans nous-memes, 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 conclusion, 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, whicli lead 
 us to believe in the existence of Mind ; for of that we have 
 the evidence within ourselves, and v holly iiide{;endent of 
 our senses. IS' or can we ever draw the inference in any one
 
 NOTES. 1 77 
 
 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 conclusion, 
 forming a belief; therefore there exists somebody, or some- 
 thing, 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 Descartes — cogito, ergo sum — had a 
 correct and a profound meaning. If, then, scepticism can 
 have any place in our system, assuredly it relates to the ex- 
 istence of Matter far more than of Mind ; yet the Systeme 
 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. 
 
 "\\^e have combated the main body of the argument which 
 runs through the whole book, and passed over some of the 
 gross errors, apparently proceeding from ignorance of phy- 
 sical science, in which it abounds. Of these the most 
 notable, no doubt, is that which Voltaire, in his Essai sur 
 le Si/steme de la Nature, considers (chap, i.) as the founda- 
 tion of the whole theorj' — the absurd passage respecting the 
 formation of eels. Certain it is, that in the Second chapter 
 of Part I., the experiment of moistening flour, and thereby 
 producing live microscopic insects, is referred to as a proof 
 that " inanimate matter can pass into life," " which," adds 
 the book, " is itself but the union of notions." No one in- 
 deed can accuse Voltaire of taking an unfair advantage when 
 he relies on this piece of extraordinary ignorance ; 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 hypo- 
 thesis, and by which many materialists really are deceived — 
 the mechanism of a watch, for example, consisting of parts 
 each separately incapable of producing any result, but alto- 
 gether forming a moving instrument that measures the efflux 
 of time — nothing, surely, can be more puerile than the at- 
 tempt 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 that is not strictly of
 
 178 NOTES. 
 
 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 in- 
 cident in kind which the whole possesses. The difterence 
 in the case of Mind is, that we have something wholly of a 
 new and peculiar kind, and in no respect resembling or be- 
 longing to the same class with any of the exertions or opera- 
 tions 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 disproving 
 the existence of Mind, the second part of the " Systeme" pro- 
 ceeds 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 refuted — a task, unfor- 
 tunately, not very difficult to accomplish, though it is here 
 done in an illegitimate manner. We cannot, however, fail 
 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 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 posteriori, 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 ex- 
 amined in its connexion with the evidences of the Mind's 
 independent existence, to pursue further the Second Part of
 
 NOTES. 179 
 
 the -work is unnecessar}-. But a few remarks are added to 
 show how exactly the same assumption 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. " In- 
 quiry 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 an- 
 noyance of arguing on a First Cause. But fear and evil, 
 especially pain and death — the terrors of earthquake, eclipse, 
 tempest--the horrors of death — drove the mind to seek out 
 the source of all these dangers, 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 philosophical 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 plea- 
 sures 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 physical science 
 are they who have been the least under the pressure of want, 
 and have gained the least by their labours. But such spe- 
 culations 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 
 entertained ; 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 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,
 
 180 NOTES. 
 
 and whither he was going, and how the frame of the universe 
 was contrived and sustained — 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 foi-mer por- 
 tion 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 assumpti<!us, and proves 
 the truths its author is endeavouring 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 transi- 
 tory 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, up 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 produced 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 a Theologian 
 " can really be sincere in believing himself to have made a 
 step by substituting the vague words spirit, incorporeal sub- 
 stances, divinity, &c., for those intelligible words" — what? 
 what words so much less vague and more intelligible * than 
 spirit ? — " those intelligible words, matter, nature, mobility, 
 
 * 'lliere occurs everywhere in this book a vague and mysterious idea 
 of a force or living power belonging to Matter, and almost a deijicntion of 
 this power, utterly unintelligible ; but in a liater of Deity — a derider of 
 all gods — quite marvellous. The passage in wliich this idea is most 
 strikingly announced is the 11th cliapter of part ii., where he is answering 
 the po.sition that there is no sudi a tiling as an Atheist in the world — 
 " Si yAi Athie Ion designe un hommequi nieroit Texistence A.' arm farce 
 iiilierente t) In nature et sans laquelle Ion ne peut concevoir la Nature, et 
 si c'est a cette force motive qu'on donne le nom de Dieii, il n'existe point 
 d'Athees, et le mot sous lequel on les designe, n'annonceroit que des 
 fous." — C'an 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 ?''
 
 NOTES. 181 
 
 necessity ! " Now, we may safely ask, if all language fur- 
 nishes 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 
 contemplation than Mind or spirit, and that its existence and 
 qualities rest on less conclusive evidence than do those of 
 Mind. Possibly the reader of this passage, and especially if 
 he casts his eye back upon the former parts of the argument, 
 may be inclined to adopt the writer's description of Theo- 
 logy, and apply it to the dogmatical Atheism of the St/stevie 
 de la Nature. 
 
 Note V.— Page 157. 
 
 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 a 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 important writings of this eminent 
 philosopher, because they bring his sceptical opinions more 
 directly 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 pro- 
 position contrary to the evidence of our senses, upon a sub- 
 ject respecting which the senses alone can decide, and to 
 admit it by the force of reasonings ultimately drawn from 
 the senses — reasonings far more likely to deceive than they, 
 because applicable to matter not so well fitted for argument 
 as for perception, but reasonings at any rate incapable of 
 exceeding the evidence the senses give. Nothing, therefore, 
 can be more conclusive than Tillotson"s argument — that 
 against the Real Presence we have of necessity every argu- 
 
 I 3
 
 182 NOTES. 
 
 ment, 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 argu- 
 ments 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 Avitness 
 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 argument 
 on Miracles. There, the evidence for and the evidence 
 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 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 doc- 
 trine of Transubstautiatiou 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 suf- 
 ficient to shake it. 
 
 First — Our belief in the uniformity of the laws of nature 
 rests not altogether upon our ow-n 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
 
 NOTES. 183 
 
 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 evi- 
 dence when it comes to prove an exception to the rule — a 
 deviation from the law ? The more numerous are the cases 
 of the law being kept — the more rare those of its 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 tes- 
 timony may rise seems almost indefinite. There is hardly 
 any cogency which it is not capable by possible supposition 
 of attaining. The endless multiplication of witnesses — the 
 unbounded variety of their habits of thinking, their preju- 
 dices, their interests — afford the means of conceiving the 
 force of their testimony augmented ad infinitum, because 
 these circumstances afford the means of diminishing indefi- 
 nitely 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 different 
 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 ac- 
 count of an event as having happened before their eyes — 
 these chances are many hundreds of thousands to one. And 
 yet we can conceive them multiplied indefinitely ; for one 
 hundred thousand such witnesses 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 argu- 
 ment, 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 us as derived from witnesses who lived in the old 
 time before them. It is unnecessary to add that no testi-
 
 184 NOTES. 
 
 mony 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 would be at 
 once wari'anted.* 
 
 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 immbers of various witnesses as we have 
 spoken of; or, what is perhaps stronger, suppose a miracle re- 
 ported to us, first by a 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 
 wonders, and, above all, steady unbelievers in Miracles, 
 without any bias in favour of religion, but rather accustomed 
 to doubt, if not disbelieve — most people would lend an easy 
 belief to any Miracle thus vouched. But let us add this cir- 
 cumstance, that a friend on his death-bed had been attended 
 by us, and that we had told him a fact known only to our- 
 selves — something that we had secretly done the very mo- 
 ment 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 supposing inform us that the deceased ap- 
 peared to them, conversed with them, remained with them a 
 day or two, accompanying them, and to avouch the fact of 
 his reappearance on this earth, communicated to them the 
 
 * Propliecy is classed by Mr. Hume under the same head with 
 Miracle — every prophecy being, he says, a miracle. Tliis is not, how- 
 ever, quite correct. A prophecy — that is, the happeninij 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 fore- 
 told, that, on a certain day this year, one person of "every family in the 
 Avorld should be seized with a "particular distemper, it "is evident that 
 every family would be at once certain that the event had happened, and 
 that it liad been foretold. To future generations the fullilment would no 
 doubt come within the description of a miracle in all respects. Tlie truth 
 is, that the event happening which was foretold may be compared to the 
 miracle ; and Mr. Humes argument will then be, not that there is any- 
 thing miraculous in the event itself, but only in its liappening after it had 
 been foretold. Bishop Slicrlock wrote discourses on this subject, which 
 l)r. 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. 185 
 
 secret of -which we had made him the sole depositary the 
 momeut before his death. According to Mr. Hume, we are 
 bound rather to believe, not only that those credible wit- 
 nesses deceive us, or that those sound and unprejudiced men 
 were themselves deceived, and fancied things without real 
 existence, but further, that tliey 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 the relators accompanied it with a special 
 warning from the deceased person to avoid a certain con- 
 templated 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 jSIi- 
 racles are of necessity denied by it, without the least regard 
 to the kind or the quantity of the proof on which they are 
 lasted ; and the testimony which we have supposed, accom- 
 panied 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 combina- 
 tions of evidence. 
 
 The use of Mr, Hume's argument is this, and it is an im- 
 portant 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 tes- 
 timony 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 beeu, in 
 a particular instance, and with a particular purpose, sus- 
 pended. 
 
 It is unnecessary to add, that the argument here has only 
 been conducted to one point, and upon one ground, 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
 
 186 NOTES. 
 
 suffices to prove the Miracles on which that revelation rests. 
 This treatise is not directed to that object ; but in comment- 
 ing upon Mr. Hume's celebrated argument, we have dealt 
 with a fundamental 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 dis- 
 figures the concluding portion of the former treatise. The 
 tone is more philosophic, and the sceptical character is better 
 sustained. There cannot, indeed, be said to prevail through 
 it anything 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 ' Si/stane de la Nature.' On the 
 contrary, the argument, whether sound or not, is of a sul»- 
 stantial nature ; it is rested on very plausible grounds ; and 
 we may the rather conclude that it is not very easily an- 
 swered, because, in fact, it has rarely, if ever, been encoun- 
 tered by writers on theological subjects. Nevertheless, it 
 strikes at the root of all Natural Religion, and requires a 
 careful consideration. 
 
 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 argumej;it's sake. But he takes this nice and subtle dis- 
 tinction. We are here, he observes, dealing with an agent, 
 an intelligence, a being wholly unlike all we 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 con- 
 clude that a man has walked there, and that his other foot 
 had likewise left its print, which the waves have effaced. 
 But this inference is not draAvn 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
 
 NOTES. 187 
 
 Other conclusion than that some body or thing had been 
 there with a form like the mark. So, when we are to i-easou 
 from the works of nature to their cause, m'c are entitled to 
 conclude that a Being exists whose power and skill created 
 them such as we behold them, and consequently 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 beyond 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 poAver (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, afibrding a mighty contrast to the 
 flimsy sophisms, the declamatory assertions, of the French 
 writers, and giving the Natural Theologian, it must be al- 
 lowed, 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 assump- 
 tion, that if Me perceive arrangements made, by means of 
 which certain effects are produced, and if seeing such ar- 
 rangements among the works of men, we should at once con- 
 clude that they were designed to produce those efi'ects, 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 in- 
 telligent cause, contriving them for the purpose of producing 
 the effects observed. In truth, such must needs be the as- 
 sumption 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 know- 
 ledge we have of our own minds, derived from our own con- 
 sciousness and experience ; and of this we have 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 con- 
 clude that some skilful and intelligent being had been there, 
 and had left his works on the spot. We should conclude
 
 188 NOTES. 
 
 (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 conclusion. We 
 arrive at it just as we arrive at the inference of design and 
 contrivance 5 we believe in them because we are wholly un- 
 able to conceive such an adaptation without such an in- 
 tention ; and we are equally unable to conceive that any 
 being, or any intelligence, 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 opera- 
 tion. 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 in- 
 duction proceeds upon similar grounds : it is the generaliza- 
 tion of particulars; it is the concluding from a certain 
 limited number of instances to an indefinite number — to any 
 number unless circumstances 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 sepa- 
 rated into lights making certain colours. Why do we con- 
 clude from hence that all the acid made by burning svJphur, 
 in what way soever the sulphur was produced or the com- 
 bustion effected, will be neutralized by soda wheresoever pro- 
 duced 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 potassium, 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>
 
 NOTES. 189 
 
 will produce the effects we have experienced in our labo- 
 ratory, or in our darkened chamber. In other words, ac- 
 cording 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 observed by them: in a word, In- 
 ductive Science must be turned from a process of general 
 reasoning upon particular 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 obseiwed, 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 inferences of design in the works actually examined. 
 The selfsame difference is to be found in the inferences com- 
 posing 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 induction ; 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 -n-e 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 see and examine, is also capable of exer- 
 cising other acts of skill and power? Can we avoid be- 
 lieving 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
 
 190 NOTES. 
 
 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 question. But when Ave see such 
 stupendous exertions of power, upon a scale so vast as far to 
 pass all our faculties of comprehension, and with a minute- 
 ness 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 unable 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 intelligence. 
 The argument of Mr. Hume supposes or admits that the 
 whole universe is its work, and that animal life is its crea- 
 tion. 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 prolong their existence 
 after death — than we can avoid believing that the power 
 which sustained the universe up to the instant we are speak- 
 ing, 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 tins argument, to conclude that 
 the Deity had the power of working the works we have seen 
 and no more. Last spring and autumn we observed the 
 powers of nature in vegetation, that is, we noted the opera- 
 tions of the Deity in that portion of his works, and were en- 
 titled, INIr. 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 il 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
 
 NOTES. 191 
 
 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 con- 
 tinue 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 75. 
 
 Of the Ancient doctrines respecting Mind. 
 
 The opinions of the ancient philosophers upon the nature of 
 the Soul were not very consistent with themselves ; 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 maintained 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 it- 
 self. Their language is nearly the same upon this subject. 
 Plato speaks of the oucrm acrwaaros «:ai j/otjttj — a bodiless or 
 incorporeal and intelligent being ; and of such existence he 
 says, in one place, ra aacc/xaTa KuWiaTu ovra Kai fxeyia-Tu 
 \oy({> fJLouov, aWu} Se ouSej/t (ra<po}s ZeiKwrai — " Things incor- 
 poreal being the most excellent and the greatest of all, are made 
 manifest bi/ reason alone, and no otherwise." — (Politicus.) 
 So again in the Cratijlus, he derives awfj-a from crw^'erreat, 
 and represents the body as a prison of the soul, ^iKoi/a
 
 192 ' NOTES. 
 
 d€(rfj.coTr)piov €ivai ovv t7]s ipvxv^ avro ecoy t]v ra o^eiXojxeva to 
 (Tw/xa, following herein the doctrine said to have been de- 
 livered by Orpheus. Aristotle, too, speaks of a being sepa- 
 rable and separated from things perceivable by the senses — 
 ovcria x^ptcTTTj kui Kexc^piajiiej/ri twv aLcrdrjToov. Nevertheless, 
 these philosophers frequently speak of the soul as being 
 always, and as it were necessarily, connected with matter of 
 some kind or other — aet ^puxv eTriTeTayixevr) (xwuari, rore fjLsv 
 aWaj, Tore 8e oAAw. " The soul is always annexed to a body, 
 sometimes to one and sometimes to another.'' — De Legg. x. 
 Thus Aristotle {Dc Gener. Anim. ii. 4), r] yap ypvxv ov(na 
 awixaros rivos ^crri — " the soul is the substance of some kind of 
 body." And in the treatise De Anima, ii. 2, he says — Kai Zia 
 TOVTO KaXcos inroXa/x^apovaiu, oh SoKei yUTjre avev (XuijxaTos eivai 
 lui.7)T€ (joojxd ri ^.pvxv' <Toojj.a fxsv yap ovk eari. GWfxaros 5e ri — 
 " Those therefore rightly hold icho think that the soul cannot 
 exist ivithout the body, and yet that it is not body ; it is not 
 the body, but someichat of the body." 
 
 This corporeal connexion is stated by Plutarch, in the 
 Qucest. Platan., still more plainly to have been the Platonic 
 doctrine — '^puxvt^ «ft TrpecrfiuTepav rov awjxaros, airiav re ttjs 
 CKiivov y€V€(T€Uis Kai apxv^' — ovk au yeueadai xpvxVJ^ avev 
 (TCDfJLaTos, ovSe vow avcv \pvxvs' a\ha \l/vxv^ M^'' f aco/JLari, 
 vow Se (V TT) ^vxv- " 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 understanding without the soul ; hut 
 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 doctrines, of 
 the modern atheists (See Note IV.) — to kavro kiv^iv (says 
 Plato), (pris Xoyov exejj/ ttjv avrrfv ovffiay rjvrrep Tovvojxa, 6 Srj 
 navTfs ^pvx'>T' T^pocrayopevofx^v ; ^tj^j "ye — '' } oil say that the 
 substance (or being) to which we all give the name of soulf 
 has for its definition ' that which moves itself f I certainly 
 do say so.''' — I)e Legg. x.
 
 NOTES. 193 
 
 But the same philosophers also held the soul to be an 
 emanation from the Deity, and that each individual soul 
 was a portion of the Divine Essence, or Spirit ; consequently, 
 they could not mean to assert that the divine essence was 
 inseparable from matter of some kind, but only those por- 
 tions of that essence which they represented to be severed, 
 and as it were torn off, from the divine mind — awacpeis ry 
 6i(t}, are avrov /lopia ovcria kui airoffTracrfxara. — {Epict.) 
 
 Plutarch, in the work already cited, says — r] Se ^pvxv ovk 
 epyov €(rTi rov 0eoy fj.ovK , aWa Kai fiepos' ov8' vir' avrov a\?C 
 air' avTov, Kai e| avrov, yeyovev — " 77*e 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 75. 
 
 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 mattei', 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 a.QavaTos, acpdapros, avwKidpos — immortal, in- 
 corruptible, indestructible — but aydvqros, avroycvrjs, avTO(pvf}S, 
 avBvKoffTaTos — uncreated, self-made, self -originating, self-ex- 
 isting. Zwov nacrav ex*"' fxaKapioT-qra /xer' acpOapaias, says Epi- 
 curus — " A Being having all happiness, with an incorruptible 
 nature." Again, he is iravTOKpuTwp, ■nayKpaT7}s — omnipotent, 
 all-potverful ; BwaTai yap airavra, says Homer (Odi/ss. |) — 
 " He has the power over all things" The creative power is 
 also, in words at least, ascribed to him — KocxfjiOTvoiTirris, S-n/xi- 
 ovpyos — the maker of the world, the great artifcer. 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 — &eos Soksi to amov iraa-iv eivai 
 Kai apxn ris : and, indeed, by implication, this is ascribed in 
 the terms uncreated, self-created, and self-existing ; for in
 
 194 NOTES. 
 
 soundness of reason tlie 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. Nevertheless, 
 such was certainly not so plain an inference of reasoning ■ 
 with the ancients ; for whether it be that by avTo<pvT]s and 1 
 avToyei/ris, tiiey only meant to convey the idea of a7ei'7jTos — 
 of a being uncreated and existing from all eternity — or that j 
 they took some nice distinction, to us incomprehensible, be- 
 tween 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 i 
 co-existent with the supreme power, and that by creator and i 
 artificer they rather seem to have meant the arranger of ' 
 atoms — the power giving form to chaotic matter, than the j 
 power calling things into existence. They appear to have | 
 been all pressed by the difficulty (and who shall deny it?) , 
 of conceiving the act of creation— the act of calling ex- 
 istences out of nothing. Accordingly, the maxim which 
 generally prevailed among most of the Greek sects, and j 
 which led to very serious and even practical consequences in , 
 their systems, was ovhev e/c /xt] ovros (or f | ovh^vos) yiveadaL — 
 that nothing is made of what has no existence, or of nothing, j 
 Aristotle represents this as the common opinion of all natural 
 philosophers before him — Koivqv Zo^av rwv (pvaiKwi/. He ! 
 says, in another passage (Ue Ccelo, iii. 1), oi fxev avrcav 
 {irpoTcpov (pi\oao(f)r)(TauT€s) aueiAou oAwy yeueaii/ icai <p6opau' 
 ovdef yap ovT€ yiyyeaOai (paaiu ovre (pOapiadai twv outuv — 
 " Son^e of those {older philosophers) took awai/ {or abolished) \ 
 all generation and destruction, for they hold that none of the "j 
 things ichich exist are either created or destroyed." Never- 
 theless, it cannot be doubted that the Platonic doctrine was | 
 of the same kind, and that Aristotle, in truth, ascribed only i 
 a qualified creative power to the Deity. Plutarch's state- 
 ment of the Platonic doctrine is precise to tliis point — fi^Xnov 
 ovv IlAaTwj/i TTiido/xevovs rov fiev Koa/xou viro Qeov yfyoyeyai 
 \eyeiy kul adeiv 6 juej/ yap KaWiaros ru>v yeyouoTwv, o5e j 
 apiffTos rwv mriwv' ttjj/ Se ovaiav Kai vXrjv e| 7)s y^yovsv, ov 
 yevo/xeyr]!/, aXAa viroKiiix^vriv aei toJ Srifxiovpyci}, fis diadeaiv 
 Kai ra^Lv uvttjs kui irpos avTuv e^o/xoiwaiv, ws Swaroy tiv 
 Trapao'xeiJ'" ov yap e/c rov fir] ovros y^y^ais, aAA' e/c rov /xrj 
 K&Aws, 1X7)^" iKavwi exoi/Tos, us oiKias, Kai lixarLOv, Kai avSpi- | 
 auros — '• JJettcr then be convinced bi/ Plato, and say and sing \ 
 that the world was made by God ; for the world is the most
 
 NOTES. 195 
 
 excellent fif all created thiiicjs, and he the best of all causes. 
 But the substance or waiter, (literally timber^ of which he 
 made it, was not created, but always lai/ ready for the arti- 
 ficer, to be arranged and ordered by him ; for the creatio)i was 
 not out ff nothing, but out of what had been ivithout form and 
 tuijit, 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 fabri- 
 cate the object of his art. 'Eironjacv uv (says Timaus) 
 Toude rov Koajiou e| airaaas ras vKas — 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, contradictory passage of Aristotle, in the first 
 book of the Physics, where he is giving his own doctrine in 
 opposition to the tenets of the elder philosophers on this 
 point — 'H/x€is de kul avroi (pafxev yiyueadai /xev ovBep cttAws 
 e/c /xri oi/Tos, 6/xcos fxivroi yiyveadai e/c fir] ovtos, olou Kara 
 crv/j.fi€^i]Kos' e/c yap ttjs arepriaecas 6 ccttl Ka6' avro /xe ov^ 
 ovK evvTvapxovTos yiyverai tl. 9av/j.a^(rai 8e tovto Kai aSu- 
 vaTov ouru} Sok€l yiyuecrOai Ti €k (jlt) ovtos — " V\ e our- 
 selves however say that nothing is absolutely (or merely) 
 produced from what has no existence, yet that something is 
 produced from that which has no existence 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 impos- 
 sible, that something 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 impossible and 
 inconceivable that any being could either be created out of 
 nothing, or be utterly destroyed — e« /jlt] ovros yivtadai rore ov 
 e|oAAii(r0a£ avT]vv(nov Kai app-qicrov. {lb. i. 5.) 
 
 Upon the uncreated nature of things — for the doctrine 
 extended to mind as well as to matter — the ancient philo- 
 sophers founded another tenet of great importance. Matter 
 and soul were reckoned not only uncreated, but inde- 
 structible ; their existence was eternal in every sense of the 
 word, without end as without beginning : /j.r)S€i^ e/c tov fxri 
 ovros yivecrBai, fir}de ezs ro /jlt) ov cpOeipeadai — •' Nothing can 
 be produced out of that ivhich has no existence, nor can any- 
 thing be reduced to nonentity." Such is Diogenes Laertius's 
 account of Democritus' doctrine, or the Atomic principle.
 
 196 NOTES. 
 
 " Principium hinc cujus nobis exordia sumet, 
 NuUam rem e nihilo gigni divinitus imquam." — 
 '. " Hue accedit uti quidque in sua corpora rursum 
 
 Dissolvat natura, neque ad nihilum intereunt res " — 
 
 " Haud igitur redit ad nihilum res ulla, sed omnes 
 Discidio redeunt in corpora materiai " — 
 
 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 con- 
 sistency in this respect ; for if the difficulty of comprehend- 
 ing 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 comprehending how a being can cease to exist, 
 as how it can come into existence. 
 
 From this doctrine mainly it is that the Greek philoso- 
 phers derive the immortality of the soul, as far as the meta- 
 physical 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 con- 
 sidered as the eternity post. Thus Plato says that " our soul 
 was somewhere before it existed in the human form, so that 
 also it seems to be immortal afoenvards " — rjv ttov Tifiwu 
 7] ^pvxv Trpiv 6j/ ToJSe r^ avdpuTriuco €i5et yeveadai, ware 
 Kai ravrrj aOavarou ri (oik^u tj ^vxf] ^ivai. — {Pha'd.) 
 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— ;/tVsf, because it is coupled with the tenet of pre- 
 existence, and having no kind of evidence of that from rea- 
 soning, 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 doc- 
 trine of the soul being an emanation from the Deity, its 
 future state implies a return to the divine essence, and a 
 confusion with or absorption in that supreme intelligence, 
 and consequently an extinction of individual existence j a
 
 NOTES. 197 
 
 doctrine which -n-as accordingly held by some of the meta- 
 physical philosophers who maintained a Future State. 
 
 In one important particular there was an entire difference 
 of opinion among the ancient philosophers ; in truth, so im- 
 portant 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 materially differ from those generally 
 called theists; but they denied that these Gods ever in- 
 terfered in the affairs of the universe. The language of 
 Plato and the other theists upon this subject is vei-y strong : 
 they regard such a doctrine as one of the three kinds of 
 blasphemy or sacrilege ; and in the Eepublic of that philo- 
 sopher, all the three crimes are made equally punishable 
 with death. The first species is denying the existence of a 
 Deity, or of Gods — to 5e Sevrepov, ouras (Oeovs) ov ^povri^eiv 
 avQpoiiTov. " The second, admitting their existence, hut 
 denying that they care for man." The third kind of blas- 
 phemy was that of men attempting to propitiate the Gods 
 towards criminal conduct, as (p6oi/oia.nd aSi/cTj.uara, 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 tlie 
 spoil, as the wolves do ivith the dogs."- — De Legg. x.* 
 
 Note VIII.— Pagk 101. 
 
 Of the ancient Doctrine of the Immortality of the Soul. 
 
 That the ancient philosophers for the most part believed in 
 the Future Existence of the Soul after death is undeniable. 
 
 * ^^^lo can read these, and such passages as these, witliout wishing 
 that some wlio call themselves Christians, some Christian Principalities 
 and Powers, had taken a lesson from the lieathen sage, and (if tlieir 
 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 per- 
 nicious 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 de'eat ? Assuredly such a ritual 
 as this is not taken from the New Testament. 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 198 NOTES. 
 
 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 M'ith 
 a perishable body, believed in a future existence without 
 memory or consciousness 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 theo- 
 ries differed widely fiom the Christian faith, and indeed 
 departed almost as widely from the intimations of sound 
 reason. They all believed in the soul's pre-existence. 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, tt]u ixa- 
 Qriaiv ai^a/xvrjaiu eiuai, 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 
 Timcen.s and other writings the same doctrine is further ex- 
 pounded. Hj/ ttov ijfxcov ■>] ^l^vxv ■Tpii' ej/ roJSe t(w avOjXtiinvcx) 
 etSet yev^adai, ojo-Te «:ai ravrr) adavarov ri eoiKev r] \pvx'n fiyai 
 " Our soul existed sviuewhere before it was produced in the 
 human form (or I'odtj) so that it seems to be immortal also." 
 The arguments indeed, genei-ally speaking, on which both 
 Plato and other philosophers ground their positions, derive 
 tht^ir chief interest from the impoi-tance of the subject, and 
 from the exquisite language in which they are clothed. As 
 reasonings they are of litile force or value. Thus it is ela- 
 borately shown, or rather asserted in the Phado. that con- 
 traries ahvajs 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 — 'Ottotc dr] to aQavarov 
 Kai adiacpBopou ecrrii/, aWo rt 4'^X.V- V e' adafUTos ruyxaud 
 ovaa. Kai aucckeOpos av en] — " Since that which is immortal is 
 also indestructible, uhut else can we conclude but that the soul 
 being (or happening to be) immortal, must also be imjxrish- 
 ablef (Thud.) A more cogent topic is that of its simplicity,
 
 NOTES. 199 
 
 from Avhence the inference is drawn tliat it must be inde- 
 structible, because what we mean by the destruction of mat- 
 ter 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 an- 
 other topic or illustration in view — aXAa yap ay cparnv eKaa- 
 r-qv Twu \\/vx(^v TroWa crcafxaTa KaraTpi^eiv, aAAws re Kav woWa 
 6T7J /Sioj. El yap peoi to a(afJLa Kai airoWvoiTo, en ^coutos tou 
 audpcoirou, oAA.' ■}) \pvxv c^' '''o KaraTpi^o/j.evov avu(paivoi, avay- 
 Kaiou fxevT av eir], OTVore awoWvoiro rj ^vxVi '^'> reXevraiov 
 iKpaa/xa Tv^^Lf avri]v exovffav. Kai todtov ixofov irporepau 
 aTToXKuardai — " But I should rather sai/ that each of our souls 
 wears out manij bodies, thoufjh these should live mainj years ; 
 for if the body runs out and is destroi/ed, the man still living, 
 but the soul always repairs that which is worn out, it would 
 follow (f necessity that the soul when it perished icould hap- 
 pen to have its last covering, and to perish only just before 
 that covering." — Phad. A singular instance of the incapa- 
 city of the ancients to observe facts, or at least the habitual 
 carelessness with which they admitted relations of them, is 
 afforded in another of these arguments. Socrates is made to 
 refer, in the Fha-do, to the appearance of ghosts near places 
 of burial as a well-known and admitted fact, and as proving 
 that a portion of ihe soul for a while survived the body, but 
 partook of its nature and likeness, and was not altogether 
 immortal. This distinction between 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 vovs or 
 intellect to be contained in the \l/vxv or soul, and the same 
 doctrine occurs in other passages. Aristotle regards the soul 
 in like manner as composed of two parts— the active, or uovs, 
 and the passive : the former he represents as alone immortal 
 and eternal ; the latter as destructible, rovro /xouot/ aOavarov 
 Kai ai8iou, 6 8e ira6r)TiKos (pdapros. — JS^ic Eth. 
 
 It must, however, be admitted, that the belief of the 
 ancients was moi'e firm and more sound than their reasonings 
 were cogent. The whole tenor of the doctrine in the Fhcedo 
 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 consciousness of personal identity — iu 
 short, to a continuance of the same rational being's existence 
 
 il2
 
 200 NOTES. 
 
 after death. The liberation from the body is treated as the 
 beginning of a new and more perfect life — Tore yap avT-ri 
 Kaff avTTjv 7) ^vxf) ((Trai x^P'-^ "^^^ awixaros' irporepov S' ov 
 (reAeyTTjo-ao-i). Xenophon thus makes Cyrus deliver him- 
 self to his children on his death-bed — Ovtol eycoys, w iraides, 
 ovde rovTO TrcoTrore eTrei(T67)u ws 7] ^vxVi ecos /j.€u ay eu OuTfrcp 
 crcofxaTi rj, ^rjj/, brav 5e tovtov aTraWayr), redvrjKev — ou5e 76 
 oirus acppctiv ecrrai rj ^ux^» eireiSau rov a(ppoyos awjxaTos Si^a 
 y€ur]Tai, ovSe tovto Trfireiarfxai' oAA' draf aKparos Kai KaOapos 
 6 vovs eKKpidr), tot€ Kai (ppoviiiwrarov cikos avTov eivai.* 
 Cicero has translated the whole passage upon this subject 
 beautifully, though somewhat paraphrastically ; but this 
 portion he has given more literally — "Mihi quidem nun- 
 quam persuaderi potuit, animos dum in corporibus essent 
 mortalibus, vivere ; quum exissent ex iis, emori : nee vero 
 turn animuni esse insipientem, quum ex insipienti corpore 
 evasisset; sed quum omni admixtione corporis liberatus 
 purus et integer esse coepisset, eum esse sapientem."f 
 
 None of the ancients, indeed, has expressed himself more 
 clearly or more beautifixUy 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, quae 
 conformatio, quae magnitudo, qui locus." — " Hsec reputent 
 isti (he adds) qui negant animum sine corpore se intelligere 
 posse ; videbunt quem 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 libe- 
 rum ccelum quasi domum suam venerit."]: That he derived 
 the most refined gratification from such contemplations, 
 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 
 
 * Cyrop. ii. 
 
 f I)'e trenect. 80. — Here tlie words " omni admixtione," &c. are 
 added. 
 t Tusc. Qua>st. i. 22.
 
 NOTES. 201 
 
 kind in the midst of an ungrateful and unworthy generation . 
 *' An censes (ut de me ipso aliquid more senum glorier) me 
 tantos labores diurnos nocturnosque, domi militiaque sus- 
 cepturum fuisse, si iisdem finibus gloriam meam, quibus 
 vitam essem terminaturus ? Nonne melius multo fuisset 
 otiosam tetatem et quietam sine uUo labore aut contentione 
 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 
 wile away a listless being and a tranquil, void of all strife, 
 and free from any labour ?"* And again, that famous pas- 
 sage : " O prseclarum diem quum ad illud divinum animo- 
 rum concilium csetumque proficiscar ; quumque ex hac 
 turba et coUuvione discedam !" " Delightful hour ! when 
 I shall journey towards that divine assemblage of spirits, 
 and depart fi'om 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 — xpv -n-avra Troieiv, says Plato, 
 cocTTe aperris Kai (ppoi/rjaews cu rcf) ^icp /x^raax^^^' ko-^ou yap 
 radKov Kai r] eATrts /uLeyaAri — " We ought to act 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 5e ovto. 
 Tjfiwv eKaaTOv ovrws aBavarov eiuai, ^vxv^ eTvovofj-a^oji^vovt 
 irapa Oeois aWois amet/ai, duaovra Xoyou, KaOairep 6 vofxos o 
 irarpcfos Xeyei, tc2 jxev ayadc^ 6appaKeou, rep 5e KaKCf yuaAa 
 ^ofiepov — " In truth each of ns — that is to sai/, each soul — 
 is immortal, and departs to other Gods (or Gods in another 
 loorld) to render an account as the laivs of the state declare. 
 This to the good is matter of confidence, hut to the wicked of 
 terror^ — {I)e Legg. xii.) So in the beginning of the Epi- 
 nomis, he says that a glorious prospect (koAtj eATrts) is held 
 out to us of attaining, when we die, the happiness not to be 
 eijjoyed on earth, and to gain which after death we had 
 exerted all our efforts. In the Pheedo, where he is giving a 
 somewhat fanciful picture of the next world, he tells us that 
 souls which have committed lesser crimes come €is ttji/ 
 Xijxvqv Kai €Kei qikovcti re Kai KaOaipo/xeuoi rwv 5e aStKrjixa' 
 Twv SiSoi/rey S<«as anoKvovrai ei tis ti T]SiKr}<Ti — " thei/ 
 * De Senect. 82. f Ibid. «5.
 
 202 NOTES. 
 
 remain in that space, and being cleansed (or purged) of their 
 offences, are released-" (from whence the idea and the name 
 of pnrgatorij has been taken). But such as have been in- 
 curably wicked, murderers and others, are driven, he says, 
 into Tartarus, oQ^v ovwoTe (K^aivovaiv, " whence thej/ never 
 more escape." * It is remarkable, that in the same work, 
 Plato, if some words have not been interpolated in the text, 
 looks forward to some direct divine communications of light 
 upon this subject ; but recommends 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) ei /xriris Swairo aacpaXe- 
 aT^pov Kat aKLvhvvoTcpov eiri ^^^aior^pov oxnP-°^'^os 77 \oyov 
 detov T1V6S diayropevdrjvai — " unless some one can pass ns over 
 more easilij and safely vpon some stronger vehicle or divine 
 word." f 
 
 The passage in the Somnium Scipionis, where celestial 
 enjoyments are held out as the rewards of public virtue, is 
 well known. The precision indeed of the language touching 
 a future state, which marks this treatise, is singular, ap- 
 proaching to that of the New Testament — " beati gevo sem- 
 piterno fruuntur " — " ea vita via est in coelum et in hunc 
 coetum eorum qui jam vixerunt et corpore laxati ilium in- 
 colunt 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, quem forma ista declarat, 
 sed mens cujusque, is est quisque " — " animus in domura 
 suam pervolabit, idque ocius faciet, si jam tum, quum erit 
 inclusus in corpore, eminebit foras, et ea qute extra erunt 
 contemplans, 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 ac- 
 companiments of heaven with which the work abounds ; to 
 the Platonic doctrine respecting motion as the essence of 
 mind, which it atlopts ; and also to the doctrine distinctly 
 stated of the pre-existent state. 
 
 * Plucd. t Ibid.
 
 NOTES. 203 
 
 Note IX.— Page 101. 
 
 Cf Bishop Warhiirton's Theory concerning the ancient 
 Doctrine of a. Fiihire 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 punishments. 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 War- 
 burton 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 extraordinary reasoning 
 upon the Legation of Moses. It is therefore necessary first 
 to state how his doctrine bears upon that reasoning. 
 
 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 antiquity, 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 pro- 
 positions seem too clear to require any prot)f. Nevertheless 
 his whole work is consumed in proving them ; and the con- 
 clusion from the whole, that therefore the Mosaic law is of 
 Divine original, is left for a further work, Avhich never ap- 
 peared ; 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 Avell fitted for 
 controversy, ever satisfied any one except perhaps Bishop 
 Hurd, or ever can demonstrate any thing so well as it proves 
 the preposterous and perverted ingenuity of an able and in- 
 dustrious man. 
 
 That such was very far from being the author's opinion
 
 204 NOTES. 
 
 we have ample proof. He terms his work '' A Demon- 
 stration," 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 suc- 
 cess of the " Demonstration" is always assumed, and the 
 glory of it is made the topic of endless and even mutual gra- 
 tulation, not without pity and even vituperation of all who 
 can remain dissatisfied, and who are habitually and com- 
 placently 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 tliese " mere possibilities " are 
 wholly independent of the admission that every word in the 
 book is con-ect, 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 ar- 
 gument ; indeed nearly the whole is collateral, and uncon- 
 nected with the purpose of the reasoning. But much even 
 of that collateral matter is fanciful and unsound. The fancy 
 that the descent of ^neas 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 wholly 
 unnecessary to the proof of his general theory. But he 
 thought it would sliow 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 Avith political vie\\s, did not themselves be- 
 lieve it.
 
 NOTES. 205 
 
 The way in which he tries to prove this is by observing 
 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 prevail- 
 ing. 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 sim- 
 plicity. The rulers of the community, aiding themselves by 
 the sanctions which they drew from thence, favoured the 
 continuance and propagation of the delusions : and philoso- 
 phers 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 will prove 
 his position, unless he can show that the future state of re- 
 tribution is only mentioned by them upon occasions of an 
 exoteiical kind, and never when esotericalhj 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, in- 
 stead of showing the occasion to be one or the other from 
 extrinsic circumstances, which is manifestly begging the 
 question most unscrupulously. It seems hardly credible 
 that so acute and practised a controversialist should so con- 
 duct an argument, but it is quite true. As often as anything 
 occurs in favour of a Future State, he says it was said exo- 
 tericaUy ; and whenever he can find anything on the oppo- 
 site 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 everything, and there 
 can be no difficulty in telling whether any given opinion was 
 maintained esoterically or not, by the circumstances in 
 which, and the purposes for which, it was propounded. 
 
 K 3
 
 206 NOTES. 
 
 The argument on which he dwells most is drawn from 
 the allusion made by Caesar in the discussion upon the 
 punishment of the conspirators as related by Sallust, " Ultra 
 (mortem) ueque 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 of arguing the 
 point. {Div. Leg. III. 2. 5.) Can any thing be more incon- 
 clusive than this ? Granting that Sallust, in making speeches 
 for Ccesar 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 
 Casar 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 inflic- 
 tions (a very strong supposition to make respecting so prac- 
 tised and so practical a reasoner as Caius Casar) ; 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 ap- 
 peal to the prevalence of the contrary belief, and its resting 
 on ancient tradition, than with a metaphysical or theological 
 discoui'se singularly out of season in such a debate. To 
 make the case our own : let us suppose some member of 
 Parliament, or of the Chamber 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 indignation 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 lan- 
 guage of Ca2sar, 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 of the tenets much difi'used 
 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 dif- 
 ferent burst of invective would have been called down upon 
 the blasphemous offender. 
 
 In truth, the passage thus relied uj>on only shows, like all 
 the rest of the facts, that the doctrine of retribution was
 
 NOTES. 207 
 
 rather more esoteric than exoteric among the ancients. The 
 elaborate dissertation of Bishop Warburton's upon the Mys- 
 teries, proves this elfectually, and clearly refutes his whole 
 argument. For to prove that the doctrine of future retri- 
 bution 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 imprudent eye. (Ne imprudeutiam 
 quidem oculorum adjici fas est, De Legy. II. 14.) Surely 
 this would rather indicate that such doctrines were not in- 
 culcated indiscriminately, and that at all events, when a 
 philosopher gives them a place in his works, it cannot be in 
 pursuance of a plan for deceiving the multitude into a belief 
 diiferent 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 penaPlaws, rather by the belief of 
 constant interposition from the gods. An expectation of 
 help from their favour or of punishment from their anger iu 
 this life and without any delay, formed the creed of the 
 Greeks and the IJomans ; and nothing else is to be found in 
 either the preamble to Zaleucus the Locrian's laws quoted 
 by Bishop Warbui'ton, or in the passages of Cicero's trea- 
 tise, to which he also refers. {iJiv. Leg. II. 3.) 
 
 Among the many notable inadvertencies of his argument, 
 concealed from himself by an exuberant learning and a dog- 
 matism hardly to be paralleled, is the neglecting to observe 
 how difficultly the appearance of the doctrine in the places 
 where we find it is reconciled with his notion of its having 
 formed the subject of the Mysteries. What part in those 
 Mysteries did Cicero's and Plato's and Seneca's and Xeno- 
 phon'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 I'eserved 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 decidedly 
 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 uni- 
 versally preached and inculcated, so neither was it any
 
 208 NOTES. 
 
 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 of the Deity, the fabulousness of the ordinary 
 polytheistic 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 for 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 tam excors, &c. De Nat. Ueor., and Tusc. Qiicest.), 
 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 (€\avv€iv Sacriv r^iiixeuais), are our bad passions, and 
 by Cicero in words (Hi faces, hge flammse, &c.) almost trans- 
 lated from the Greek. 
 
 After all, can any thing be more violent than the supposi- 
 tion that those philosophers, for the purpose of deceiving the 
 multitude, delivered opinions not hekl by themselves, and 
 delivered them in profound philosophical treatises ? It is 
 in the Phscdo and the Timaus (hardly intelligible to the 
 learned), and the Tusculan Questions, and the Somnium 
 Scipionis, in an age when there were hardly any readers be- 
 yond 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 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 de- 
 livered, even if proved to be exoterical, unless he can also 
 show opposite doctrines to have been esoterical/i/ entertained 
 — inasmuch as a person might grant the former to have been 
 delivered for popular use (which, however. Bishop Warbur- 
 ton does not prove), and yet deny that they were assumed 
 for the purpose of deception. Accordingly he is driven to
 
 NOTES. 209 
 
 find, if he can, proofs of those opposite doctrines in the self- 
 same writings where he says the exoteric ones are conyeved. 
 However, nothing surely can be more absurd than this ; for 
 it is to maintain that Plato and^ Cicero pretended to believe 
 a future state of retribution in order to deceive the multi- 
 tude, by stating it in the same writings in which they be- 
 trayed 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 betAveen Avhat 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 
 let us shortly see how he finds any such contrary statements, 
 or any means of explaining away the positive and precise 
 dicta, and even reasonings, cited in the former note (Note 
 VIIL). 
 
 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 
 gi-oss and corporeal nature ; and, accordingly, what Timseus 
 the Locrian and others have said of the Tifj-upiai ^evai 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 pi'odigies 
 (Sia SeicridaifMOULas' rovro 5\ovk avev p.v6oiroi'ias Kai repareias), 
 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 Phsedo, which had per- 
 suaded him, "assensio omuis ilia elabitur" (i. 11), and 
 when Seneca speaks of the philosophers as "rem gratissi- 
 mam promittentes magis quam probentes," and calls it 
 "bellum somuium." {Epist. 102.) No one pretends that the 
 ancients had a firm and abiding opinion, founded on very 
 cogent reasons, respecting a Future State; and with far
 
 210 NOTES. 
 
 sounder theologians than they were, the anxiety naturally 
 incident to so momentous an inquiry may well excite oc- 
 casional doubts, and even apprehensions. Who questions 
 Dr. Johnson's general belief in Revelation, because in mo- 
 ments of depression, when 'desiderating some stronger evi- 
 dence, he was kindly told by a religious friend that he 
 surely had enough, and answered, " Sir, I would have 
 rnore f 
 
 3. When Strabo speaks of the Brahmins having invented 
 fables, like Plato, upon future judgment, it is plain that he 
 alludes to those speculations in the Phcedo, which are 
 avowedly and purposely given as imaginary respecting the 
 details of another world. To no other part of the Platonic 
 doctrine can the Brahminical mythology be likened : nor 
 would there be any accuracy of speech at all in comparing 
 those fables to the more abstract doctrines of the immor- 
 tality of the soul, as the words literally do — (wo-xep Kai 
 UXaroou -rv^pi ttjj acpdapaias ;|/ux^s). 
 
 4. The quotation from Aristotle may refer to this world 
 merely, but it is certainly made a good deal stronger in 
 Bishop Warburton's translation — (po^epurarov §e 6avaTos' 
 Treptts 7«P) Kai ouSei/ ert rw Tedveoori 5' ovk €i, ovt€ ayaOoi^, 
 ovre KUKov eivai. " 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. Aristotle says — Death is most 
 terrible, for it is an end (of ns), and there appears to be no- 
 thing 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 Phito. 
 
 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 fiow from the habit of grandilo- 
 quent contempt for all bodily suffering. HoAvcver, 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 retribution, 
 his citations from Seneca and Epictctus go to deny the future
 
 NOTES. 211 
 
 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 ex- 
 pression than anything else, in his philosophical treatises, he 
 cites the oration Pro Cliientio, where, speaking of the vulgar 
 superstition, he says it is generally disbelieved : and then 
 asks, " Quid aliud mors eripuit praeter sensum doloris ?" 
 But this at best is a rhetorical tlourish ; and being delivered 
 in public (though before the judges), never could be seri- 
 ously meant as an esoteric attack on the doctrine. The doc- 
 trines in the De Olficiis relate only to the Deity's being 
 incapable of anger or malevolence, on which account he 
 praises Kegulus the more for keeping his oath when all phi- 
 losophers 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 re- 
 ference to immediate punishments, or judgments, as the 
 vidgar term them. At any rate, the passage is quite capable 
 of this sense, and every rule of sound construction 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 esoterie 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 conservarint, adjuverint, auxerint, certum esse in 
 coelo, ad definitum locum ubi beati ajvo sempiterno fruantur," 
 (Sam. Scip. 37,) 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 hap- 
 piness, but that the former, comprehending the bulk of man- 
 kind, did not. This is begging the question to no purpose, 
 for it is also giving up the point, and at the utmost only re- 
 duces the author's position to a denial that the ancients be- 
 lieved in the immortality of all souls. It must, however, be 
 observed, that unless he is allowed to assume also something 
 like election and predestination, 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 admission can be desired of a future state of retribu-
 
 212 NOTES. 
 
 tion ? That the doctrine of immortality was, by many at 
 least, confined in some such way, may be true. That beau- 
 tiful passage in Tacitus seems to point that way, " Si non 
 cum corpore extinguuntur magnce animas." — ( 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 sentiments. Yet never 
 did proof more completely fail. Writing to Torquatus, he 
 says, " Nee enim dum ero, angar ulla re, cum omni vacem 
 culpa — et si non ero, sensu omnino carebo," (lib. vi. Ep. 3) ; 
 and to Toranius, " Ima ratio videtur, ferre moderate, prse- 
 sertim cum omnium rerum mors sit extremum" (Lib, vi. 
 Ep. 21.) And this, which really means nothing more than 
 a common 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 in- 
 judicious defence of Christianity, than it does in supporting 
 the minor pai*adox which is taken up incidentally as to the 
 real opinions of the ancients, and which, it must be admitted, 
 is indeed quite unnecessary to the general argument, and as 
 little damages it by its entire failure, as it could help it by 
 the most entire success. 
 
 Note X. — Section VI., p. 106. 
 
 A LEARNED and valuable work upon the life of Lord Bacon 
 has been published by Mr. B. Montagu. Some very important 
 facts are proved satisfactorily by the ingenious author, and 
 show how much the criminality of this great man is exag- 
 gerated 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 abandon his own defence, and 
 sacrifice himself to their base and crooked policy — a state- 
 ment which disgraces them more than it vindicates him. 
 One thing, however, is undeniable— that they who so loudly 
 blame Bacon overlook the meanness of almost all the great 
 statesmen of those courtly times.
 
 TRANSLATION OF PASSAGES IN THE TEXT. 
 
 Pages 9, 10. 
 
 For I shall go not only to meet those of whom I have 
 been speaking, but also to my Cato, than whom a better 
 man never was born, nor one of more eminent piety, 
 Avhose remains I attended to the grave ; while his soul, 
 not quitting, but looking down upon me, departed to those 
 regions whither he saw I should follow — a loss which I 
 seemed to bear with fortitude, not because I could sustain 
 it with an equal mind, but because I consoled myself with 
 the reflection that the interval between our separation and 
 our meeting could not be long. 
 
 Page 37. 
 
 But their course, everlasting and perpetual, performed 
 with admirable and incredible constancy, declares the 
 Divine force and mind, so that whosoever fails to perceive 
 the power of the Deity in them should seem incapable of 
 perceiving anything. 
 
 Page 55. 
 
 And, indeed, these philosophers (Grantor and Panaetius) 
 held that such emotions were usefully implanted in our 
 minds by Nature : fear for giving caution, pity and suffer- 
 ing for giving clemency ; anger itself they maintained to be, 
 as it were, the whetstone of fortitude. 
 Page 107. 
 
 The volume of the works of God, and, as it were, another 
 Scripture. 
 
 A virgin barren and, as it were, consecrated to God, 
 never brings forth. 
 
 Page 109. 
 
 In respect of its information or science it may be reckoned 
 natural philosophy. 
 
 Page 110. 
 
 The worst of all this is the consecration of errors, and 
 it is to be accounted the pest of the understanding if Auin 
 things become objects of veneration. 
 
 In this vanity some of the mt)derns have so far indulged 
 with the utmost thoughtlessness, that they have attempted 
 to found natural philosophy on the first chapter of Genesis 
 and the Book of Job and other Scriptures — seeking t/ie living 
 among the dead. 
 
 Page HI. 
 
 The delight and feast of the mathematicians, who would 
 make this science control natural philosophy ; for I know
 
 214 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 not by what fatality it happens that mathematics and logic, 
 which ought to have behaved as the handmaidens of phy- 
 sics, yet, vaunting their certainty, seek to exercise dominion. 
 
 Page 113. 
 From the unwholesome admixture of divine and human 
 things there comes not only a fantastic philosophy, but an 
 heretical religion. 
 
 The inconveniences and dangers which, from that abuse, 
 threaten both religion and philosophy, coining an heretical 
 religion and a fantastical and superstitious philosophy. 
 
 Page 115. 
 " Him (God) we know by his qualities and attributes, 
 and by his most wise and excellent structure, and by final 
 causes; and we admire him on account of our foresight of 
 the future." — " A God without dominion, providence, and 
 final causes is nothing but fate and nature." — " And thus far 
 of God, to inquire concerning whom from the phenomena no 
 doubt it belongs to natural philosophy." 
 
 Page 153. 
 Epicurus wrote two books on holiness and piety towards 
 the Gods : but how does he speak of them ? As you might 
 suppose you were listening to Coruucanus, to Scsevola, our 
 high-priests. 
 
 TKAXSLATION OF PASSAGES IN THE NOTES. 
 
 Page 16G. 
 
 If you should see a large and handsome house, you 
 could not be induced, though you savv no master, to suppose 
 that it was built for mice and weasels ; l)ut such is the em- 
 bellishment of the world, such the variety and beauty of the 
 heavens, such the force of the ocean and magnitude of the 
 eartli, that if you supposed them formed for the habitation 
 of man rather than the immortal gods, you would obviously 
 seem to be insane. 
 
 Whatever we take from earth, from water, from fire, 
 from air, differs from what we obtain from the spirit ; but 
 that which surpasses all things, reason I mean, or if you 
 please, in other words, mind, judgment, thought, prudence, 
 where do we find it 'i whence can we obtain it ? 
 Page 1G7. 
 
 He who does not perceive that the soul and mind of man, 
 reason, judgment, prudence, have been made perfect by 
 divine care, seems to me to be deficient in these very things. 
 
 P'rom which knowledge we may understand its power,
 
 TRANSLATIONS. 215 
 
 which is, indeed, such that there is nothing more excel- 
 lent even in God himself. 
 
 Thus, though you cannot see the mind of man, as you 
 cannot see God, yet as you acknowledge God from his 
 works, so, from memory and invention, fiom the celerity 
 of its movements and the excellence of its qualities, you 
 acknowledge the divine power of the mind. 
 Page 172. 
 
 The most audacious and extraordinary work which the 
 human mind has hitherto dared to produce. 
 Page 176. 
 
 Matter alone can act upon our senses, without which it is 
 impossible that anything can become known to us. 
 
 What shall we say of a Berkeley who endeavours to 
 prove to us that everything in the world is a chimerical 
 illusion ; that the whole universe only exists iu ourselves 
 and in our imagination '^ To justify opinions so mon- 
 strous, &c. 
 
 Page 180, Note. 
 
 If by Atheist is meant a man who would deny the 
 existence of a force inherent in Nature, and without 
 which Nature cannot be conceived, and if it is to that 
 moving force that the name God is given, then there are no 
 Atheists, and the word by which they are designated is 
 applicable only to fools. 
 
 Page 196. 
 
 Hence we assume this principle in the commencement, that 
 there has never been anything divinely formed out of nothing. 
 
 We come to this conclusion, that Nature resolves every- 
 thing again into its parts, nor is anything ever reduced to 
 nothing. 
 
 Therefore there is never anything which returns to 
 nothing ; but all substances by dissolution return into their 
 parts. 
 
 Nothing can come from nothing, nothing return to nothing. 
 Page 21)0. 
 
 For I, my sons, never could persuade myself that the 
 soul was living while it continued in a mortal body, and 
 died when dismissed from it ; nor could 1 ever persuade 
 myself that it became unintellectual on its separation from 
 an unintellectual body ; but that when the mind acted with- 
 out restraint and was purified (was freed from admixture 
 with the body), then it became most intellectual. 
 
 As if they could comprehend what it was even when in 
 the body, its form, size, and situation.
 
 216 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 Such are the opinions of those who say that they cannot 
 comprehend how the mind can exist distinct fi-om the body, 
 who yet comprehended it when it was in the body. To me, 
 when I contemplate the nature of the soul, the subject is 
 more obscure, and it is much more difficult to conceive what 
 the soul is in the body, as in a house not belonging to it, 
 than what it may be when it has left the body, and has 
 come into the open heaven as into its own house. 
 
 Page 202. 
 
 The blessed enjoy eternal life. 
 *" This life is the road to heaven and to the society of those 
 who, liberated from the body, inhabit that place. 
 
 They live indeed who, freed from the chains of the body, 
 have flown aM^ay as from a prison ; but your life, as it is 
 called, is death. 
 
 Consider thus — that thou art not mortal, but thy body 
 only ; for thou art not that which thy form exhiljits, but the 
 mind of every man is the man. 
 
 The soul will fly away to its home, and that the more 
 readily, if, while included in the body, it elevates itself 
 above the body by the contemplation of those things which 
 especially abstract it from the body. 
 
 Page 209. 
 All that conviction glides away. 
 Promising a pleasing thing rather than proving it. 
 A beautiful dream. 
 
 Page 211. 
 What has death taken away besides the sense of pain ? 
 All who protect, assist, and extend their countrj', are sure 
 to go to heaven, to the appointed spot where they are to 
 enjoy eternal blessedness. 
 
 Page 212. 
 
 If great souls are not annihilated with the body. 
 
 For, if I exist, I shall feel no anguish from anything, 
 being free from all guilt ; and if 1 do not exist, I shall be 
 devoid of all sensation. 
 
 The deepest reason seems to be, to endure patiently, 
 especially as death is the end of all things. 
 
 END OF VOLUME I. 
 
 London : Printed by W. Ci-owks & Sons, Stamford- street.
 
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