esse perspicit, is his ipsis rebus mihi videtur carere." | occasions the other-that there is between the two

He proceeds to show how great a gift reason is from its productions: "Ex quo scientia intelligitur quam vim habeat, qualis sit, qua ne in deo quidem est res ulla præstantior;" and he closes with the well known passage in praise of eloquence.*

In the Tusculan Questions he alludes to mind in a different manner. After going through the various provisions made for human enjoyment in the economy of nature, he adds, "Sic mentem hominis quamvis cum non videos ut deum non vides, tamen ut deum agnoscis ex operibus ejus, sic ex memoria rerum et inventione et celeritate motus omnique pulchritudine virtutis, vim divinam mentis agnoscito."t

nature.

a connection 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 the origin of our ideas of casuality 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 connection between the science of Natural Theology and the controversy we are now referring to; and therefore it deserves some consideration in the present note.

The course of the argument in which he is en- 1. The mere constant and unvarying succession gaged in this first part of his work, the immor- of two events would not of itself be sufficient to tality of the soul, leads him to use the phenomena make us, even in popular language, denominate the of its faculties for the purpose of illustrating its se- one a cause of the other. Light uniformly suc parate existence; and, therefore, he only enume-ceeds dark-one o'clock always follows twelve; rates the arrangements of the natural world as but no man ever thought of calling or of deeming proofs of Divine agency, and gives those proofs not night to be the cause of day, or noon of afternoon. as the main object of the argument, but as intro- Another and a very important experiment or obductory to his statement of the soul's independent servation 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 preceding 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.

In these speculations of the ancient philosophers, we cannot find any process of strict inductive reasoning; and, accordingly, the facts are not turned to the best account for the purposes of the argument. But this defect appears, at the least, as much in the physical as in the psychological portion of the reasoning. Indeed, the latter comes more near to our own philosophy; and certainly we must admit that those old writers upon Natural Theology, in the place which they assigned to intellectual phenomena, pursued a more sound and consistent method of philosophizing, than the moderns have done when speculating upon the same subject.

NOTE III.

Of the Doctrine of Cause and Effect. THE argument deduced by skeptical writers from Mr. Hume's doctrine respecting causation, has tended to bring some discredit upon the doctrine itself, by raising a prejudice against it. The bad use, however, which is made of a sound principle, is not fairly a matter of charge against that principle. The only question is, whether or not the principle be just in itself; and it cannot be just if legitimate reasoning can deduce from it an absurd 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.

the "

Mr. Stewart, in a valuable and learned note to Philosophy of the Human Mind," (vol. i. note D,) has brought together the authorities, which have all more or less not only countenanced, but even forestalled Mr. Hume in his position-that we know nothing of 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 t Tusc. Qu. i. 29.

De Nat. Deor. ii, 59.

2. But we derive not our notion of casuality 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 connection or succession, but of the one exerting a power over the other by an inherent force; and this is the idea of causation. Whence do we derive it? I apprehend only from our consciousness. We feel that we have a will and a power-that we can move a limb, and affect by our own powers, excited after our own volition, a change upon external objects. Now from this consciousness we derive the idea of power, and we transfer this idea and the relation on which it is founded between our own will and the change produced, to the relations between events wholly external to ourselves-assuming them to be connected, as we feel our volition and our movements are mutually connected.

If it be said that this idea by no means involves that of necessary connection, 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 volition cease to make our limbs move, as it does cease in paralysis.

*Mr. Stewart's observation, that day follows night as much as night follows day, makes no difference in this illustration: for we may suppose the case of a person seeing day for the first time, or twelve o'clock for the first time, and the conclusion in the text would still hold good.

As it is, and because our will has hitherto had the deed, the licentious works that proceeded from power to move our limbs, we have acquired the Diderot's pen attest his deficiency, at least in one idea of power and of causation. But if it had al-branch of morals. ways been otherwise, and that no connection of suc- It is impossible to deny the merits of the Systeme cession had ever existed between our volition and de la Nature. The work of a great writer it unour movements, I do not see how the idea of power questionably is; but its merit lies in the extraordior casuality could ever have been obtained by us nary eloquence of the composition, and the skill from any observation of the sequence of events. with which words substituted for ideas, and assumpThe idea of design or contrivance, in like manner, tions for proofs, are made to pass current, not only must have been wanting to us; and hence, I cannot for arguments against existing beliefs, but for a understand how, but for the consciousness of power, new system planted in their stead. As a piece of we could ever have been led to the belief in the ex- reasoning, it never rises above a set of plausible istence of a First Cause. This is another, and, to sophisms-plausible only as long as the ear of the my mind, a very strong, additional reason, for re-reader being filled with sounds, his attention is disisting the evidences of Natural Theology upon rected away from the sense. The chief resource of the argument a posteriori alone. the writer is to take for granted the thing to be proved, and then to refer back to his assumption as a step in the demonstration, while he builds various conclusions upon it as if it were complete. Then he declaims against a doctrine seen from one point of view only, and erects another for our assent, which, besides being liable to the very same objections, has also no foundation whatever to rest upon. The grand secret, indeed, of the author goes even further in petitione principii than this; for we oftentimes find, that in the very substitute which he has provided for the notions of belief he would destroy, there lurks the very idea which he is combating, and that his idol is our own faith in a new form, but masked under different words and phrases.

That they are greatly in error who confound, as has been too common, causation with necessary connection, and who deny the existence of the relation of casuality, merely because the relation is contingent and not necessary, is sufficiently manifest. Our ideas of power and of causation are solid and well founded, although they only refer to a power or a causation which may or may not exist. That one event causes another may be a proposition quite true, to which we affix a precise and definite meaning, and which we have learnt from observation and from consciousness, although the order of nature might easily have been so constituted, as that the two events should never have been found in sequence. At present the order of nature connects them, and we affirm that there exists the relation of cause and effect-a 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.multitudes of readers, seducing some by its tone of

NOTE IV.

Of the "Systeme de la Nature," and the Hypothesis of Materialism.

The truth of these statements we are now to examine; but first it may be fitting to state why so much attention is bestowed upon this work. The reason is, that its bold character has imposed on

confidence, but intimidating others by its extreme audacity. It is the only* work of any consideration wherein atheism is openly avowed and preachedavowed, indeed, and preached in terms. (See, particularly, part ii. chap. 2.) This effect of its hardiTHERE is no book of an atheistical description, hood was certainly anticipated by its author; for which has ever made a greater impression than the the supposed editor, in his advertisement, describes famous Systeme de la Nature. It bears the impres-it, somewhat complacently, if not boastingly, as sion of London, 1780, but was manifestly printed in "l'ouvrage le plus hardi et le plus extraordinaire France; also, it purports to be written by Mirabaud, que l'esprit humain ait ose produire jusqu'a presecretary of the Academie Française; and in a sent." prefatory advertisement by the supposed editor, who pronounces a great panegyric upon the work, enough appears to engender doubts of Mirabaud having been its author. He died in 1760; and it was twenty years before the work appeared-found, says the writer, among a collection of manuscripts made by a savant curieux de rassembler des productions de ce genre." Robinet, the author of another work of similar tendency, called De la Nature, has been at different times said to be its author, without any proof, or indeed probability; but the general opinion now ascribes it to the Baron d'Holbach, aided, in all probability, by Diderot, Helvetius, and other members of the free-thinking 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 disposition. He had been educated in the College of the Jesuits, and afterwards was preceptor to some branches of the royal family; he died at the age of eighty-five, universally esteemed for his unblemished character, his strict probity, and his attractive manners. The Diderots and Grimms, though not perhaps persons of abandoned life, were very far from attaining such praise: in

The grand object of the book being to show that there is no God, the author begins by endeavoring to establish the most rigorous materialism, by trying to show that there is no such thing as mindnothing beyond or different from the material world. His whole fabric is built on this foundation; and it would be difficult to find in the history of metaphysical controversies such inconclusive reasoning, and such undisguised assumptions of the matter in dispute as this fundamental part of his system is composed of. He begins with asserting that man has no means of carrying his mind beyond the visible world; that he is necessarily confined within its limits; and that there exists nothing, and there can exist nothing, beyond the boundary which incloses all beings-that is, the material world. Nature, we are told, acts according to laws, simple, uniform, invariable, which we discover by experience. We are related to Universal Nature by our senses, which alone enable us to discover her secrets: and the instant we abandon the lessons which those senses? teach us, we plunge into an abyss where we become the prey of imagination.

Thus the very first chapter-the opening of the work-has already made the gratuitous assumption

The treatise of Robinet, De la Nature, which, though far less eloquent and dexterous, is superior in real merit, has never attracted any thing like the same notice.

of a being whom the author calls Nature, without either defining what that is, or how he arrived 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 shal! speak only of analytical; and then it is certain that the whole science of numbers, from the rules of ele-bodies; for our bodies themselves give us the same mentary 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: indeed, 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 with mathematical learning, to satisfy him how little the intimations received from the senses have, or can have, to do with the whole science of number and quantity. That those intimations of the senses are themselves not at all of a material nature, we shall presently see.

Like all materialists, but far more grossly and dogmatically than almost any other, the author begins by assuming that Matter exists, that we can have no doubt whatever of this, and that any other existence is a thing to be proved. Now, what is this matter? Whence do we derive any knowledge of it? How do we assure ourselves of its existence? What evidence at all have we respecting either its being or its qualities? We feel, or taste, or smell something; that is, we have certain sensations, which make us conclude that something exists beyond ourselves. It will not do to say beyond our 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 intimations of such existences. But what are our sensations? The feelings or thoughts of our minds. Then what we do is this: From certain ideas in our minds, produced no doubt by, and connected with our bodily senses, but independent of, and separate from them, we draw certain conclusions by reasoning, and those conclusions are in favor of the existence of something other than our sensations and our reasonings, and other than that which experiences the sensations and makes the reasonings-passive in the one case, active in the other. That something is what we call Mind. But plainly, whatever it is, we owe to it the knowledge that matter exists: for that knowledge is gained by means of a sensation or feeling, followed by a process of reasoning; it is gained by the mind having first suffered something, and then done something, and, therefore, to say there is no such thing as Matter, would be a much less absurd inference than to say there is no such thing as Mind. The very act of inferring, as we do by reasoning, that the object After many discussions and much eloquence, in which affects our senses exists apart from ourselves, the course of which various agents are introduced is wholly incapable of giving us any knowledge of besides Nature, as Necessity, Relation, and so forth, the object's existence, without, at the same time, without definition of their qualities or proof of their giving us a knowledge of our own; that is, of the existence, we come to the great demonstration that Mind's existence. An external implies necessarily no soul, no mind, nothing separate from the body an internal; that there may be any thing beyond or and from matter, exists, or indeed can exist: for without, there must needs be some other thing bethis book is not content with skepticism; it rests not yond or without which it is said to exist; that there even satisfied with disproof: it affects to show the may be a body which we feel abiding separate from impossibility of the doctrines which it combats; and us, namely, our own body, one part of which gives while perpetually complaining of dogmas, it is per-us sensations through another part-there must be haps the most dogmatical work that was ever writ- a we, an us—that is, a mind. If, as the Systeme de ten. The sixth and seventh chapters, but the seventh la Nature often contends, we have a right to call especially, treat of this fundamental doctrine—the spirit, or soul, or mind, a mere negation of the quacorner-stone of the whole building. The argument lities of matter, surely this might just as well be reis, in fact, a mere vague and unintelligible combi- torted by saying, that matter is only a negation of nation of words, as when the author concludes by the qualities of mind. But, in truth, the materialsaying, The result of the whole is, that "the soul, ists cannot stir one step without the aid of that mind far from being any thing distinguishable from the whose existence they deny. body, is only the body itself regarded relatively to Then what are those qualities of matter they are some of its functions, or to some of the manners of always speaking about? What but the effects, or acting or of being, whereof it is capable as long as the power of causing those effects produced by matit enjoys life" (n'est que ce corps lui meme envisage ter upon the mind through the senses? A remarkrelativement a quelqu'unes de ses fonctions ou a able instance, and a very instructive one, of the imquelques façons d'etre et d'agir dont il est suscepti- possibility of a materialist arguing legitimately, ble tant qu'il jouit de la vie.) Or when he describes strictly, or consistently, is to be found in the pasthose faculties which are vulgarly called intellect- sage of this book, where the argument is as it were ual, as modes or manners of being and of acting, summed up against the existence of mind: "La which result from the organization of the body- matiere seule peut agir, sur nos sens sans lesquels il (les facultes que l'on nomme intellectuelles ne sont nous est impossible que rien se fasse connoitre de que des modes ou des façons d'etre et d'agir re-nous." Here the author, in order to deny the possultant de l'organization 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.

sibility 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-by-us-all these are words absolutely without meaning if there is nothing but matter in existence; and these are expressions conveying the ideas of which this fundamental proposition wholly consists. But that the

ly of a material kind; the motions and the registration of time resulting from them are all as purely mechanical as the form of each part, and each part has in it every quality and incident in kind which the whole possesses. The difference in the case of Mind is, that we have something wholly of a new and peculiar kind, and in no respect resembling or belonging to the same class with any of the exertions or operations of the material parts, the combination of which is alleged by the materialist to have given it birth.

author refers to Bishop Berkeley, as well as Mr. | in its whole and in each part separately; the comLocke, it might have been supposed that he had bination never produces any effect that is not strictnever been made aware of the controversy upon the existence of matter. Indeed, the manner in which he mentions the speculations of Berkeley, is quite sufficient to show his ignorance of the nature of the question, and reminds us forcibly of the remark made by D'Alembert, that whoever had not at times doubted the existence of matter, might be assured he had not any genius for metaphysical inquiries. Would any one believe it possible, that an author who could dogmatically deny the possibility of mind existing in any form apart from matter, should be so little competent to discuss questions like this, as to speak in these terms of Berkeley? "Que disons nous d'un Berkeley qui s'efforce de nous prouver que tout dans ce monde n'est qu'une illusion chimerique; que l'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, which lead us to believe in the existence of mind; for of that we have the evidence within ourselves, and wholly independent of our senses. Nor can we ever draw the inference in any one instance of the existence of matter, without at the same time exhibiting a proof of the existence of mind; for we are, by the supposition, reasoning, inferring, drawing a conclusion, forming a belief; therefore, there exists somebody, or something, to reason, to infer, to conclude, to believe; that is, we-not any fraction of matter, but a reasoning, inferring, believing being; in other words, a mind. In this sense the celebrated argument of Descartes-cogito, ergo sum-had a correct and a profound meaning. If, then, skepticism can have any place in our system, assuredly it relates to the existence 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.

We 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 physical science, in which it abounds. Of these the most notable, no doubt, is that which Voltaire, in his Essai sur le Systeme de la Nature, considers (ch. i.) as the foundation of the whole theory-the absurd passage respecting the formation of eels. Certain it is, that in the second chapter of part i. the 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 indeed 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.

The first part having laid the foundation by disproving the existence of Mind, the second part of the "Systeme" proceeds to raise upon it the conclusion that the Deity's existence is impossible. This part is much more declamatory than the former, though often displaying great powers of eloquence, and reminding us of the more striking parts of Rousseau's early writings, especially his paradoxes against knowledge, perhaps in a more choice style, and with coloring 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, unfortunately, not very difficult to accomplish, though it is here done in an illegitimate manner. We cannot, however, fail to observe, that while the author proposes to go through the arguments of the various philosophers who have maintained the existence of a Deity; and while he does remark on Descartes, Malebranche, Newton and Clarke, (in a chapter which forms by far the most argumentative part of his book,) he 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 examined in its connection with the evidences of the Mind's independent existence, to pursue further the Second Part of the work is unnecessary. But a few remarks are added to show how exactly the same 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. Inquiry and speculation," says the author, "is itself an evil; and no creature living easy and happy, without pain and without wants, would ever give himself the trouble and annoyance of arguing on a First Cause. But fear and evil, especially pain and death-the terrors of earthquake, eclipse, tempest-the horrors of death

drove the mind to seek out the source of all these f dangers, and to appease or disarm its supposed wrath; and thus the sky was peopled with gods and spirits."

As for the kind of comparisons or analogies by which, like all materialists, this writer tries to illustrate his hypothesis, and by which many materialists really are deceived-the mechanism of a watch, for example, consisting of parts each separately incapable of producing any result, but altogether forming a moving instrument that measures the efflux of time-nothing, surely, can be more puerile Now, that the fears and the ignorance of men than the attempt to draw from thence an argument have been the fruitful source of polytheism, no one in favor of the confused, and, when examined close-doubts; but it is wholly false to assert that genuine ly, unintelligible position that Mind is a modification and philosophical religion could have had no other of Matter, or the result of a collocation of material origin. To affirm that, but for their sufferings and particles. For the watch is material, doubtless, both fears, men never would have encountered the pain

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 Theology, and apply it to the dogmatical Atheism of the Systeme de la Nature.

or the trouble of speculating on a First Cause, is | truth, already shown that Matter, as far as the prequite contrary to the most obvious facts. Those sent controversy is concerned, offers no more precise speculations, far from being painful or troublesome, are gratifying in the highest degree. As well might it be said that all the pleasures of scientific discovery and study would have been foregone 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 least under the pressure of want, and have gained the least by their labors. But such speculations are productive of the greatest gratification, both to the guide who originally points out the way, and to those who more humbly follow in his footsteps. So the sublime contemplations of Natural Theology have engaged men's attention and exercised their faculties, wholly independent of any sufferings they were exposed to, or any fears they 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, 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.

NOTE V.

Of Mr. Hume's Skeptical 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 skeptical opinions more directly to bear upon the systems of actual belief.

of the Real Presence is stated to have suggested I. The argument of Tillotson against the doctrine It is remarkable, that in the latter, as in the for- that against the truth, or rather the possibility of mer portion of the work, blind assumptions are not Miracles; but there is this most material difference only always made, but an entire disregard is shown between the two questions-that they who assert the to the evidence which often arises out of those very Real Presence drive us to admit a proposition conassumptions, and proves the truths its author is en- trary to the evidence of our senses, upon a subject deavoring to subvert. Thus, in the second chap- respecting which the senses alone can decide, and ter, he says: "Whether the human race has always to admit it by the force of reasonings ultimately existed on this earth, or that it is a recent and tran- drawn from the senses-reasonings far more likely sitory production of nature...." Now, if it be a to deceive than they, because applicable to a matter recent production of nature, surely this admits the not so well fitted for argument as for perception, creative power-the very divinity the book is con- but reasonings at any rate incapable of exceeding Nothing, therefore, tending against; for what can be the meaning of a the evidence the senses give. state of things, in which, up to a certain time—i. e. can be more conclusive than Tillotson's argument six or seven thousand years ago—the human spe--that against the Real Presence we have of necescies had no existence, and then this species coming sity every argument, and of the self-samne kind with into existence, or, as the book says, being produced those which it purports to rest upon, and a good by nature? What but that a superintending power, deal more besides; for if we must not believe our which had not before acted in this way, now for the senses when they tell us that a piece of bread is first time began thus to act? To call this Nature merely bread, what right have we to believe those is only changing the name-a Deity is the plain same senses, when they convey to us the words in and the true meaning, and the only thing which can which the arguments of the Fathers are couched, or be meant. the quotations from Scripture itself, to make us suppose the bread is not bread, but flesh? And as ultell us that he had heard an apostle or the Deity timately even the testimony of a witness who should 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?

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 “ I can really be sincere in believing himself to have made a step by substituting the vague words spirit, incorporeal substance, divinity, &c., for those intelligible words" what? what words so much less vague and more intelligible than spirit ?--" those intelligible words, matter, nature, mobility, necessity!" Now, we may safely ask, if all language furnishes two words more vague and less intelligible than two out of these four-viz. nature and necessity? But we have, in

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 cevoir la Nature, et si c'est a cette force motive qu'on donne le nom de Dieu, il n'existe point d'Athees et le mot sous lequel on les designe, n'annonceroit que des fous."-Can any one doubt, that after rejecting all reasonable and consistent 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 can

* There occurs every where in this book a vague and mysterious idea of a force of living power belonging to Matter, and almost a deification of this power, utterly unintelligible; but in a hater of Deity -a derider of all gods-quite marvellous. The passage in which this idea is most strikingly announced is the 11th chapter of part ii., where he is answering the position that there is no such thing as an Atheist in the world-" Si par Athee l'on designe un homme qui nieroit l'existence d'une force inherente a la nature et sans laquelle l'on ne peut con-not be conceived ?"