by inusitation; nec curtorum, per multa sæcula, | Judæorum propagini deest præputium. It is easy to say, and it has been said, that the alterative process is too slow to be perceived; that it has been carried on through tracts of immeasurable time; and that the present order of things is the result of a gradation, of which no human records can trace the steps. It is easy to say this; and yet it is still true, that the hypothesis remains destitute of evidence.

bird, and many generations which succeeded him, might find difficulty enough in making the pouch answer this purpose: but future pelicans, entering upon life with a pouch derived from their progenitors, of considerable capacity, would more readily accelerate its advance to perfection, by frequently pressing down the sac with the weight of fish which it might now be made to contain.

These, or of this kind, are the analogies relied upon. Now, in the first place, the instances themThe analogies which have been alleged, are selves are unauthenticated by testimony; and, in of the following kind: The bunch of a camel, is theory, to say the least of them, open to great obsaid to be no other than the effect of carrying jections. Who ever read of camels without burdens; a service in which the species has been bunches, or with bunches less than those with employed from the most ancient times of the world. which they are at present usually formed? A The first race, by the daily loading of the back, bunch, not unlike the camel's, is found between would probably find a small grumous tumour to be the shoulders of the buffalo; of the origin of which formed in the flesh of that part. The next progeny it is impossible to give the account here given. In would bring this tumour into the world with them. the second example; Why should the application The life to which they were destined, would in- of water, which appears to promote and thickcrease it. The cause which first generated the tu- en the growth of feathers upon the bodies and bercle being continued, it would go on, through breasts of geese, and swans, and other water-fowls, every succession, to augment its size, till it attained have divested of this covering the thighs of cranes? the form and the bulk under which it now appears. The third instance, which appears to me as plauThis may serve for one instance: another, and sible as any that can be produced, has this against that also of the passive sort, is taken from certain it, that it is a singularity restricted to the species; species of birds. Birds of the crane kind, as the whereas, if it had its commencement in the cause crane itself, the heron, bittern, stork, have, in and manner which have been assigned, the like general, their thighs bare of feathers. This priva-conformation might be expected to take place in tion is accounted for from the habit of wading in other birds, which feed upon fish. How comes it water, and from the effect of that element to to pass, that the pelican alone was the inventress, check the growth of feathers upon these parts; in and her descendants the only inheritors, of this consequence of which, the health and vegetation curious resource? of the feathers declined through each generation But it is the less necessary to controvert the inof the animal; the tender down, exposed to cold stances themselves, as it is a straining of analogy and wetness, became weak, and thin, and rare, till beyond all limits of reason and credibility, to asthe deterioration ended in the result which we sert that birds, and beasts, and fish, with all their see, of absolute nakedness. I will mention a variety and complexity of organization, have been third instance, because it is drawn from an active brought into their forms, and distinguished into habit, as the two last were from passive habits; their several kinds and natures, by the same proand that is the pouch of the pelican. The de-cess (even if that process could be demonstrated, scription which naturalists give of this organ, is as follows: "From the lower edges of the under chap, hangs a bag, reaching from the whole length of the bill to the neck, which is said to be capable The solution, when applied to the works of naof containing fifteen quarts of water. This bag, ture generally, is contradicted by many of the the bird has a power of wrinkling up into the phenomena, and totally inadequate to others. hollow of the under chap. When the bag is The ligaments or strictures, by which the tenempty, it is not seen; but when the bird has fish- dons are tied down at the angles of the joints, ed with success, it is incredible to what an extent could, by no possibility, be formed by the motion it is often dilated. The first thing the pelican or exercise of the tendons themselves; by any apdoes in fishing, is to fill the bag; and then it re-petency exciting these part into action; or by any turns to digest its burden at leisure. The bird preys upon the large fishes, and hides them by dozens in its pouch. When the bill is opened to its widest extent, a person may run his head into the bird's mouth; and conceal it in this monstrous pouch, thus adapted for very singular purposes."* Now this extraordinary conformation is nothing more, say our philosophers, than the result of habit; not of the habit or effort of a single pelican, or of a single race of pelicans, but of a habit perpetuated through a long series of generations. The pelican soon found the conveniency of reserving in its mouth, when its appetite was glutted, the remainder of its prey, which is fish. The fulness produced by this attempt, of course stretched the skin which lies between the under chaps, as being the most yielding part of the mouth. Every distension increased the cavity. The original

Goldsmith, vol. vi. p. 52.

or had it ever been actually noticed) as might seem to serve for the gradual generation of a camel's bunch, or a pelican's pouch.

tendency arising thereform. The tendency is all the other way; the conatus in constant opposition to them. Length of time does not help the case at all, but the reverse. The valves also in the blood-vessels, could never be formed in the manner which our theorist proposes. The blood, in its right and natural course, has no tendency to form them. When obstructed or refluent, it has the contrary. These parts could not grow out of their use, though they had eternity to grow in.

The senses of animals appear to me altogether incapable of receiving the explanation of their origin which this theory affords. Including under the word "sense" the organ and the perception, we have no account of either. How will our philosopher get at vision, or make an eye? How should the blind animal affect sight, of which blind animals, we know, have neither conception nor desire? Affecting it, by what operation of its will, by what endeavour to see, could it so deter

mine the fluids of its body, as to inchoate the formation of an eye? or, suppose the eye formed, would the perception follow? The same of the other senses. And this objection holds its force, ascribe what you will to the hand of time, to the power of habit, to changes too slow to be observed by man, or brought within any comparison which he is able to make of past things with the present: concede what you please to these arbitrary and unattested suppositions, how will they help you? Here is no inception. No laws, no course, no powers of nature which prevail at present, nor any analogous to these, would give commencement to a new sense. And it is in vain to inquire, how that might proceed, which could never begin. I think the senses to be the most inconsistent with the hypothesis before us, of any part of the animal frame. But other parts are sufficiently so. The solution does not apply to the parts of animals, which have little in them of motion. If we could suppose joints and muscles to be gradually formed by action and exercise, what action or exercise could form a skull, and fill it with brains? No effort of the animal could determine the clothing of its skin. What conatus could give prickles to the porcupine or hedgehog, or to the sheep its fleece?

In the last place: What do these appetencies mean when applied to plants? I am not able to give a signification to the term, which can be transferred from animals to plants; or which is common to both. Yet a no less successful organization is found in plants, than what obtains in animals. A solution is wanted for one, as well as the other.

Upon the whole; after all the schemes and struggles of a reluctant philosophy, the necessary resort is to a Deity. The marks of design are too strong to be gotten over. Design must have had a designer. That designer must have been a person. That person is God.

CHAPTER XXIV.

Of the Natural Attributes of the Deity.

It is an immense conclusion, that there is a GOD; a perceiving, intelligent, designing Being; at the head of creation, and from whose will it proceeded. The attributes of such a Being, suppose his reality to be proved, must be adequate to the magnitude, extent, and multiplicity of his operations which are not only vast beyond comparison with those performed by any other power; but, so far as respects our conceptions of them, infinite, because they are unlimited on all sides.

idolatry with its many pernicious accompani ments, they introduce the Deity to human apprehension, under an idea more personal, more determinate, more within its compass, than the theology of nature can do. And this they do by representing him exclusively under the relation in which he stands to ourselves; and, for the most part, under some precise character, resulting from that relation, or from the history of his providences: which method suits the span of our intellects much better than the universality which enters into the idea of God, as deduced from the views of nature. When, therefore, these representations are well founded in point of authority, (for all depends upon that,) they afford a condescension to the state of our faculties, of which, they who have most reflected on the subject, will be the first to acknowledge the want and the value.

Nevertheless, if we be careful to imitate the documents of our religion, by confining our explanations to what concerns ourselves, and do not affect more precision in our ideas than the subject allows of, the several terms which are employed to denote the attributes of the Deity, may be made, even in natural religion, to bear a sense consistent with truth and reason, and not surpassing our comprehension.

These terms are; Omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, eternity, self-existence, necessary existence, spirituality.

'Omnipotence," "omniscience," "infinite" power, "infinite" knowledge, are superlatives, expressing our conception of these attributes in the strongest and most elevated terms which language supplies. We ascribe power to the Deity under the name of "omnipotence," the strict and correct conclusion being, that a power which could create such a world as this is, must be beyond all comparison, greater than any which we experience in ourselves, than any which we observe in other visible agents; greater also than any which we can want, for our individual protection and preservation, in the Being upon whom we depend. It is a power, likewise, to which we are not authorized, by our observation or knowledge, to assign any limits of space or duration.

Very much of the same sort of remark is applicable to the term "omniscience," infinite knowledge, or infinite wisdom. In strictness of language, there is a difference between knowledge and wisdom; wisdom always supposing action, and action directed by it. With respect to the first, viz. knowledge, the Creator must know, intimately, the constitution and properties of the things which he created; which seems also to imply a foreknowledge of their action upon one another, and of their changes; at least, so far as the same result from trains of physical and necesYet the contemplation of a nature so exalted, sary causes. His omniscience also, as far as however surely we arrive at the proof of its exist- respects things present, is deducible from his ence, overwhelms our faculties. The mind feels nature, as an intelligent being, joined with the its powers sink under the subject. One conse- extent or rather the universality, of his operations. quence of which is, that from painful abstraction Where he acts, he is; and where he is, he perthe thoughts seek relief in sensible images.ceives. The wisdom of the Deity, as testified in Whence may be deduced the ancient, and almost the works of creation, surpasses all idea we have universal propensity to idolatrous substitutions. of wisdom, drawn from the highest intellectual They are the resources of a labouring imagina-operations of the highest class of intelligent beings tion. False religions usually fall in with the natural propensity; true religions, or such as have derived themselves from the true, resist it.

It is one of the advantages of the revelations which we acknowledge, that, whilst they reject

with whom we are acquainted; and, which is of the chief importance to us, whatever be its compass or extent, which it is evidently impossible that we should be able to determine, it must be adequate to the conduct of that order of things

CHAPTER XXV.

The Unity of the Deity.

under which we live. And this is enough. It "Spirituality" expresses an idea, made up of a is of very inferior consequence, by what terms we negative part, and of a positive part. The negaexpress our notion, or rather our admiration, of tive part consists in the exclusion of some of the this attribute. The terms, which the piety and known properties of matter, especially of solidity, the usage of language have rendered habitual to of the ris inertia, and of gravitation. The posius, may be as proper as any other. We can tive part comprises perception, thought, will, trace this attribute much beyond what is neces-power, action; by which last term is meant, the sary for any conclusion to which we have occasion | origination of motion; the quality, perhaps, in to apply it. The degree of knowledge and power which resides the essential superiority of spirit requisite for the formation of created nature, cannot, over matter, "which cannot move, unless it be with respect to us, be distinguished from infinite. moved; and cannot but move, when impelled The Divine "omnipresence" stands, in natural by another." I apprehend that there can be no theology, upon this foundation:—In every part difficulty in applying to the Deity both parts of and place of the universe with which we are ac- this idea. quainted, we perceive the exertion of a power, which we believe, mediately or immediately to proceed from the Deity. For instance; in what part or point of space, that has ever been explored, do we not discover attraction? In what regions do we not find light. In what accessible portion of our globe, do we not meet with gravity, magnetism, electricity; together with the properties also and powers of organized substances, of vegetable or of animated nature? Nay, farther, we may ask, What kingdom is there of nature, what corner of space, in which there is any thing that can be examined by us, where we do not fall upon contrivance and design? The only reflection perhaps which arises in our minds from this view of the world around us is, that the laws of nature everywhere prevail; that they are uniform and universal. But what do we mean by the laws of nature, or by any law? Effects are produced by power, not by laws. A law cannot exe-marks of the identity of their origin, and of their cute itself. A law refers us to an agent. Now an agency so general, as that we cannot discover its absence, or assign the place in which some effect of its continued energy is not found, may, in popular language at least, and, perhaps, without much deviation from philosophical strictness, be called universal: and, with not quite the same, but with no inconsiderable propriety, the person or Being, in whom that power resides, or from whom it is derived, may be taken to be omnipresent. He who upholds all things by his power, may be said to be every where present.

This is called a virtual presence. There is also what metaphysicians denominate an essential ubiquity; and which idea the language of Scripture seems to favour: but the former, I think, goes as far as natural theology carries us.

"Eternity" is a negative idea, clothed with a positive name. It supposes, in that to which it is applied, a present existence; and is the negation of a beginning or an end of that existence. As applied to the Deity, it has not been controverted by those who acknowledge a Deity at all. Most assuredly, there never was a time in which nothing existed, because that condition must have continued. The universal blank must have remained; nothing could rise up out of it; nothing could ever have existed since; nothing could exist now. In strictness, however, we have no concern with duration prior to that of the visible world. Upon this article therefore of theology, it is sufficient to know, that the contriver necessarily existed before the contrivance.

"Self-existence" is another negative idea, viz. the negation of a preceding cause, as of a progenitor, a maker, an author, a creator. "Necessary existence" means demonstrable existence.

Or the "Unity of the Deity," the proof is, the uniformity of plan observable in the universe. The universe itself is a system; each part either depending upon other parts, or being connected with other parts by some common law of motion, or by the presence of some common substance. One principle of gravitation causes a stone to drop towards the earth, and the moon to wheel round it. One law of attraction carries all the different planets about the sun. This philosophers demonstrate. There are also other points of agreement amongst them, which may be considered as

intelligent Author. In all are found the conveniency and stability derived from gravitation. They all experience vicissitudes of days and nights, and changes of season. They all, at least Jupiter, Mars, and Venus, have the same advantages from their atmosphere as we have. In all the planets, the axes of rotation are permanent. Nothing is more probable than that the same attracting influence, acting according to the same rule, reaches to the fixed stars: but, if this be only probable, another thing is certain, viz. that the same element of light does. The light from a fixed star affects our eyes in the same manner, is refracted and reflected according to the same laws, as the light of a candle. The velocity of the light of the fixed stars is also the same as the velocity of the light of the sun, reflected from the satellites of Jupiter. The heat of the sun, in kind, differs nothing from the heat of a coal fire.

In our own globe, the case is clearer. New countries are continually discovered, but the old laws of nature are always found in them: new plants perhaps, or animals, but always in company with plants and animals which we already know; and always possessing many of the same general properties. We never get amongst such original, or totally different, modes of existence, as to indicate, that we are come into the province of a different Creator, or under the direction of a different will. In truth, the same order of things attends us, wherever we go. The elements act upon one another, electricity operates, the tides rise and fall, the magnetic needle elects its position, in one region of the earth and sea, as well

*Bishop Wilkin's Principles of Natural Religion.

p. 106.

as in another. One atmosphere invests all parts of the globe, and connects all; one sun illuminates, one moon exerts its specific attraction upon all parts. If there be a variety in natural effects, as, e. g. in the tides of different seas, that very variety is the result of the same cause, acting under different circumstances. In many cases .this is proved; in all, is probable.

The inspection and comparison of living forms, add to this argument examples without number. Of all large terrestrial animals, the structure is very much alike; their senses nearly the same; their natural functions and passions nearly the same; their viscera nearly the same, both in substance, shape, and office: digestion, nutrition, circulation, secretion, go on, in a similar manner, in all the great circulating fluid is the same; for, I think no difference has been discovered in the properties of blood, from whatever animal it be drawn. The experiment of transfusion proves that the blood of one animal will serve for another. The skeletons also of the larger terrestrial animals, show particular varieties, but still under a great general affinity. The resemblance is somewhat less, yet sufficiently evident between quadrupeds and birds. They are all alike in five respects, for one in which they differ.

that, in this part likewise of organized nature, we perceive a continuation of the sexual system. Certain however it is, that the whole argument for the divine unity, goes no farther than to a unity of counsel.

It may likewise be acknowledged, that no arguments which we are in possession of, exclude the ministry of subordinate agents. If such there be, they act under a presiding, a controlling will; because they act according to certain general restrictions, by certain common rules, and, as it should seem, upon a general plan: but still such agents, and different ranks, and classes, and degrees of them, may be employed.

CHAPTER XXVI.

The Goodness of the Deity.

THE proof of the divine goodness rests upon two propositions: each, as we contend, capable of being made out by observations drawn from the appearances of nature.

The first is, "that, in a vast plurality of instances in which contrivance is perceived, the design of the contrivance is beneficial."

First, "In a vast plurality of instances in which contrivance is perceived, the design of the contrivance is beneficial."

In fish, which belong to another department, as it were, of nature, the points of comparison be- The second, "that the Deity has superadded come fewer. But we never lose sight of our ana-pleasure to animal sensations, beyond what was logy, e. g. we still meet with a stomach, a liver, a necessary for any other purpose, or when the purspine; with bile and blood; with teeth; with eyes, pose, so far as it was necessary, might have been (which eyes are only slightly varied from our own, effected by the operation of pain." and which variation in truth demonstrates not an interruption, but a continuance of the same exquisite plan; for it is the adaptation of the organ to the element, viz. to the different refraction of No productions of nature display contrivance so light passing into the eye out of a denser me- manifestly as the parts of animals; and the parts dium.) The provinces, also, themselves of water of animals have all of them, I believe, a real, and, and earth, are connected by the species of animals with very few exceptions, all of them a known and which inhabit both; and also by a large tribe of intelligible, subserviency to the use of the animal. aquatic animals which closely resemble the terres- Now, when the multitude of animals is considertrial in their internal structure; I mean the ceta-ed, the number of parts in each, their figure and ceous tribe, which have hot blood, respiring lungs, bowels, and other essential parts, like those of land animals. This similitude, surely, bespeaks the same creation and the same Creator.

fitness, the faculties depending upon them, the variety of species, the complexity of structure, the success, in so many cases, and felicity of the result, we can never reflect, without the profoundest adoration, upon the character of that Being from whom all these things have proceeded: we cannot help acknowledging, what an exertion of benevolence creation was; of a benevolence how minute in its care, how vast in its comprehension!

Insects and shell fish appear to me to differ from other classes of animals the most widely of any. Yet even here, beside many points of particular resemblance, there exists a general relation of a peculiar kind. It is the relation of inversion; the law of contrariety: namely, that, whereas, in other animals, the bones, to which the muscles are When we appeal to the parts and faculties of attached, lie within the body; in insects and shell-animals, and to the limbs and senses of animals in fish, they lie on the outside of it. The shell of a lobster performs to the animal the office of a bone, by furnishing to the tendons that fixed basis or immoveable fulcrum, without which, mechanically, they could not act. The crust of an insect is its shell, and answers the like purpose. The shell also of an oyster stands in the place of a bone; the bases of the muscles being fixed to it, in the same manner as, in other animals, they are fixed to the bones. All which (under wonderful varieties, indeed, and adaptations of form,) confesses an imitation, a remembrance, a carrying on of the same plan.

The observations here made, are equally applicable to plants; but, I think, unnecessary to be pursued. It is a very striking circumstance, and alone sufficient to prove all which we contend for,

particular, we state, I conceive, the proper medium of proof for the conclusion which we wish to es tablish. I will not say, that the insensible parts of nature are made solely for the sensitive parts: but this I say, that, when we consider the benevo lence of the Deity, we can only consider it in relation to sensitive being. Without this reference, or referred to any thing else, the attribute has no object: the term has no meaning. Dead matter is nothing. The parts, therefore, especially the limbs and senses, of animals, although they constitute, in mass and quantity, a small portion of the material creation, yet, since they alone are instruments of perception, they compose what may be called the whole of visible nature, estimated with a view to the disposition of its Author. Consequently, it is in these that we are to seek his