and sound. We will suppose that the person thus contemplated, should have suddenly given to him eyes and ears; with astonishment he beholds the spectacle of the universe; this is quite a new exhibition to him, and, when compared to what he knew before, is supernatural, (making the three first senses the limits of natural perception). His knowledge is increased by the addition of the new senses, with the operations of light and sound-although his reason and understanding are vastly enlarged, and diversified in their range; can he with that help penetrate beyond the outsides of the newly extended limits of nature, and find out any thing be-. yond the objects of sense, and their sensible relations to one another? If, without eyes, and ears, he could not reach the limits of sensible existence formed for, and addressed to, the mind, having five senses, through which it holds intercourse with the world; how could the accession of eyes, and ears, impressed by natural objects, extend his ideas, and knowledge beyond those sensible limits enlarged by light, and sound? No answer can be given to this question in favour of such an extension, unless it can be proven that by: the natural influences of light upon the eye, and of sound upon the ear, the mind is inspired with ideas of existence, and things essentially different from objects of sense, and their properties in every possible relation, and character whatever. This, I cannot suppose, will be pretended by any person who thinks at all upon the subject;-it would be as practicable for a person to see colours through the car, and to hear sounds through the eye.

The powers of the mind by which it acquires, and combines ideas, will much aid this inquiry, if we attend to their operations in their regular order. Those powers we formerly enumerated; we divided them into perception, reflection, memory, imagination, and judgment. For the sake of illustration, I ask whether the power of perception can be employed, except upon objects submitted to the senses, or upon the operations of the mind on sensible ideas which we call reflection? I have enumerated reflection as a power or faculty of the mind; which I have done in obedience to common usage. Reflection, if properly analyzed, will be found to be nothing more than the mind's perception of its own

1

operations; perception in this case differs from the perceptions of external things in nothing more than the operations of the mind upon its ideas, and its own exercises, being the objects of the perception. The mind's perception of its own acts, by which it forms reflex ideas, is impossible, without those objects of sense upon which alone its powers in the first place can be exercised. An example will make this matter plain. The person supposed to be born without eyes, and ears, would not of necessity perceive light or sound, and of course could form no reflex ideas by attending to the perception of light or sound, and the various objects exhibited through them. Can a perception be made without an object? Can the memory act, except in calling up, or reviving ideas which were previously perceived by sensation, or the combination of simple ones, or those of reflection? Can the imagination be otherwise employed than upon the materials furnished by perception, either of external things or of its own operations? And can the judgment be exercised except upon ideas thus produced? The answers to these questions, formed by the necessity of nature as it relates to the mind, must be in the negative. I ask then for the origin of the ideas of creator, creation, spiritual existence, &c.? I urge the natural religionist to point out their archetypes in nature; but I urge in vain. The task imposed upon him by the demands of the investigation is not less difficult, and impossible than to require of him to see light by the sense of feeling, and to hear sounds by the sense of smelling. There exists no fitness or connexion between the means and the end.

For further illustration, and proof, we will ascend from the plain experience of common sense to the regions of philosophy, and science; from which we shall obtain a result perfectly correspondent with the preceding; for there subsubsists a harmony between the most simple, and compli cated truths; those of the latter description are bottomed upon the former, and are composed of them.

We will commence with mathematics.--What is the language of mathematics, and what are its objects? The language of mathematics speaks only of quantity, cither as subject to measure or number. Mathematicians have divided

this science into pure, and mixed. The former considers quantity abstractedly, without regard to any particular bodies: the latter that of quantity as subsisting in bodies, and consequently they are intermixed with the consideration of physics or experimental philosophy. Pure mathematics are arithmethic, algebra, geometry, and fluxions. Mixed mathematics consist chiefly of mechanics, pneumatics, hydrostatics, optics, and astronomy. I ask whether measure, num-.' ber, or proportion can possibly direct the mind to a conclu-. sion which partakes of none of these properties, and has no connexion with, or dependence upon them; or to the discovery of an existence to whom none of these terms can possibly apply; to a being who has no relation to time, not being older to-day than he was yesterday, nor younger today than he will be to-morrow; to a being who has no relation to space, not being a part here, and a part there, or a whole any where; whose circumference is no where, and whose centre, (if I may use the expression) is every where; to a being who is in his own nature, immaterial, independent, and eternal; who is being, simply considered, in, and of himself, to whom nothing of assignable forms, colours, or qualities can attach, and who is infinitely removed from our natural conceptions, to whom no finite idea belongs, whom no line can circumscribe nor period bound? Or can reflection upon the operations of the mind, when investigating the nature, and qualities of measure, number, and proportion, originate the idea of an existence of the above character? Can chemistry, which treats of the nature, and properties of matter, and their influences upon each other, aid in such a discovery? Impossible. I might traverse the whole circle of natural science in vain, were I to expect to learn any thing from them but what appertains to the objects, and subjects about which they are conversant, and which are made cognizable to the mind by their sensible properties only. The investigation of anatomy, of physiology, of the nature, and œconomy of the mind, together with the affections, and passions, the sympathies, and antipathies, and indeed every thing which belongs to man as a physical, animal, intellectual, and moral being, including the laws, and principles which regulate, and govern all the various operations, and functions,

from the most minute parts up to the perfect whole; I say such an investigation could produce no other ideas, nor impart any other information than what belong to these objects, and subjects, about, and upon which it is employed.

Motion has been resorted to by the natural religionist as furnishing a strong evidence in favour of a creation, &c.We will attend a little to its nature, and see how far it is applicable to such a conclusion. Motion pushes, stops, composes, and divides, but it produces neither the elementary matters which enter into the composition of all bodies, nor the vessels of organized species. The laws of motion are intrinsic parts of the economy, and are commensurate, and co-extensive with it. Were we as clearly informed as we are ignorant, in what manner or how motion is concerned in the decompositions, and new combinations of nature, we should remain entirely ignorant of the origin of the elementary principles thus employed. We should not know nature herself though we had made never so great a progress in the study of motion. The scene of nature changes every moment, and is incessantly renewed. But why is it al ways the same in each of its vicissitudes? It is because motion assembles, and mingles things already made, and nourishes species of a determinate structure, by the principles of assimilation, &c. belonging to that structure. But motion forms no species at all, nor does it ever (as above observed) produce the simple natures which supply the increase of each species. Motion speaks no other language than that which appertains to the changes of nature; it extends not beyond them, and of course nothing ulterior to them can be learnt from it. Motion applies the stimulants to the organs of sense; which, acting upon their excitability, and sensibility, produce sensation, and consciousness. The laws of motion, as before observed, are intrinsic parts of nature, do not exist independent of it.

and

The old hackneyed assertion in favour of a creation, "that every effect must have a cause," will not, I suppose, be considered as at all applicable to this inquiry, after what has been said in the previous parts of this investigation. Before a cause can be urged as necessary, or its existence

granted, an effect must be proven, of such an origin, and character, as required its agency in order to its production. The first rule, in page 19, for the regulation of this investigation, requires us to take nothing for granted that is not selfevident, and to concede nothing which ought to be proven. In obedience to that rule, the proof of an effect, as it relates to the existence of the universe, being required, no concession of a first cause independent of, and separate from, the sensible universe, can be made until that proof is introduced. Sensation, experience, and observation, are all mute upon the subject. Did the face of nature one century past exhibit more works of a beginning or a creation than it does at this time? The voice of natural history says no; we might run back along the course of time until lost in the depths of antiquity, and at the end of every century repeat the same inquiry, and we should obtain the same answer. On the side of natural reason, and invention, every thing is dark, and impenetrable. By what sure, and certain steps, an uninstructed mind, which never heard of God, could rise up to the knowledge of an infinite, spiritual, and uncreated nature, I have no conception. The fable of the giant's rearing mountain upon mountain to invade heaven, has something more specious in it than the table of a groveling, silly, human mind, crawling up to light inaccessible without a ladder. Where shall the savage (for all are such by nature) set out? He is without the name of what he is to seek; yet names are the only marks of essence to which he could affix any discoverable or conceivable properties; and names cannot be given to things of which the mind has no apprehenWhen or where then could he begin to search for he knew not what? To these interrogations nature is stupidly insensible, and silent, and is as unable to give an answer, as are the stocks, and stones to impart instruction to, or relieve the distresses of their poor blind worshippers amongst the idolatrous heathen. Indeed idolatry commenced in the world by men attaching to the objects of sense those attributes of divinity which God had previously revealed as belonging to himself. Natural religionists have, in a great measure, acted the same part by ascribing to nature the power which is only attributable to God, the exercise of which

sion.