chair with respectability and effect, rather than to introduce an entirely new system of philosophizing.

For any thing that language can utter to the injury of Hume, it would, I fear, be deemed worse than superfluous to apologize; and, I must confess, that I cannot heartily regret any unguarded omission of respect to the eloquent and amiable professor, who has imparted a new sting to his illusions. I trust, however, to obtain credit for a proper deference and respect towards my superiors in ability and learning. For, really, to assent without reserve to such monstrous asseverations, is impossible. That nothing is produced by any power,-that even a spirit does not act, but only wills, moreover, that to act is simply the very same as to will, and that willing does not imply power or action, that memory is merely the fact of remembrance, without any power of recalling events,— that habit never brings any object before the mind's eye, that the connexion of colour and figure is resolvable into the mere association of ideas,-and that the connexion of cause and effect is only the conjunction of two unconnected events, -further, that there is nothing wonderful" in all this; surely,

a In this our author refutes himself; for it is one of his favourite tenets, that we should not be easily terrified by the appearance of paradox, which the result of his analysis may present. "This," says he, "we may be certain, that any analysis which is at all accurate must present, &c." (Browne's Lec. p. 143.) And immediately afterwards, (p. 144): he adds, "It may truly be regarded as a necessary consequence, that every accurate and original analysis of our sensations must afford a result, that, as first stated, must appear paradoxical." To these sportive sallies who can refuse a smile?

these conclusions are calculated to excite, not only wonder, but derision, they are plainly repugnant to common sense; and cannot be conceived to have any force or significance, otherwise than as they prove the fallacy of the principles from which they result, the sophistry of the reasoning by which they are inferred, and the perverted ingenuity of those philosophers who have endeavoured to maintain them.

Into what absurdities so wild a system of METAPHYSICAL PARADOXES may lead us, it is not easy to conceive; we can scarcely anticipate, at what point of annihilation, a philosophy so destructive of reason will end. Nor is it less difficult to trace its principles to their exact origin, whether in vanity, confusion of intellect, or perversity of disposition. But, to avoid offence, and to spare these imputations upon the founders or followers of any tenets which bear the name of philosophy, it is more charitable and satisfactory to account for such tenets, if possible, in some other manner;—and, as it has been quaintly observed by Swift, that, "in every parish, you will find some stout old toper, a healthy and respectable person employed by the devil, to decoy others into penury, and infamy, and disease," so it seems reasonable to suspect, that there may be certain philosophers also, equally respectable, selected by the same employer for a similar purpose,-less, perhaps, to be fatally deluded themselves, than to be his instruments for drawing others into delusion and ruin.

ESSAY III.

ON THE EVIDENCES OF REVELATION IN THE SCHEME OF NATURE; BEING A PROOF OF THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY, DERIVED FROM THE ADAPTATION OF THAT RELIGION TO THE CONSTITUTION OF THE

HUMAN MIND.

THE design of this Treatise is to establish, upon sceptical principles, the truth of religion in general, and especially of the Christian scheme,-by a comparative view of the doctrines of natural religion,—of those which are peculiar to Christianity,—and of the relation which each of these respectively bears to the dispositions and qualities of human nature.

The following arguments being addressed to the sceptic, not to the atheist, I have in a great measure assumed the existence of a God, as the natural governor of the world; not because that seemed to be a postulate peculiarly necessary to their support, but because, in reasonings of such a nature, it is utterly impossible to proceed at all, without, inrectly at least, admitting the supposition of a Creator. There never was a system of atheism, in which that hypothesis was not, under various uncouth names, and in different circumlocutory expressions, plainly insinuated, or stoutly maintained; and therefore, al

though even the atheist, perhaps, might, without any unusual violation of his principles, accompany us to these very conclusions which subvert them, yet we,-i. e. all who are not downright atheists,―resting on the great theorem of the manifestation of design in the universe, cannot consistently summon to our discussion those whose primary maxims, professedly differing from ours, forbid that we should reason together. No sceptic, however, at least no rational sceptic, will, I presume, complain of any unjustifiable assumption in the following statement.

a

As it must be admitted that the human species is possessed of peculiar characteristics, which constitute a natural difference between ours and every other species, so it is a proposition equally axiomatical, although less frequently regarded, that those characteristic principles of our species have the nature and force of divine laws, directing the creature to that peculiar mode of life, which the Creator designed it to pursue. Such rules of action we cannot suppose to be so repugnant and incongruous in themselves, that the slightest accordance with one of them must infer the total violation of another. This sort of confusion, which indeed never disgraced a code of human jurisprudence, does not exist through all the diversified grades of animal life, nor can a similar inconsistency be detected in the conformation of any natural production, vegetable or inert. In the fabric of the world there is no such clashing of incompatible principles, nor jarring of contradictory intentions. The mechanism of

a See Essay I. passim.