"blending any theory with respect to the causes of the "intellectual phenomena with the history of facts, or "the investigation of general laws. The authors who "form the most conspicuous exceptions to this gradual progress, consist chiefly of men whose errors may be easily accounted for, by the prejudices connected with "their circumscribed habits of observation and in"quiry; of physiologists, accustomed to attend to "that part alone of the human frame which the knife "of the anatomist can lay open; - or of chemists, who "enter on the analysis of thought, fresh from the "decompositions of the laboratory; carrying into the "theory of mind itself (what Bacon expressively calls) "the smoke and tarnish of the furnace." But what are we to do? If the enemies of religion derive subtlety and acuteness from this pursuit, ought not their own weapons to be turned against them? and ought not some to study for defence, if others do for the purposes of aggression? When the old anarch Hobbes came out to destroy the foundations of morals, who entered the lists against him? Not a man afraid of metaphysics, not a man who had become sceptical as he had become learned, but Ralph Cudworth, Doctor of Divinity—a man who had learned much from reading the errors of the human mind, and from deep meditation its nature: who made use of those errors to avoid them, and derived from that meditation principles too broad and too deep to be shaken: such a man was gained to the cause of morality, and religion, by these sciences. These sciences certainly made no infidel of Bishop Warburton, as Chubb, Morgan, Tindal, and half a dozen others found to their cost. Tucker, the author of "The Light of Nature," was no sceptic, Locke was no sceptic, Hartley was no sceptic, nor was Lord Verulam. Malebranche and Arnauld were both of them exceedingly pious men. We none of us can believe that Dr. Paley has exercised his mind upon intellectual philosophy in

vain. The fruits of it in him, are sound sense delivered so perspicuously that a man may profit by it, and a child may comprehend it: solid decision, not anticipated by insolence, but earned by fair argument; manly piety, unadulterated by superstition, and never disgraced by cant. The child that is unborn will thank that man for his labours.*

I have already quoted too many names, but I must not omit one which would alone have been sufficient to have shown that there is no necessary connection between scepticism and the philosophy of the human mind; I mean Bishop Butler. To his sermons we are indebted for the complete overthrow of the selfish system; and to his "Analogy," for the most noble and surprising defence of revealed religion, perhaps, which has ever yet been made of any system whatever. But there is no occasion to prop this argument up by great The school of natural religion is the contemplation of nature; the ancient anatomist who was an atheist, was converted by the study of the human body: he thought it impossible that so many admirable contrivances should exist, without an intelligent cause; -and if men can become religious from looking at an entrail, or a nerve, can they be taught atheism from

names.

* Sir James Mackintosh says, in his introductory Law lecture (p. 32.):"The same reason will excuse me for passing over in silence the works of many philosophers and moralists, to whom, in the course of my proposed lectures, I shall owe and confess the greatest obligations; and it might perhaps deliver me from the necessity of speaking of Dr. Paley, if I were not desirous of this public opportunity of professing my gratitude for the instruction and pleasure which I have received from that excellent writer, who possesses, in so eminent a degree, those invaluable qualities of a moralist good sense, caution, sobriety, and perpetual reference to convenience and practice; and who certainly is thought less original than he really is, merely because his taste and modesty have led him to disdain the ostentation of novelty, and because he generally employs more art to blend his own arguments with the body of received opinions (so as that they are scarce to be distinguished), than other men, in the pursuit of a transient popularity, have exerted to disguise the most miserable common-places in the shape of paradox."

analysing the structure of the human mind? Are not the affections and passions which skake the very entrails of man, and the thoughts and feelings which dart along those nerves, more indicative of a God than the vile perishing instruments themselves? Can you remember the nourishment which springs up in the breast of a mother, and forget the feelings which spring up in her heart? If God made the blood of man, did he not make that feeling, which summons the blood to his face, and makes it the sign of guilt and of shame? You may show me a human hand, expatiate upon the singular contrivance of its sinews, and bones; how admirable, how useful, for all the purposes of grasp, and flexure: I will show you, in return, the mind, receiving her tribute from the senses;-comparing, reflecting, compounding, dividing, abstracting;- the passions soothing, aspiring, exciting, till the whole world falls under the dominion of man; evincing that in his mind the Creator has reared up the noblest emblem of his wisdom, and his power. The philosophy of the human mind is no school for infidelity, but it excites the warmest feelings of piety, and defends them with the soundest reason.

One of the great impediments attendant upon this branch of knowledge is the natural and original dif ficulty of reflecting upon the operations of our own minds. It is much more easy, for instance, to think of the parts of an intricate machine, than of any act of memory, judgment, or imagination. We may attribute this to the necessity we are under of attending to objects of sense, from our earliest infancy. We are under no necessity of attending with great carefulness and precision to the operations of our minds; but we must examine, over and over again, with extreme care, the ideas of our senses, for the mere purposes of security, and existence: this gives us a familiarity with one set of ideas, that we have had no opportunity of

acquiring in the other; and makes this species of study very difficult, and very painful.

Perhaps no habit would ever render it as easy to attend to the manner in which our mind acts, as to attend to those notions we have gathered from the eye, and the car, and the touch. Providence, intending man for a life of greater activity than contemplation, has placed this impediment to the free exercise of thought, and made use of the pain which generally accompanies profound meditation, as a check and barrier to human power.

Another difficulty which attends this study, is the metaphorical nature of its language. Mankind first give names to the objects of sense which surround them, to the sun, the wind, the rain, the mountains, woods, and sea; and having established this nomenclature, they call the mind, and its faculties, by the name of some object to which they appear to bear a resemblance. For the soul, they have generally taken the name of the most subtle and invisible fluid with which they were acquainted; and, accordingly, in a great variety of languages it is signified by the same word which signifies wind, or breath.*

The misfortune is, that this borrowed language insensibly betrays us into false notions of the human understanding, from which we find it rather difficult to

* "It may lead us a little towards the original of all our notions and knowledge, if we remark how great a dependence our words have on common sensible ideas, and how those which are made use of to stand for actions and notions quite removed from sense, have their rise from thence, and from obvious, sensible ideas, are transferred to more abstruse significations, and made to stand for ideas, that come not under the cognizance of our senses; v.g., to imagine, apprehend, comprehend, adhere, conceive, instil, disgust, disturbance, tranquillity, &c., are all words taken from the operations of sensible things, and applied to certain modes of thinking. Spirit, in its primary signification, is breath;-angel, a messenger: and I doubt not, but, if we could trace them to their sources, we should find, in all languages, the names, which stand for things that fall under our senses, to have had their first rise from sensible ideas."-Locke, book iii. chap. i. paragraph 5. p. 190.

disentangle ourselves. For instance, we talk about recollecting a place as if we had gathered together the ideas of the parlour, and the drawing-room, and the grass-plat, which lay dispersed in different parts of the brain, and put them into the order in which they really exist. This is what the word seems to suggest, and what, I fancy, many people actually suppose to take place in their understandings; whereas the real fact is (as I shall show in some future lecture at full length), that one idea of the whole train first presents itself to our mind, and after we have made every effort to dwell upon, and retain this, the others follow of their own accord, without any power of ours, exactly in the order in which they had been previously observed. It would, however, be extremely curious and useful, to collect, in a great variety of languages, all the similitudes which mankind have hit upon, for the operations and divisions of the faculties of the mind. Such a long, extensive, and authentic record of human opinions upon these subjects, might give birth to many interesting speculations, and throw some light upon questions which have long been the opprobrium of this science.

Some very considerable men are accustomed to hold very strong and sanguine language respecting the important discoveries which are to be made in Moral Philosophy, from a close attention to facts; and by that method of induction which has been so invaluably employed in Natural Philosophy: but then this appears to be the difference;-that Natural Philosophy is directed to subjects with which we are little or imperfectly acquainted; Moral Philosophy investigates faculties we have always exercised, and passions we have always felt. Chemistry, for instance, is perpetually bringing to light fresh existences; four or five new metals have been discovered within as many years, of the existence