in his youth to see into the causes of things, happening to hear that Anaxagoras taught that all things were governed by a supreme mind, and being mightily pleased with this principle, he had recourse to his writings, full of expectation to see the whole scheme of nature explained from the perfect wisdom of an all governing mind, and to have all his doubts about the perfection of the universe satisfied. But he was much disappointed when he found that Anaxagoras made no use of this sovereign mind in his explications of nature, and referred nothing to the order and perfection of the universe as its reason, but introduced certain aërial, etherial, and aqueous powers, and such incredible principles for the causes of things. Upon the whole, Socrates found that this account of nature was no more satisfactory than if one who undertook to account for the actions of Socrates should begin with telling us that Socrates was actuated by a principle of thought and design; and pretending to explain how he came to be sitting in prison at that time when he was condemned to die by the unjust and ungrateful Athenians, he should acquaint us that the body of Socrates consisted of bones and muscles; that the bones were solid and had their articulations, while the muscles were capable of being contracted and extended, by which he was enabled to move his body and put himself in a sitting posture; and after adding an explanation of the nature of sound, and of the organs of the voice, he should boast at length that he had thus accounted for Socrates sitting and conversing with his friends in prison, without taking notice of the decree of the Athenians, and that he himself thought it was more just and becoming to wait patiently for the execution of their sentence, than escape to Megara or Thebes, there to live in exile. "T is true," says he, " that without bones and nerves I should not be able to perform any action in life; but it would be an unaccountable way of speaking to assign those for the reasons of my actions, while my mind is influenced by the appearance of what is best." *

*See Maclaurin's View of Newton's Philosophy.-The above is a short abridgment of the reasonings of Socrates in the Phædon of Plato.

The authority of Socrates, however, cannot be expected to have much weight with natural philosophers in the present age of the world. That of Sir Isaac Newton will not be disputed on a question relating to the spirit of that inductive philosophy, of which his writings afford the most perfect and most successful exemplification hitherto given to the world. This great man (as we are told by his intimate friend Mr. Maclaurin) used sometimes to observe, "that it gave him particular pleasure to see how much his philosophy had contributed to promote an attention to final causes, after Descartes and others had attempted to banish them." Mr. Maclaurin, too, (whose acquaintance with the just rules of philosophizing will not be denied) has remarked "that of all sorts of causes final causes are the most clearly placed in our view; and that it is difficult to comprehend why it should be thought arrogant in us to attend to the design and contrivance that is so evidently displayed in nature, and obvious to all men; to maintain, for instance, that the eye was made for seeing, though we may not be able either to account mechanically for the refraction of light in the coats of the eye, or to explain how the image is propagated from the retina to the mind."

It was before observed, with respect to anatomists, that all of them, without exception, whether professedly friendly, or hostile, to the inquisition of final causes, concur in availing themselves of its guidance in their physiological researches. A similar remark will be found to apply to other classes of scientific inquirers. Whatever their speculative opinions may be, the moment their curiosity is fairly engaged in the pursuit of truth, either physical or moral, they involuntarily, and often perhaps unconsciously, submit their understandings to a logic borrowed neither from the schools of Aristotle nor of Bacon. The ethical system of those ancient philosophers who held that virtue consists in following nature, not only involves a recognition of the doctrine of final causes, but represents the study of them, in as far as regards the ends and destination of our own being, as the great business and duty of life; Quid

sumus, et quidnam victuri gignimur. The system, too, of those physicians who profess to follow nature in the treatment of diseases, by watching and aiding her medicative powers, assumes the truth of the same doctrine as its fundamental principle. A still more remarkable illustration, however, of the influence which this species of evidence has over the mind, even when we are the least aware of its connexion with metaphysical conclusions, occurs in the speculations of the French economists.

The very title of physiocratie, by which some of them distinguished their system, affords a sufficient proof of their own ideas concerning its characteristical spirit and tendency; and the same thing is more fully demonstrated by their frequent recurrence to the physical and moral laws of nature as the unerring standard which the legislator should keep in view in all his positive institutions. "Ces lois," says Quesnay, "forment ensemble ce qu'on appelle la loi naturelle. Tous les hommes et toutes les puissances humaines doivent être soumis à ces lois souveraines, instituées par l'Etre Suprême : Elles sont immuables et irrefragables, et les meilleures lois possibles; et par conséquent la base du gouvernement le plus parfait, et la règle fondamentale de toutes les lois positives; car les lois positives ne sont que des lois de manutention relatives à l'ordre naturel évidemment le plus avantageux au genre humain." I do not speak at present of the justness of those opinions; I wish only to remark, that, in the statement of them given by their original authors, it is assumed as a truth self-evident and indisputable, not merely that benevolent design is manifested in all the physical and moral arrangements connected with this globe, but that the study of these arrangements is indispensably necessary to lay a solid foundation for political science.

The same principles appear to have led Mr. Smith into that train of thinking which gave birth to his inquiries concerning National Wealth. "Man," he ob

serves in one of his oldest manuscripts now extant, "is generally considered by statesmen and projectors as the materials of a sort of political mechanics. Projectors disturb nature in the course of her operations in hu

man affairs; and it requires no more than to let her alone, and give her fair play in the pursuit of her own designs." And in another passage: "Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism, but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice; all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things. All governments which thwart this natural course, which force things into another channel, or which endeavour to arrest the progress of society at a particular point, are unnatural, and to support themselves are obliged to be oppressive and tyrannical." Various other passages of a similar import might be quoted both from his Wealth of Nations and from his Theory of Moral Sentiments.

This doctrine of Mr. Smith's and of Quesnay's, which tends to simplify the theory of legislation by exploding the policy of those complicated checks and restraints which swell the municipal codes of most nations, has now, I believe, become the prevailing creed of thinking men all over Europe; and, as commonly happens with prevailing creeds, has been pushed by many of its partizans far beyond the views and intentions of its original authors. Such, too, is the influence of fashion on the one hand, and of obnoxious phrases on the other, that it has found some of its most zealous abettors and propagators among writers who would reject, without a moment's hesitation, as superstitious and puerile, every reference to final causes in a philosophical discussion.*

* See Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind, vol. ii. Chap. iv. Sect. 6.

CHAPTER THIRD.

PRELIMINARY INQUIRY INTO THE PRINCIPLES OF NATURAL RELIGION.

OF THE MORAL ATTRIBUTES OF THE DEITY.

THE observations made in the last article contain some of the principal heads of the argument for the existence of God, and also for his unity, for his power, and for his wisdom. Of the two last of these attributes, we justly say that they are infinite; that is, that our conceptions of them always rise in proportion as our faculties are cultivated, and as our knowledge of the universe becomes more extensive. The writers on natural religion commonly give a particular enumeration of attributes, which they divide into the natural, the intellectual, and the moral; and of which they treat at length in a systematical manner. This view of the subject, whatever may be its advantages, could not be adopted with propriety here. The remarks which follow are confined to the evidences of the Divine goodness and justice; those attributes which constitute the moral perfections of the Deity, and which render him the proper object of religious worship.

In applying to the Deity the phrase moral attributes, I express myself in conformity to common language; but the object of the following speculations will be better understood when I say, that the scope of my reasonings is to show, in the first place, that there are evidences of benevolent design in the universe; and secondly, that there are evidences of a moral government exercised over man by means of rewards and punishments; or, in other words, that the constitution of the human mind, and the course of human affairs, prove that the reward of virtue, and the punishment of vice, is the aim of the general laws by which the world is governed.