What was rational in the ideas of Socrates on this grand subject, did not descend, in their truth and simplicity, to the schools and philosophers who were formed from him; but was so spoiled and nullified by the heterogeneous matter which was mingled with it, that it made no impression on the general mind. From the same cause the Pythagoreans, who had also many valuable notions or fragments of the true system of the universe, made no beneficial use of them, and advanced no farther. The Romans followed the Greeks, but only to favour or to adopt opposing speculations.. Their most enlightened portion on the subject of Deity was the Stoics, who had many noble ideas, but defeated their proper effect by joining with them Plato's suggestion, that the earth was a living animal, and a god, which exposed them to the Epicurean's sarcastic question, How their deity liked to have his back cut by the plough, or torn by their harrows; to be burnt in the torrid zone, and frozen into ice in the arctic regions. Cicero, who at times could reason admirably on the intelligent construction of the world, and was the most informed of all his countrymen, yet was so paralyzed in his own judgment by the chaos of the opinions he found started on this topic, that, in his most elaborate work upon it, he contents himself first with stating one series of opinions, and then the contrary, and closes his theme by ingeniously argu

*

being the progeny of the gods, as they themselves assert, must have a clear knowledge of their parents. It is impossible therefore not to beheve in the children of the gods, though they should speak without probable or necessary arguments. It is proper that, complying with the law, we should assent to their tradition."

He then states from them "the generation of these gods." Ocean and Tethys were the progeny of heaven and earth. From hence Phorcys, Saturn and Rhea, and such as subsist with these, were produced: Jupiter and Juno, and alt such as are called their brethren, descended from Saturn and Rhea, &c. When they were all generated, the Artificer of the universe thus addressed them: "gods of gods! of whom I am the demiurgus and father," &c. &c.-P. 472. Such a medley was Plato's most serious tuition.

• Velleius taunts Balbus with those sarcasms in the Natura Deorum. It is a pity that so great a man as Kepler should revive so absurd a notion. Yet in 1619, in his mature years, he published his Harmonics, in which work he expounds his notions of astrology; and while he strongly condemns the absurdities of the vulgar belief, attempts to substitute a system of celestial influences, in which he seriously represents the earth as an enormous living animal, the tides being its act of respiration, and its vital sympathies being excited by the configurations of the planets."-Powell's Hist. Nat. Phil. p. 154.

ing against all, and apparently recommending a neutralizing uncertainty and indecision.* Thus, until Christianity spread, it never became a settled opinion at all in the world that the earth was the planned and deliberate creation of an intelligent God. Nor does any one seem to have conceived it to have been so, in that clear and full meaning, sublimity and certainty, with which the Hebrew writers inculcate the momentous truth. Take up the Timæus, or any other work of Plato, which treats on God and nature, or what fragments of antiquity remain about them, and compare these with the passages in the Genesis and Deuteronomy of Moses; with those in the book of Job, which is peculiarly splendid in many parts on this subject; with others in some of the Psalms of David, in the majestic and unequalled Isaiah, and in several of the other Jewish prophets; and I think you will feel, with me, that Christianity, by diffusing the Jewish Scriptures, or sacred writings, and by its own as sacred additions, imparted a new intellect to mankind on all that concerns divine philosophy. A sun of mind then rose on our world which has never set. Its beams consumed the popular paganism, and spread a purifying light over those who chose not to forsake their ancient favourite. It has rescued the civilized world from those phantoms which once degraded it; and now, in friendly association with the science, taste, and virtues which are peculiarly congenial with it, and which it has always fostered, we may hope that both superstition and atheism are generally banished or are departing from us for ever; and that, as they are both noxious to society, and very

* Cicero's first book of the Natura Deorum details, in the person of Velleius, the Epicurean attacks on all the theories of deity which the ancient philosophers had devised as well as on the popular one. The second book contains the argument of Balbus, the stoic, in defence of his opinions, spoiling what were really good and wise, by the absurd tenet that the world was an animated being, the incorporated divinity.

The last book exhibits Cotta as the academic, reviewing at times with much derision the arguments of both, but criticising them as inconclusive; "not," he adds, "that I mean to take the divinity away, but to show how obscure and difficult the subject is ;" and all that Cicero himself adds, as his final sentence, is, "The argument of Balbus seems to me to be ad veritatis similitudinem propensior"-rather more probable. †This effect may be traced in the valuable writings of Epictetus and Marcus Antoninus, and at times in those of Seneca. The same influence roused the later Platonists of the Alexandrian school, and even Porphyry and Julian, to make many improvements, both in the theory and practice of the pagan worship, which they endeavoured to uphold.

apt to create each other, neither will, as knowledge advances and judgment improves, be attached to the mind of any educated, philanthropic, or wellmeaning individual.

LETTER III.

On the Laws of Nature-What they really are-Their divine Origin and Operation.

By steadily regarding all things as the designed and purposed creation of God, we shall form juster notions than we commonly do on what are called the laws of nature; and as these are what are almost only taken into consideration, in the modern writings on the physical sciences, as the causes of the phenomena they describe, it will be important to our due comprehension of the sacred history of the world, that we should endeavour to establish in our minds a correct per;ception of what they really are; especially if we desire to avoid attaching to them any atheistical signification, or wish not to use them as mere words or forms of phrase. Both of these applications would be unworthy of an intellectual man. Whoever values rightness of thought or advancement of knowledge, will not willingly make use of any terms without a distinct and clear meaning in his own mind when he chooses the verbal expressions by which he denotes and imparts it. Nothing more perpetuates error than the repetition of words of course, without just ideas being connected with them.

The laws of nature have been stated to be the properties of material things; the modes of their mutual action and the rules of their causations:* and in this largeness of sense they imply the acting powers of nature, the direction or regulation of these powers in their operation, and the effects produced by them.

* "Laws of nature. In this phrase are included all properties of the portions of the material world; all modes of action and rules of causation according to which they operate on each other. The whole course of the visible universe, therefore, is but the collective result of such laws. Its movements are only the aggregate of their working."--Whewell's Bridgw. Treat. Astron. p. 7.

VOL. II.-E

But this extent of meaning makes them almost synonymous with external nature altogether, for that is but a series of causes and effects; of operating powers governed in their agency, and producing consequential results. Adding to this the fact, that they have been established by the Deity himself, and therefore originate from him, we have the Creator and the creation displayed before us in this description of the laws of nature. Nothing can be more comprehensive and satisfactory. These laws must be as numerous as the parts and composition of nature are diversified, and they are fitly so represented to us.† In considering the laws of nature thus, we are contemplating the Deity in his creating and conserving operations; and all the phenomena which we witness and admire, are the consequences of his perpetual agency, by the instrumentality of these his appointed, governed, and continued laws. The laws of nature are thus his laws; the science which they display is his science; their universal operation is his universal agency; the effects which they occasion are his intended and produced results. The laws of nature thus exhibit to us the will, the decisions, the ordainments, the meaning, and the purposes of the divine intellect in their principles, their rules or regulations, their applications, and their co-operations. These they are always manifesting to us in the phenomena which they are producing; which phenomena must be what they were intended to occasion; as all causes are used for the sake of the effects which they produce, and these must be such as were meant to follow from the causing action.

Let us keep these principles always in our view when we talk or think of the laws of nature, and we shall not then get into the habit of using the phrase without any thought of their Divine Author, or as something quite independent of him, and with which he has no concern, and which would have subsisted without him; or as what do not proceed from him.

*Mr. Whewell divides his subject into two portions: "cosmical arrangements and terrestrial adaptations. The former may be best suited to introduce to us the Deity as the institutor of laws of nature; though the latter may afterward give us a wider view and clearer insight into one province of his legislation."-Whewell's Bridg. Treat. Astron p. 16.

†The number and variety of the laws which we find established in the universe are so great, that it would be idle to endeavour to enumerate them. In their operations they are combined and intermixed in incalculable and endless complexity; influencing and modifying each other's effects in every direction."-Ib. p. 12.

By some they have been spoken of in this erroneous sense; and by a too careless omission of all reference to him, they often seem to be so used, when the real meaning of the author, if fairly asked, would be found quite contrary to such an imputation.

Let us, then, remember, that whenever a law of nature operates, a power in nature is so operating. The enunciation of the law is but a designation of the power, and that particular power must either originate from itself, or from a superior power, which can only be the general Creator.

But all laws act in a regulated manner and to specific effects, and are in adjusted or governed harmony and coincidence with each other. They must, then, either regulate, adjust, and govern themselves, or they must be arranged and guided by some power extraneous to themselves, which can arrange and guide them; but no power can do so which has not mind, thought, intention, will, and determination, and so much of these as is adequate to do what is performed. The superior power from which all the laws of nature originate, and by which they are regulated, must, then, be an intelligent being, of a largeness of mind more than equal to all which the laws of nature exhibit or imply, as it comprehends, has derived, and established, and actuates all.

This leads us to the same inference as before. ing can only be the admirable and all-wise Creator.*

This be

The operating powers or laws of nature are moving powers; as such, they must either be self-moving, or be put into their motions by a power greater than their own. But if they be self-moving, all must be so, one as much as another; and this idea would give us as many self-moving powers in nature as there are moving forces; but if the active laws of nature are innumerable, we shall then have an innumerable quantity of self-moving forces.

Now we find, as already noticed, that all the laws and powers of nature are acting in a regulated manner, producing each its specific effect, and that all harmonize with mutual co-operation. They must, then, be all acting in concert with

* "Of such laws, ne is the lawgiver. At what an immeasurable interval is me thus placed above every thing which the creation of the inanimate world alone would imply; and how far must HK transcend all Ideas founded on such laws as we find there !"-Whewell, Astron. p. 373.