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I conjecture that it may be owing to such a cause. This may lead me to make the experiments or obser vations proper for discovering, whether that is really the cause or not; and if I can discover, either that it is, or is not, my knowledge is improved, and my conjecture was a step to that improvement. But while I rest in my conjectures, my judgment remains in suspense, and all I can say is, it may be so, and it and it may be otherwise."

This is a very just view of the stress which ought in any case to be laid on hypothesis, and of the uses to which it may be applied. When it is employed simply as the means of stimulating our efforts in the pursuit of truth, urging us forward to the regions of certainty and knowledge, and not rested on as an ascertained and established fact, it cannot do injury, and it may do some good. It is melancholy to think, however, that this, more than any other cause, prevented the progress of reason and science during many ages, and that nearly all the labours of the most distinguished metaphysicians of modern times have been occupied in removing the rubbish which fanciful and fertile hypotheses had associated with the philosophy of the human mind. From the nature of this science, its remoteness from the comprehension of many of the species, and the facts which it analyzes, not being subjected to the evidence of our senses, it must be allowed, that it is more difficult to rescue it from the abuse of hypothesis, than chemistry or natural philosophy; but it forms no slight ground of encouragement, that even these branches of knowledge were once as full of absurd and fanciful conjectures as this;

and that the same rigid attention to the methods of analysis and induction, the only safe and successful way of pursuing philosophical inquiries, which has carried them to so high an eminence, may give the same commanding attitude to the study of our own intellectual and moral frame. Truth is one, and those who are animated by the love of it, have no cause to fear that in any department of nature it is entirely removed beyond the reach of the human faculties, or that humility and industry, connected with definite notions of the proper objects of inquiry, will not be rewarded with more just and comprehensive views of the structure and operations of the human mind.

THE ELEMENTS

OF

MORAL PHILOSOPHY

BOOK I.

CHAPTER I.

THE BEING, PERFECTIONS, AND PROVIDENCE OF GOD, MADE KNOWN BY THE CREATION.

GOD is a spirit, and is therefore invisible to us. No man hath seen God at any time. In his nature and essence he is hid from us; and his perfections also would have been for ever unknown to us, had he not been pleased to give a manifestation of them. While this manifestation is unquestionably given in his word, some have doubted whether it has been afforded in his works, at least, with such clearness as might furnish the mind of man with distinct apprehensions of the being, unity, and attributes of God.

It is affirmed, however, by an inspired Apostle, that that which may be known of God is manifest without the light of revelation; and that the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead. Had we been destitute of the sacred volume, this would still be a question of the deepest personal interest; and even as it is, it

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possesses considerable practical importance, both as it regards our views of the moral government of God in general, and as it relates to the evidence of divine revelation. All the sources of our information, and all the pursuits of life, are valuable only as they can be subservient to an increase of our knowledge of the character and glories of the Creator and Preserver of all; and if a survey of his works and of his ways tends to render our conceptions of him more accurate, or, should it merely serve to shew how greatly we are indebted to the light of the written word, the labour which we undergo, and the attention which we give, are not bestowed in vain.

I shall, therefore, attempt briefly to ascertain what may be known of the character and government of God from the works of creation and providence, or without the light of revelation.

But before entering on the elucidation of these particulars, it may be proper to make a remark or two on the language of the Apostle to which I have referred. The phrase," that which may be known of God," refers, of course, not to his essence, which is invisible, but to his properties and attributes. That which may be known of a person is that which distinguishes him from all other objects, whether it be his form, or some other characteristic qualities; and that which may be known of God are the qualities and perfections that are peculiar to him. These, we are told, are manifest, or may be ascertained, by those who have not the light of revelation; for God hath shewed them unto them. The accuracy of this interpretation is confirmed by the phraseology of the following verse. By the words,

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