we see an orrery or planetarium philosophically constructed, or a Gunter's scale, or a gauging-rod, we intuitively perceive the necessity of a cause which comprehends a priori principles, and ultimate truths. Or if we see a system of regulations and influences founded upon and embodying moral principles, we know that its author had the capacity to see the right as an ultimate truth, and to comprehend the absolute law of moral distinctions. We shall recognize in this the possession of a faculty which discriminates between rational and animal intelligence in kind and not merely in degree. Whenever we find the exhibition of any such universal and necessary truths as the principle and guide of the action, we know that the agent possessed powers of mind which mark an everlasting distinction in kind, between him and that intelligence which all the traces of adaptation to an end in the animal can manifest. Here, therefore, is the same sound principle for a demonstration, as in the former methods of a posteriori argument.

We look abroad then in nature, and the data for these deductions abound. The laws of planetary motion, the ratio of the distance and force of gravitation, and the collocation of the heavenly bodies in accordance therewith, the laws of crystallization, etc., etc., furnish the elements of an irrefragable deduction that there exists a rational mind as the author of these arrangements, who, intuitively and independently of all experience, comprehends abstract principles, and necessary truths, and universal verities, and to which no augmentation of the powers of an animal can approach.

Moreover, we are conscious of the perception of right and wrong, and the feeling of moral accountability, and experience the retributions of good and evil within us in accordance with our moral conduct, and are thus obliged to infer that our maker knows and regards the principles of moral rectitude. We see around us the indications of a widely extended moral system of which we are component parts; all the workings of which are evidently securing the moral trial and discipline of its subjects, and all tending onward to some great moral consummation; and we know that there must be a moral maker and governor, who will hold all responsible to a righteous tribunal. We have the data for a complete demonstration that there is in being a rational and moral cause.

There is but one source of difficulty in coming to this conclusion which needs to be obviated. We have assumed as a

necessary truth, that the manifestation of ultimate principles in the effects produced involves the power of rational intuition in the agent; and that this distinguishes him from all animals. But there is at least one animal whose works are in accordance with the strictest mathematical principles. The bee forms its cells with the most rigid mathematical precision, adapted to the greatest economy in space, strength and materials. The celebrated Colin Maclaurin, a mathematician of the early part of the eighteenth century, demonstrated, by the most exact calculation, that the angles and parallelograms in the cells of the honey-comb were always invariably the same; and precisely such as, with the greatest room, secured also the greatest strength with the least material. Has the bee, then, a perception of the ultimate truths of mathematics?

Past all doubt, had we discovered these properties in the cell of the bee, and knew nothing of its maker, we must have referred it to a cause possessing the attributes of rational intuition. But when we now know the immediate architect, and thus determine its destitution of all mathematical science, we must refer this instinctive skill to a higher source, and predicate rational intuition of that mind which made the bee, and fitted her to work after this rule, unconsciously, through all her generations. Just as in the case of the mariner, who, mechanically, with quadrant and tables made and calculated to his hand, can determine his latitude and longitude, but knows nothing of the principles involved. While we know his ignorance, we know also that some mind has left here the undoubted traces of its philosophic powers and clear and certain intuitions. Thus, what at first might seem a violation of the principle, on the necessity and universality of which we had laid the validity of our demonstrations, is found, by further attention, ultimately to confirm the position which has been taken.

By an a posteriori argument from the exhibitions of an intuition of absolute truths in the works of nature, we obtain more than an intelligence which like the animal can adapt means to ends with the design of gaining the ends. There is the demonstration of a cause directing itself in its action by the absolute truth in necessary and universal principles. We can also say that, following these causes, in which are the traces of ultimate truth, as they retrograde from the present, they converge toward unity, and looking at the harmony of their adaptations and tendencies to the same ultimate result, there is an evidence of unity

of design, and thus a probable indication of one rational designer.

But here is our limit. We cannot a posteriori demonstrate absolute unity of cause; nor, if we assume that the author of this universe of effect and design and intuition is one, can we stop with him, and demonstrate that he has no external cause of being. The argument is the same in relation to ultimate principles as to adaptation. It must take every thing that it finds as an effect and thus demanding a cause, and consequently pursuing an infinite series in the line of causes which indicate intuition, as certainly and necessarily as in those which indicate design, or those of simple efficiency to produce effects. As the mathematics of the bee is instinctive, so may that of the maker of the bee also be instinctive, and thus demanding a higher origin. Yea, from the very nature and law of an a posteriori argument, we must seek as necessarily for an author to the maker of the heavens as to the maker of the honey-comb. And here the a posteriori argument stops in its development of any thing new in its results. Henceforth it must go backwards to infinity, finding nothing but a mere antecedent link as the cause of the consequent, and differing in nothing from the consequent but mere priority of existence and action.

III. The extent to which the mere a posteriori argument for the existence of God reaches.

1. It finds a cause for all that has a beginning, except for this ultimate cause itself. In this respect it is powerless, and can never find any data to remove the exception. In mere efficiency it can never find any thing by which, as an effect, it can make the deduction that this deficiency originates itself. A posteriori reasoning knows nothing of self-existence, but only of derived existence. So in design and rational intuition, it can find no effects by which it can determine that the design and intuition are self-originated. It demands for them a cause, and it knows no other way of finding a cause than by a deduction ab extra.

2. It proves for this cause unity of design and counsel. The operation of the moving adaptations of nature may be put forth, and directed by many contemporary causes; and an a posteriori argument can never demonstrate that, at any period backward, there was in existence more than one cause. It can only prove that there is agreement or harmony of plan and operation, but not absolute unity of being in the cause.

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3. It can prove that this adequate cause of all things now exists, and that from eternity an adequate cause for all things must have had a being, but it cannot reach into the future, and prove that this cause will exist the next hour. All its deductions are from events and facts of present or past being. In their case there is or has been a reality of existence, and hence a reality of their cause. But future existences, either as effects

or causes, are not given, and cannot therefore be assumed as the data for any deductions. We must have the effect or we cannot infer the cause. An a posteriori argument goes back, but never can reach before.

4. It can prove the existence of the cause to be as extensive as the effects; but it can never prove absolute immensity for this cause, neither in presence nor agency. Wherever there are effects a cause must have energized; and as mighty as is the effect produced, so powerful must have been the energizing of the cause. But unless effects fill immensity, they can never prove the immensity of their cause, nor that there is a power which can reach beyond what has actually been accomplished.

An a posteriori argument, therefore, is utterly inadequate to demonstrate the being of an absolute, free and self-existent God. It finds a cause, and demonstrates the possession by that cause of efficiency adequate to the production of all that is in being below itself, but it fails utterly in elevating that cause to an identity with that which conforms to the complete idea of God.

By combining both the a posteriori and the a priori forms of argument, we can at least advance very far in the demonstration. The result will evince how conclusive this combined ar

gument may be made. In our own view it fails in no point necessary to the proof of the being of God, though it should fail in identifying the immediate author of the universe as God. The following are the several steps in the process we would

pursue.

1. We would assume the very fact of the last and highest demonstration obtained by the a posteriori argument, as our position for a new process of reasoning. An intelligent and rational causation, with unity of design, if not of existence, is in being, adequate to the production of whatever is, beside itself. This is the extent of the a posteriori reasoning, but it is absolute demonstration so far. We therefore take solid ground when we assume this position. From this point we exclude all a pos

teriori proof in our advance, and employ the a priori form of argument entirely. And here it is plain that we begin an argument a priori with great advantage over a process that is purely a priori from its origin. We have now demonstrated facts into which we may look, and a priori draw conclusions; but in the pure form of the argument we have nothing but necessary ideas from which to reason. The pure form of an a priori demonstration for the being of God may prove itself too high for man to reach; and yet the blended argument of both a posteriori and a priori be fairly within his power to urge to a conclusive demonstration.

2. In advancing from this position we begin with unity of design. From the very fact and nature of unity of design, there must ultimately be seen intuitively but one agent as the designer. If it be supposed that many agents conspire together to carry on harmoniously the different parts of one complicated plan, still it must be true that the plan is one and single. The pattern, exemplar or idea, after which all work to the point of final development, is a unit, and must have one mind only as its original ground of being. If all these conspir agents see the whole plan, or each one sees only the particular part of the plan which he is effecting, it is the same in the result. One master mind among them or over them all must have furnished the model, and on its reception all unite in accomplishing it by consent; or the master mind uses them as mere agents in their various parts of effecting his design; or there is some law of unity which, involuntarily and instinctively to all, impels and guides in the moving process. In either case we come at a definite point of causation in which both design and efficiency meet together, and where there can no longer be a community of agents, but where one must stand sole and controlling above all others. This point of causation contains all that is beneath it, both of plan and execution, and from it goes out the energy which puts the whole moving series in operation. We have then absolutely one mind at the point of divergency of the operating causes in the universe,—itself the sum and source of all beneath its own existence.

3. This one mind is either a self-existent, independent and absolute cause in its own ground of being, or it is an effect of a previous cause external to itself. Grant it to be the last, and then it may be traced up to such first cause in its own absolute being, or there is an eternal series. But this last, it may be in