tion, and even the possible change of that one object for another, was an arrangement entirely contingent on the will of God; but in what sense can constant dependence be predicated of man's subjective constitution? First, is he entirely passive in the hand of God? This would represent the Creator as the only agent in the universe, and the creation of man as only the production of an additional machine. Is he, then, secondly, to be regarded in the light of an instrument rendered independent of the Divine agency, except after the lapse of particular intervals, when he may need rectification? Still, this would only seem to represent him as a machine somewhat superior to that which he appears to be in the preceding theory. The third, and the true, theory, appears to be that which regards the Almighty as maintaining, by constant volition, the laws which his will originally gave to created objects. According to this view, a distinction is made between the physical power of willing and acting, and the uses which man makes of that power. For the power itself, he is always dependent on the continuance of the Divine will to that effect. That is to say, the Creator willed in our creation that such and such operations of our mind should invariably show us things as they are, harmonize with those things, and conduce to our happiness. The fact that they did so at first, proves that He willed it; and the fact that they continue to do so, proves that He continues to will to that effect. In the same way, events disclosed that in the constitution of the first man the Creator had willed that under given circumstances his sensations, thoughts, emotions, conscience, will, should all tend to right action; that in certain other circumstances they would end in wrong action; and that God continued to will this physical power of man's nature irrespective of the consequences likely to ensue; or, without interfering with man's free agency. The same will which originated the laws of man's constitution continued to maintain them in operation. So that man was as immediately dependent on the Divine will for the second moment of his existence as he was for the first, or, as he was dependent for the Volition to which he owed his origination. Nor did his dependence at all diminish with the continued operation of the laws of his nature. They could not exist by habit. They had momently to be renewed. That he was at all, and that he was naturally, what he was, was, at every point of time, dependent on the will of God. In Him, he lived, and moved, and had his being.

14. It is only consistent with this view, or explanatory of it,

to add, that the influence of the Divine volition in sustaining man's physical, intellectual, and moral constitution in being, would doubtless correspond with the particular nature of these respective parts. That is to say, the agency which sustained the physical part would differ from that which sustained the moral, as much as these parts themselves differ from each other. Now the voluntary state of man's mind answering to this constant physical dependence, was that of grateful moral or spiritual obligation to God. Man could not recognize the fact that everything within him was dependent for its susceptibilities and powers on the will of God; and that everything without him was dependent for its existence, and for its adaptation to his powers and susceptibilities, on the same will, without being conscious of constant and entire physical dependence on God; and this is a devotional spirit, the essence of prayer. And, then, it is to be remembered that the acts and affections of the mind flowing from this state, (leading to, and consisting of communion with God,) would tend to increase the creature's sense of dependence on God. By the mere physical or natural arrangement of man's constitution, he was made to be more affected by the character and presence of God, than by the presence of any other external object; and to be the more affected by them, the more they engaged his attention. By a providential arrangement, many things were appointed to remind him of God, and of his own dependence on Him--such as the appointment of the sabbath, the creation of woman, and the prohibition of a particular act. But if, besides, there existed then, as now, (and there did exist) a distinct moral arrangement, by which God and the creature mutually approached in communion, the one to acknowledge his dependence in acts of gratitude and adoration, the other to return these acts in donations of sustaining and ennobling spiritual influence, man was pervaded and surrounded by means and motives for living a life of faith in his Creator and Preserver.

15. That the constitution of man was completed, and the human dispensation commenced. Every line of it was held in the hand of the Creator, and dependent for its continuance in being on his will. Whatever modifications his providence might see fit to introduce, were as contingent on the good pleasure of his will as the modification of the preceding animal economy was by the introduction of the present. By instituting the new laws, he had not parted with the prerogative of legislation, but had rather proclaimed it. He will not impeach his equity in

the administration of the new economy; He cannot forfeit his sovereignty- that is, his eternal and unalienable right to maintain his equity, or to illustrate it by whatever new manifestations He please. For the present, however, the great mediatorial work of creation is completed; and He, by whom all things had been made, beheld in his creature, man, the manifestation, so far, of the Divine All-sufficiency.

CHAPTER XV.

ULTIMATE FACTS.

1. FROM the contingent let us ascend to the ultimate. For if man be thus directly dependent on the will of the Creator, we may expect to find that his constitution discloses ultimate facts. As it is made up of parts mutually dependent, we may be able to trace signs of the connection through two or three links of the chain. But presently we come to a fact which, for us, is ultimate; a point where each part passes out of view, and merges in the will of the Creator. Even the manner in which these two or three links are connected, is itself an ultimate fact is not derivable from, nor explicable by, anything of the same kind — admits of no physical solution.

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2. It is here important to remark that the term law itself, as applied to the processes of nature, denotes properly an ultimate fact. So far from explaining phenomena, it is only a name for the thing to be explained. A law of nature is a thing conceived, and not a thing that [objectively] exists; and, therefore, can neither act, nor be acted upon." "It has relation to us as understanding, rather than to the materials of which the universe consists as obeying, certain rules." It implies a Lawgiver, and denotes his purpose to act according to a certain rule. All that we see are its mere manifestations.

3. The misapplication of the word, then, is still greater when it is employed as equivalent to cause. In this case, there is more than the concealment of a difficulty; there is also the

* Sir W. Hamilton's Edition of Reid's Works, p. 66.

↑ Sir J. Herschell's Nat. Phil., § 27.

interpolation of an error. "What is called explaining one law of nature by another, is but substituting one mystery for another; and does nothing to render the course of nature other than mysterious. We can no more assign a why for the more extensive laws than for the partial ones. The explanation may substitute a mystery which has become familiar, and has grown to seem not mysterious, for one which is still strange. And this is the meaning of explanation in common parlance. The laws thus explained, or resolved, are sometimes said to be accounted for; but the expression is incorrect, if taken to mean anything more than what has been already stated."* Yet the ordinary fallacy is, that to discover the law of a sequence. -the mere fact

that one thing precedes another-is to discover its efficient cause; and that, having discovered this proximate antecedent, no other antecedent need be thought of; that the discoverer has taken it out of the hand of God, and of mystery, at the same time; whereas, not only is the law where it was before in relation to the Lawgiver, but the mystery is often numerically doubled the discovery being the unveiling of a new mystery. Sometimes we even hear of "an explanation of the laws which govern the phenomena of nature." But as, strictly speaking, the laws of nature is a phrase which, taken objectively, denotes only the uniformities existing among natural phenomena, so to speak of these uniformities as if they were producing, regulating, or governing powers-governing, that is, anything more than our anticipations is obviously absurd. They simply presuppose such powers, and are their manifestations. They are only according to law, and therefore are not produced by it. Laws are not causes, but their consequences.

4. In treating on the facts of nature, then, there are at least three courses open in relation to their laws and causes; to admit the hypothetical existence of an original cause, a primordial necessity, which, as it has no longer anything to do with the universe, is to be studiously kept out of view, and nothing to be spoken of but inherent forces, and their effects; or to dismiss this hypothesis of a primordial necessity as a relic of superstition, and to sink all idea even of abstract forces as causes of phenomena, attending only to the observation of facts, and the laws of their development; or to admit that the same intelligent Will which originated the universe, maintains it in operation, not, indeed, by unconnected acts of power, but by a

* Mill's Logic, i. pp. 559, 560.

constant regular volition, acting according to conditionally established laws.

5. Of the first course, the distinguished author of " Kosmos" may be regarded as a representative. In his hands, "physical science limits itself to the explanation of the phenomena of the material world by the properties of matter". that is, by forces inherent in matter according to an occult primordial necessity. The moral, as well as the material systems, according to this view, compose one piece of iron mechanism, wound up from time to time, to go for a longer or shorter period, but all moral freedom is denied to the subjects of it; nor is any recognized even in the occult Necessity which puts it into motion. What the author would think of the moral honesty of a number of reviewers who should analyze his work, and should descant on its vivid pictures of nature, command of language, and richness of illustration, without a single distinct recognition of its authorship, we know not. But here is a method of philosophizing which virtually and complacently ignores the Author of the universe. Effects are. resolved into the forces of nature; and the mind, thus put off with a word, in the stead of a thing, is to suppose that it has received an adequate explanation, and trains itself to rest satisfied with it. Mind alone, the mind of a Humboldt, can trace the laws of these forces, but no reference whatever is to be made to any Mind as creating and superintending them; in other words, merely to perceive them is a proof of mind sufficient to make the world resound with its fame, but to make them has so little to do with Mind that the world is to preserve a death-like silence respecting it. The mind of the observer, too, is conscious of moral freedom, conscious that he is the regulating power of his own actions, but the system assures him that this is false, that he is a compelled portion of a vast machine without choice or option: that is to say, he is to confide in his senses, but not in his consciousness; or, he is to rely on the truth of what consciousness attests respecting the external world, but to disbelieve its testimony respecting the world within its affirmations respecting that which is not itself, matter, are to be accepted; but those which relate to itself, and on which the truth of the others depend, are to be discredited.

6. Of the second method, M. Comte is, at present, the great advocate. According to him, philosophy, dismissing all theological and metaphysical ideas, all thought of supernatural powers and of natural forces, must confine itself simply to the outward