life's conduct as a whole must be expected to have consequences in a next life. CHAPTER III. continues CHAPTER II. We perceive a government by rewards and punishments, but is it a moral government? Taking life as it is, what do we gather of the mind of God? What are the moral principles of His government? Here comes in the Dissertation on Virtue to insist that the distinction between vice and virtue is a natural one. Virtue as such is rewarded as beneficial to society, and vice as such is punished as mischievous. This chapter has been called the kernel of the Analogy. As the sermons on human nature argue for a conscience in the individual man, so this chapter may be said to be an inquiry as keen as it is dispassionate into the question, Is there a conscience in life as we know it? Is there a moral Governor of the universe? CHAPTERS IV. and V. We proceed now to examine the meaning of our state of probation. In our temporal interests, trial, difficulties, and danger produce prudence; and by analogy we may expect that in our eternal interests the same tests are intended to produce virtue. Why we must be in a state of hazard and danger we cannot fully explain, but the constitution of nature is as it is. Temporally our happiness and misery depend upon our conduct under trial. It is credible, therefore, that our final and eternal destiny is in the same case. The subject continued. The life of youth as an education for mature age offers an analogy to this life as a preparation for the next. We have capacities now which we shall fully use and understand then. We promote and establish in ourselves various habits. We need habits in maturity which in youth we had not yet formed. Most of all we need moral habits, or character. It is a general law of life that what we were to be was to be the effect of what we would do. By analogy the same will hold of the next life. This is the most famous chapter in the Analogy. Its germ is to be found in Sermon xv., "On the Ignorance of Man.". CHAPTER VI. The doctrine of necessity is made by many the basis of unbelief, and therefore this chapter digresses to consider whether "the opinion of necessity" interferes with the account given of the moral government of the world. But that account has been founded upon the facts of life, and these facts must be proved different if our account is to be overthrown. Moreover, in practice we ignore the doctrine of necessity. We allow no theory of fate to banish responsibility from human affairs. The doctrine of necessity therefore considered as practical is false. CHAPTER VII. This last chapter investigates the consequences of the limitations of human knowledge. Our world is a corner only of the universe; our minds take only a narrow view of our corner. We imperfectly comprehend God's natural and also God's moral government. The sermon on the Ignorance of Man contains the germ of this characteristic chapter, in which Butler's profound conviction of the limitations of the reason he uses so patiently within its limits, is set forth. PART II. of the Analogy is summarised sufficiently in its Conclusion. Its arguments and statements have been more affected by the progress of religious thought and criticism than Part i. The subjects of prophecy and miracle, in chapter vii. more especially, are not convincingly treated from the standpoint of to-day. Chapters iii. and iv. are the kernel of Part ii., which generally aims at extending to the Christian revelation those positions which in Part i. have been asserted for natural religion. PAGE 5 Of the Government of God by Rewards and Punish- ments; and particularly of the latter Of the Moral Government of God Of our Incapacity of Judging what were to be ex- pected in a Revelation; and the Credibility, from Analogy, that it must contain things appearing liable to Objection Of Christianity, considered as a Scheme or Constitu- tion, imperfectly comprehended Of the particular system of Christianity; the appoint- Of the want of Universality in Revelation; and of the supposed Deficiency in the Proof of it Of the particular Evidence for Christianity Of the Objections which may be made against argu- AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION PROBABLE evidence is essentially distinguished from demonstrative by this, that it admits of degrees; and of all variety of them, from the highest moral certainty, to the very lowest presumption. We cannot indeed say a thing is probably true upon one very slight presumption for it; because, as there may be probabilities on both sides of a question, there may be some against it; and though there be not, yet a slight presumption does not beget that degree of conviction which is implied in saying a thing is probably true. But that the slightest possible presumption is of the nature of a probability, appears from hence; that such low presumption often repeated, will amount even to moral certainty. Thus a man's having observed the ebb and flow of the tide to-day, affords some sort of presumption, though the lowest imaginable, that it may happen again to-morrow; but the observation of this event for so many days, and months, and ages together, as it has been observed by mankind, gives us a full assurance that it will. That which chiefly constitutes Probability is expressed in the word Likely, i.e., like some truth, or true event (verisimile); like it, in itself, in its evidence, in some more or fewer of its circumstances. For when we determine a thing to be probably true, suppose that an event has or will come to pass, it is from the mind's remarking in it a likeness to some other event, which we have observed has come to pass. And this observation forms, in numberless daily instances, a presumption, opinion, or full conviction, that such event has or will come to pass; according as the observation is, that the like event has sometimes, most commonly, or always, so far as our observation reaches, come to pass at like distances of time, or place, or upon like occasions. Hence arises the belief, that a child, if it lives twenty years, will grow up to the stature and strength of a man; that food will contribute to the preservation of its life, and the want of it for such a number of days be its certain destruction. So likewise the rule and measure of our hopes and fears concerning the success of our pursuits; our expectations that others will act so and so in such circumstances; and our judgment that such actions proceed from such principles; all these rely upon our having observed the like to what we hope, fear, expect, judge; I say, upon our having observed the like, either with respect to others or ourselves. And thus, whereas the prince who had always lived in a warm climate, naturally concluded in the way of analogy, that there was no such thing as water's becoming hard, because he had always observed it to be fluid and yielding; we, on the contrary, from analogy conclude, that there is no presumption at all against this; that it is supposable there may be frost in England any given day in January next; probable that there will on some day of the month; and that there is a moral certainty, i.e., ground for an expectation without any doubt of it, in some part or other of the winter. Probable evidence, in its very nature, affords but an imperfect kind of information; and is to be considered as relative only to beings of limited capacities. For nothing which is the possible object of knowledge, whether past, present, or future, can be probable to an infinite Intelligence; since it cannot but be discerned absolutely as it is in itself—certainly true, or certainly false. But to us, probability is the very guide of life. From these things it follows, that in questions of difficulty, or such as are thought so, where more satisfactory evidence cannot be had, or is not seen ; if the result of examination be, that there appears upon the whole, any the lowest presumption on one side, and none on the other, or greater presumption on one side, though in the lowest degree greater; this determines the question, even in matters of speculation ; and in matters of practice, will lay us under an absolute and formal obligation, in point of prudence and of interest, to act upon that presumption or low probability, though it be so low as to leave the mind in very great doubt which is the truth. For surely a man is as really bound in prudence to do |