purpose; and the blind domain of physical laws and material necessity being broken, a direct interposition of God in the affairs of men becomes not only credible, but natural, and what we should most readily expect from infinite goodness and wisdom combined. We pass on, therefore, from the study of his works to that of his word, not by an abrupt or violent transition, but gradually, and with a distinct recognition of the unity of his character, and of the similarity of plan by which he governs the physical and moral universe, and proclaims his existence and his will to the creatures whom he has made.

SECOND PART.

CHAPTER I.

THE HUMAN DISTINGUISHED FROM THE BRUTE MIND.

Statement of the subject. We have finished a brief view of the ordinary argument for the being of a God. But the establishment of this truth alone, though it is the central doctrine of Natural Religion, and all the others depend upon it, still leaves us at the threshold of the subject. We have still to ascertain the character or attributes under which the Deity has manifested himself to mankind, and to learn if these are such as to create an obligation on our part to conform to his will. Obedience may be yielded either from involuntary awe, or blind submission to absolute and infinite power, or from veneration for perfect wisdom and holiness, and a mingled sentiment of duty, gratitude, and love. The prevalence of one or another of these motives will depend on the views which we may form of the Divine nature; and the peculiarity of the dominant motive will modify and shape the whole religious character.

It is but a part of the same inquiry to ask what the Divine will is, or what we are required to do, or to refrain from doing, from a regard to the relations in which we stand to God and o our fellow man. Apart from direct revelation, with which at present we have nothing to do, the will of the Deity can be

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inferred only from a knowledge of his character, and this can be learned in no other way than by the study of his works. His moral attributes, with which we are now chiefly concerned, are made known to us almost exclusively through the constitution of our own moral nature; and accordingly, the study of this nature, or of the ethical constitution of man, must be our chief guide in the present inquiry. As the former Part related mainly to things physical, or to what is taught us of the being and agency of God by the phenomena of the outward universe, so, in the present discussion, the nature and functions of conscience, and the analysis of our sense of moral obligation, must enable us to frame our conceptions of religious duty. This will be the principal aim and tendency of the investigation; incidentally, as before, we must seek for illustrations of the will and character of the Deity from the outward and visible things that he has made.

Basis of the inquiry.- What was attempted to be proved in the former discussion will now be taken for granted; and this includes, you will remember, not only the existence of God, but his incessant and omnipresent action in the universe. Both the creation of things and the direction of events are his; the fashioning of our bodies, the constitution of our minds, and the endowment of our moral nature, are alike the effects of his wisdom and appointment; and the reasoning from effect to cause, which was proved to be legitimate in the case already considered, must be applicable in all others. Even the attribute of freewill, in respect to which man alone is created in the likeness of his Maker, is his gift; and the possession of it is an indication of his will that it should be exercised. We are free to choose between the evil and the good; and this freedom presupposes opportunities for choice; it requires that the alternative should be presented to us, or it would be a delusion and a mockery. The promptings of conscience are as clear an indication of the moral judgments of God, as the instincts of animals, the processes of vegetable life, and the structure of the heavens are of his being and his power. In both 'cases, we reason from the thing that is created and finite to the self-existent and infinite Cause.

The study of human nature is our starting point. Among the works of creation, the study of which leads us up to a knowledge of the being and attributes of God, the foremost place is occupied by man himself. We are ourselves his offspring, creatures whom he has endowed with a peculiar physical, intellectual, and moral organization, the properties and tendencies of which reflect the character and purposes of our Maker. The marvellous structure of our bodies, these tenements of clay which we inhabit for a season, shows his wisdom, his constant agency, his designing care; so also the constitution of our minds, the laws by which our sensations, ideas, and judgments are formed and made to succeed each other, are so many tokens of the Divine will and character. They show what part God intended we should act upon the theatre of the universe. Still further, in our moral nature, or the emotions that are excited in us by the sight of surrounding objects and events, and especially by the contemplation of our own acts, and of those of our fellow beings, we find our only means of knowing what the moral attributes of God are, and what, if any, is his scheme of moral government. Practically speaking, we are concerned to know, not so much what things are in themselves, as the manner in which we are affected by the sight of them, and by living in the midst of them. The fitness of objects to give pleasure to man depends equally on the characteristic qualities of those objects, and on the susceptibility of the human mind to pleasure of one kind rather than another, and indeed on its capacity of being pleased at all.

The true end and aim of man's existence. We come, therefore, to an examination of the nature and functions of conscience, as the first point of our inquiry. My object will be to show, that man is not merely an intellectual being, placed here on earth to satisfy his curiosity, and to provide for his own wellbeing. This would be a conceivable end of his creation, but it is notoriously not the real end. If he had the intellectual faculties of an archangel, and this earth were a paradise for his habitation, affording every object that could gratify his desires. and promote his happiness,—if enjoyment brought no satiety,

and labor no fatigue, if his birth were only an introduction to active pleasure, and death were nothing but painless extinction, — then we could easily attribute unlimited benevolence to his Creator, and consider that man's only purpose in life was to pass on from one phase of happiness to another. Why is it, that we do not regard this as the actual, or even as a desirable, plan of human existence? It is only an obscure reference to such a scheme which lends any force, or indeed any meaning, to the oft-repeated complaints about the existence of evil under the government of a God of infinite benevolence. Yet when such a plan of life is presented for us to contemplate at once in its entireness, we almost instinctively reject it, as not admitting the existence of those qualities which now constitute the true ornament and dignity of human nature, and as making no provision for their cultivation, even if they did exist. A more authoritative principle than self-love declares to us, that the practice of virtue is higher than the pursuit of enjoyment, that holiness is more desirable than happiness, and that the Divine government, in so far as it shows infinite justice and benevolence combined, and affords scope for progress and effort, as well as for the gratification of desires ending in self, is in truth the noblest conceivable expression of the wisdom and goodness of God.

The contrast between man and the brute.-To prove this point, and to show by contrast the true nature of the moral faculty in man, I propose to go some way back, and to examine the only case within the sphere of human observation where intellectual are not combined with moral qualities, and where, consequently, enjoyment for the time must be regarded as the sole end of existence. I refer, of course, to the mental constitution of brutes, or of all orders of animated being which are inferior to man. The subject is confessedly an obscure one; but I doubt not that enough of it may be made out with certainty to answer all the purposes of this discussion. If the investigation should lead to the establishment of a broad distinction between man and the brute, so as to show that the mental endowments of the latter differ from those of the former, not in degree only, but in