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THE

PRINCIPLES

OF

METAPHYSICAL AND ETHICAL SCIENCE

APPLIED TO THE

EVIDENCES OF RELIGION.

A NEW EDITION,

REVISED AND ANNOTATED, FOR THE USE OF COLLEGES.

BY FRANCIS BOWEN, A. M.

ALFORD PROFESSOR OF NATURAL RELIGION, MORAL PHILOSOPHY, AND CIVIL POLITY IN

HARVARD COLLEGE.

BOSTON:

BREWER AND TILESTON.

CLEVELAND: INGHAM AND BRAGG.

£6 1853

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1855, by
FRANCIS BOWEN,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

CAMBRIDGE:

ALLEN AND FARNHAM, STEREOTYPERS AND PRINTERS.

PREFACE.

THE substance of this work was delivered in two courses of lectures before the Lowell Institute in Boston, in the winters of 1848-9.) These lectures were afterwards published, but the edition of them is now exhausted. Having had occasion to use the work as a text-book of instruction, for the students of Harvard College, in the leading doctrines of Metaphysical and Ethical Philosophy, considered as bearing upon the Evidences of Religion, I have endeavored to recast the materials in this edition, so as to render it more available for such a purpose. A few abridgments have made room for considerable additions, mostly in the form of notes, which are principally designed to elucidate and criticize at greater length those doctrines and theories on philosophy and science which were but briefly noticed in the lectures. In its present form, the work is designed to be a compend of the principles of Ethics and Metaphysics, so far as these affect the foundations of our religious belief. Some of the notes are merely explanatory, while others are intended, by citations from different writers, to support the positions maintained in the text. I have made free use, for this purpose, of the writings of Isaac Taylor, John S. Mill, Dr. Whewell, and Sir William Hamilton. In its present form, the work may be regarded as an imperfect supplement to the invaluable treatises of Dr. Butler and Dr. Paley, the principal object being to consider those objections and difficulties in the way of the believer which are of recent origin, or have grown out of recent discoveries and

(iii)

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