without a most careful guard on every thing which is likely to divert or prejudice our attention. "Some indeed think it possible that the world may be governed by pure intentions, and the force of argument only. But it is well said by Mr. Wilberforce, when speaking of religion, "Man is not a being of mere intellect: Video meliora proboque; deteriora sequor,' is a complaint which, alas! we might all of us daily use. The slightest solicitation of appetite is often able to draw us to act in opposition to our clearest judgment, our highest interests, and most resolute determination."* How true is this remark, every day's observation will supply, both in our own experience and that of others, most abundant proof. So extraordinary is the influence of the lower part of our nature over the clearest and most unavoidable deductions of our intellect, that, as the learned Cudworth has remarked, if even geometrical theorems * Essay on the History of the English Government and Constitution, by Lord John Russell, p. 137. were connected with offensive moral truths, they would possibly become the subjects of eternal doubt and controversy. And does not this consideration afford the true solution of such cases as that of D'Alembert, the French infidel philosopher, who, once assured Count Struensee, that, though he had "carefully examined Christianity, and found nothing against reason in it, yet, the reason why he did not adopt it was, because he had no inward feelings of it." Was it likely that that talented individual could have any inward feelings of it? And will not Johnson's forcible remark,* the cause of Lord Rochester's infidelity, apply with equal demonstration to the scepticism of multitudes of that class of philosophers, both in those days and at all times? It is evident to me, though I confess I did not myself, amidst the confusion of a somewhat irregular course of study and mode of life, see it so clearly formerly, that, our wishes are most 'prolific on "Not finding it convenient to submit to the autho rity of laws which he was resolved not to obey, he sheltered his wickedness behind infidelity."—Lives of the Poets (Rochester). fathers to our thoughts, as well in bad things as in good. I have heard it objected to religious people, that they are blinded by their prejudices in favour of their peculiar principles: but, undoubtedly, that assertion is a sword, which acts two ways; and while, from this circumstance, there is on the one hand a strong antecedent probability of gain; on the other, there is an almost moral certainty of loss. I will endeavour briefly to illustrate this matter, by a notice of the inevitably bad effects upon the mind, of two species of indulgence, not properly restrained. The late Lord Byron (himself a melancholy* illustration, in not a few particulars, of the force of the preceding observations) has somewhere loosely remarked, "one of the two, according to your choice, woman or wine, you'll have to undergo." And this is to a certain degree true, of most, for whom I write; but, how certain the effects of either, in the sense he speaks of, on See a letter written by him a year or two only before he died, lamenting his irreligion and inconsistency. Appendix, ii. the conclusions of the understanding, and the religious opinions of the individual subject of them! With reference to the former, in the sense he means, (a habit, which at first sight seems to have some foundation in the proper dictates of nature, but which, in fact, is only an injurious perversion of them),* nothing can be more fatally subversive of the clearest deductions of the reasoning faculty. The poet Burns, has a just delineation of its effects, in degrading and incapacitating the whole man. The passage is familiar to most; but I cannot resist quoting it in this place: "The sacred lowe o' weel-plac'd love But never tempt th' illicit rove, Tho' naething should divulge it. "I wave the quantum o' the sin, But och! it hardens a' within, May, 1786. Epistle to a Young Friend. * See Appendix, iii., where the usual arguments for the necessity and lawfulness of such habits are fully obviated. How exquisitely faithful these two last lines! How inevitably does the practice here described, from the very nature of the sin and "hazard of concealing," harden, all within, and petrify the feelings, against the force of the most conclusive arguments which Deity can afford or man propound. I have conversed with multitudes of persons in a situation to give a just opinion, and have ever found, that precisely in the same ratio as, emerging from the restrictions of the parental roof, promiscuous intercourse with the abandoned of the other sex commenced; voluntary religious acts, (secret devotion especially), and an abiding sense of the Deity's presence and power declined, and doubts grew rapidly. And then, again, if any circumstance liberated the individual from his slavery to this propensity (unless, indeed, it was merely exchanged for some moral impediment as bad), as that individual gradually and permanently escaped the noxious influence of the brothel and its concomitants, so, the dictates of natural religion became again easy and obvious; the habit of |