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A still more pleasing proof of uniformity of design may be found in the preservation of the common type of humanity among all nations, and in all ages of the world. Make out the difference as wide as you can between the savage and the civilized man, yet it is as nothing when compared with the interval which lies between the savage and the brute. This interval is constant. Exhaust all the means and artifices of instruction upon one of the lower animals, and he never even approaches the boundary line of humanity. On the other hand, all projects for reclaiming the criminal or the savage go upon the supposition that he is a human being, like ourselves, that he is moved by the same desires, agitated by the same passions, and has faculties which, though latent now, are capable of as high development. We instinctively recognize this common humanity, and act upon it; the taking of human life is everywhere viewed as a grave and awful deed, to be justified only by pressing necessity; while mere animal existence is sacrificed without a touch of remorse. Persons of delicate feelings, indeed, may shrink from the work; but their repugnance is founded mainly on an amiable illusion, which invests the dumb creature a favorite domestic animal, perhaps with some of the attributes of humanity. The individuals who make up the race are constantly changing; one generation succeeds another, and, at the close of a century, hardly one human being survives who was alive at its commencement. But the unchanging characteristics, the type, of the species, survive all mutations, and the subject of history is still the same. In every age and every country, the great features of humanity appear as steadfast as if they were engraved in marble. "It is this," says an eminent writer, "which gives the great charm to what we call nature in epic and dramatic compositions; when the poet speaks a language to which every heart is an echo, and which, amidst all the effects of education and fashion in modifying and disguising the principles of our constitution, reminds all the various classes of readers or spectators of the existence of those moral ties which unite us to each other and to our common Parent."

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The facts upon which I have dwelt in this Lecture are sufficiently familiar; and it is true of all of them, that they suggest rather than prove the great doctrine of the unity of God. The truth of this doctrine is sufficiently established, as was remarked in the outset, by the absence of all evidence to the contrary. We have abundant testimony that one God exists; we have not even an intimation that there is more than one; and this is enough. I have sought to show, however, that this truth, like the other doctrines of natural theology, is continually suggested to us by a study of the universe in which we live, and of which we form a part. In the unity of our own life and consciousness we find reflected the unity of Him from whom we derived our being. Every man, a single, active, conscious self, is the image of his Maker. There is in him one undivided animating principle, which, in its perceptions and operations, runs through the whole system of matter that it inhabits; it perceives for the most distant parts of the body; it cares for all and governs all ; — thus leading us, by analogy, to form an idea of the one great quickening Spirit which presides over the whole frame of nature, the spring of all motion and operation in it, understanding and active in all parts of the universe, not as its soul, indeed, but as its Lord, by whose vital directing influence it is, though so vast a bulk and consisting of so many parts, united into one regular fabric."*

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* Abernethy on the Divine Attributes, I. p. 173.

LECTURE X.

THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL CANNOT BE PROVED WITHOUT THE AID OF REVELATION.

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POLYTHEISM, it was remarked in the last Lecture, is the religion of a barbarous age, and of the uncultivated understanding. It is the natural product of the religious sentiment before the reasoning power is developed, or the mind informed by reflection and careful study of the phenomena of the physical and moral universe. I do not say that polytheism is a natural form of religion, because I do not believe that barbarism and ignorance are natural to man. The great purpose of our being, as I have attempted to show, is self-improvement in the largest sense, moral, intellectual, and religious progress achieved by our own efforts; and we are in our natural condition only when we are active in that work. Barbarism is no otherwise natural to the human race than infancy is; it is a point of departure, a commencement of growth. The religious sentiment of an uncivilized people first manifests itself in idolatry, that is, in a worship of false gods, or a system of polytheism. History and the reports of travellers inform us, that this is the universal faith of savage tribes. A few minds, far in advance of the others in refinement and habits of reflection, may throw off this belief of the populace; but they usually take refuge from it in general skepticism or fanciful speculation, rather than in pure theism. It is of no more use, then, to disprove polytheism than to argue against barbarism; that cannot be disproved which does not rest

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upon argument or conviction, and which is not so much an opinion or belief, as a popular delusion, the origin or natural history of which is distinctly traceable. Striking events in nature, when no progress has been made in the study of general laws, are referred each to its separate conscious cause; and the savage, who is awed or terrified by a storm, an earthquake, a volcano, or the heaving of the ocean, soon comes to worship a crowd of deities. When the nature of these phenomena comes to be understood, the whole basis of the system is taken away, and polytheism dies a natural death.

There is no need, then, I remarked, to prove the unity of the Deity, because nothing can be alleged against it; and having found one cause that accounts for all the phenomena, it is a wholly gratuitous hypothesis to suppose that there are other causes. Still, a study of God's works in various ways indicates or suggests the unity of their Author, and I briefly reviewed some of these indications. What is absolutely single, we can demonstrate, has but one cause; for every power in action must produce some effect; and if there were two causes, there must be two effects, or an effect in some way complex, or consisting of parts or degrees. Again, if the unity is only virtual, like that of an organism or a machine, in which all the parts visibly conspire to one end, and the whole is not merely their aggregate, but their result, we see unity of intention throughout that organism, and the presumption is irresistible in favor of the unity of its cause.

The universe, I endeavoured to show, is such an organism, all its parts being essential to the perfection of the whole. The same laws prevail throughout its immeasurable extent, governing alike the least events and the greatest. Light, gravitation, electricity, chemical affinity, and the like, are universally operating agents, that bind all the parts of the vast system together. Organized life, whether animal or vegetable, is cast in the same general mould, the great features of one plan being preserved throughout, though with numberless modifications to adapt it to particular cases. The boundary lines of the species are immovable, the type of each race being preserved through countless genera

tions. Plants and animals resemble each other in their organs and functions, and, in connection with the atmosphere, form a great circuit through which matter is continually passing, alternately in an organic and an inorganic state; each of the three component parts or agents is essential to the continuance of the system; for, any one of them being taken away, the balance would be destroyed, the circulation would soon stop, and the organization of nature would sink into nothingness or ruin. these physical laws and agencies can be traced up to their ultimate purpose in the education of mind and the formation of character; thus the universe of matter and mind constitutes one whole, all the parts working to one great end, so that we are unavoidably guided to the conclusion that it has but one Author, Designer, and Sovereign.

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The proof of the other attributes of God, to the full extent that is needed for religious faith and practice, follows immediately from the doctrines that have already been established. He is omnipresent and omniscient, who not only designed and created, but directs and governs all. His power and wisdom are commensurate with his works; and as those works constitute but one system, and are directed to one end, every portion of it, however minute, is essential to its perfection and continuance, and therefore cannot have escaped his oversight and control. The sphere of his existence is certainly coextensive with the sphere of his operation; and this, in our ignorance of the true relation of pure mind to space, is the only conception that we can form of universal presence. Whether this ubiquity, in the language of the schools, be virtual or essential, those can judge who can best determine whether the human agent, the indivisible unit of personality, is directly or mediately present through the whole of the complex structure of bones and muscles which it inhabits, and with every portion of which it certainly exists in intimate union. The question is one purely of curiosity or mere speculation; the attribute is made known to us as real to the full extent to which we are able to form a conception of it. There is little use in being able to demonstrate the reality of what is inconceivable.

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