certitude, which forms the natural conclusion of every chain of thought which any individual endeavours to pursue to its uttermost bearing: it is the irresistible, unfailing term of every abstraction of idea which the human mind is capable of forming to itself; and so mixed with our natural (one might rather say) necessary, habits of thinking, that it is not uncommon in the world to hear it asserted, that the idea of a God is intuitive in man. And certainly, the existence of a supreme Being is one of those truths at which reasoning humanity cannot fail of itself one day or other to arrive; so true is the proverb-it is the fool, who says in his heart there is no God.

Beyond this, our unassisted reason cannot go: the human creation is not able, as was before observed, to comprehend the nature of any class of existence beyond its own, much less of the highest and most perfect of such beings. There is no channel whatever, into which a man can turn his thoughts, that seems to bring him even to a nearer approach to divinity, one than another: all attempts seem equally pow

erless and unavailing, and alike to show the utter incompetency of his endowments. Let a man contemplate for a few moments the nature of infinite knowledge, or of eternity of time-in what a chaos of obstructions, in what a multitude of confused admirations is his thought immediately involved! It finds, as it were, nothing on which it can fasten; all is lost and dissipated in a vastness and vacuity that seems to overwhelm his faculties. Let him think of immensity of space-the touch shrinks back, appalled at the idea of something that it has no sensation of the mental eye appears to strain, till it sees nothing but the blot that closed upon the light; and even the imagination, boundless as its range appears on every other ground, sinks before the greatness of the void; we think and think until the very power of thinking seems as it were dead.

Still, these feelings are not useless, or unbecoming to our nature; if properly applied, they pave the way for that prostration of spirit, that docility of mind, arising from the demonstration of our incapacity, which best prepares

us to meet the necessities of our condition, and best fits us to receive with a good grace those divine regulations which the Deity has thought most acceptable, and most fitted for our moral constitution. In one word, it prepares us to believe in God's revelation, or, if the phrase be allowable-to take Him at his word.

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CHAPTER V.

Modern Systems of Philosophy of the Human Mind-The Elements of the System of Kant-Humility of Mind which ought to result from the Discoveries of Philosophy Reasons why the Minor Philosophers are presumptuous in spite of the Nature of these Discoveries.

ANOTHER Very large class of indifferents to religion is found amongst the students in metaphysics and the followers in general of any of the modern systems of philosophy. And these pursuits may be said to be much in vogue in those countries where persons of ease and affluence, in consequence of the unfortunate political constitution of their country, have no real employment furnished for their time and talents. Why such studies should lead to such results shall be a subject for future consideration; in the mean time, as we have set out by saying that no branch of art or science ought to be omitted by those who would wish to investigate the mighty schemes of Providence, we must not neglect one that has been so much exalted

in common estimation. We will commence by an examination of the more modern ideas with regard to the foundation of metaphysical science, namely, the elementary laws of belief by which the human mind is regulated in plain words, the actual causes why our assent is necessary, as appears to certain propositions, to such as we call natural truths.

For this purpose, we must give an account, in the first instance, of the elementary doctrines of the system of Kant, not merely because they have attained so much celebrity in the world, but because they afford a clearer exposition of these points than those of any other philosopher of the age. Kant's system is entitled the critical or transcendental philosophy (critik der reinen vernunft, critique de la raison pure,) being called critical, as exercising its criticism on the nature of reason itself, not on those matters which are the object of reason; and transcendental, as going beyond the illusions or representations of our senses, and aiming directly at the nature of those representations.

Had Locke never lived, in all probability Kant and his philosophy would have occupied