Interposition:-Permanent Laws.

THE notion of physical cause and effect being reduced to a bare "sequence," has been strongly objected to as injurious to the belief in the Divine agency in nature; and the supposition of an acting efficient cause in every natural phenomenon, has been emphatically insisted on as necessary for the support of that doctrine. But from the view we have here taken of the nature of physical causes, and their relation to moral, we see that, so far from supporting, the supposition of such direct perpetual intervention would, in fact, invalidate the evidence of} a First Cause.

According to the view here supported of the nature of physical causes, it has sufficiently appeared that, in including in our idea the relation of the more particular to the more general fact, we have assigned the origin of our ideas of the closest and most inseparable union of cause and effect; and this relation is obviously dependent upon the degree in which we can generalize among the phenomena of nature; that is, upon the degree in which we can trace order and arrangement. Thus, the greater the extent to which we can trace physical causes, in this sense, the more surely founded is the inference of moral

..on and all-powerful intelligence, derived from the contemplation of this order of causes.

And when we reflect upon the unbounded vastness

of nature, which expands under our examination, and which receives enlargement continually from every additional advance which the practical application of science confers on the perfection of our senses,when we find the same beauty and uniformity preserved throughout the utmost range of our observations, and when we add, that all this is but a small speck in the actual immensity of the universe -we surely derive the highest possible proofs and indications of recondite and perfect adjustment through the extent of the visible world: so that we can but by feeble and dim analogies, most imperfectly express our partial apprehension of a presiding and all-pervading Divine Intelligence. Again, if we turn from the consideration of space to that of time, it is only by deciphering the monuments of the immense periods of successive organization, up to the epoch of the first existence of animal life, that we learn the testimony of nature to the fact of creation, or rather succession of creations; and, in conformity with our limited conceptions, speak of the infinite wisdom and skill of the Divine Intelligence, the infinite power of the creating Deity.

Unless we consent to reason from the analogy of known causes to those which are unknown,-from the present to the remotest epochs of the past, we must lose the whole argument from the continuance of order and arrangement; we must be deprived of our sublimest conclusions which result from the permanence of the indications of design and harmonious

adaptation. If we could trace material action no further than to resolve every effect into the result of an immediate arbitrary intervention, the real evidences of Divine intelligence would be wanting.

We thus perceive the futility of such charges, as that by establishing the uniformity of second causes we impair the evidence of the Divine interposition; that by extending our researches into nature we encroach on the dominion of the Sovereign of nature; and that by enlarging the range of physical agency we detract from the majesty of the Divine power; whereas it is by these very researches that we establish and acknowledge His sovereignty, and find in that very agency nothing else than His delegated authority.

As reasonably should we construe the tranquillity of a well-ordered community into a proof of the defective energy of the sovereign power, because the daily immediate manifestation and interposition of that power was not necessary to carry on the government. As well might we consider it to detract from the perfection of a piece of machinery, that it did not require the perpetual interposition of the artificer to keep it in action*.

Conclusion.

IN what has preceded, it is to be hoped we have sufficiently shown how harmoniously and universally

See Note L.

the results of physical inquiry, with one consent, all point to the existence of recondite principles of arrangement throughout nature, of vast and universal design. Every separate instance of adjustment does this by the evidences it contains within itself. But the wonderful combination and multiplication of such evidence can only be appreciated from the extended comparison of general laws, and the analogies by which those laws are related. This supplies the most powerfully accumulating proof of ordaining Intelligence and Almighty Mind.

The inconceivable minuteness on the one hand, and the immense extent on the other, to which we find these analogies still accurately preserved, are, perhaps, of all other considerations, the most efficacious in impressing us with the notion of the Divine perfections. The unbroken continuation of the same order and analogy, whether throughout time or space, joined with the consideration that all this is but finite, is the reflection which, above every other, must inspire us with the most truly exalted notions of the Divine immensity and eternity.

From such considerations we may, perhaps, better appreciate the real office of inductive philosophy, and the nature of the service it discharges as ministering to the sublime truths of natural theology. The existence of some universal principles of analogy and uniformity is the ground of all inductive science. The tracing out of such analogies through all their actual physical indications, is that which

furnishes the great argument of natural theology. And we acknowledge that this preservation of uniformity and analogy, (which we have seen supplies the natural preliminary conjecture in all induction,) is, in fact, the very indication of the universal presence and all-pervading energy of the one Divine mind. Thus, then, these momentous and sublime conclusions rest upon a common basis with those of inductive science, and thus invest science with the high sanction of their own sacred character. Established by physical research, they react upon it; they supply the most elevated motive for the prosecution of the study of nature; and the glorious truths which manifest themselves as we proceed, cast back a lustre on the path by which we have advanced, and encourage the endeavour to approach their Eternal source.

So far from any advantage arising to the stability of natural religion, or any augmentation of force to the impressions of natural piety, when nature remains veiled in mystery, and we are compelled to own our ignorance of the modes and laws of her operations, it is, in fact, the very unveiling of those mysteries, the dispersion of that mist of ignorance, the disclosure of the secrets of physical causation, which supply the very proof and defence of the truths of natural theology. The acknowledgment of Supreme power and wisdom, instead of being banished from that portion of nature which we can subject to