2 REVELATION AND REASON. 



our being." This belief of the existence of Deity is co-extensive 

 with the human race, and it is a belief totally independent of rea- 

 soning or of observation. 



It was remarked by an acute French writer, " that a peasant is 

 as well acquainted with himself, with the world, and with God, as 

 Leibnitz, and with the relations of these to each other ; but he has 

 not the secret and complete explanation of his knowledge : he feels 

 its possession, but he knows not how to account for it." This com- 

 mon acquaintance, this unexplained knowledge, gave birth to phi- 

 losophy, which clothed the hitherto half-formed ideas in the shape 

 of science, and, by a course of inductive reasoning, led man from 

 nature to " Nature's God." This is Natural Theology. 



It is however singular, that in the pursuit of this noble study, the 

 very highest branch of it has been in a great measure left un- 

 touched ; and it is here that Lord Brougham has stepped in, and 

 ranked himself beside Locke, Bacon, and Hume. " The evidences 

 of design (to demonstrate the existence of an intelligent Creator) are 

 not merely those which the material world affords : the intellectual 

 system is equally fruitful in proofs of an intelligent cause, although 

 these have occupied little of the philosopher's attention, and may 

 indeed be said never to have found a place among the speculations of 

 Natural Theology." Paley's work, in this respect, is utterly de- 

 ficient, nor can we wonder that it is so, since his mind was absolutely 

 unfitted for psychological inquiries. His predecessor, Derham, 

 from whose labours Paley composed his * Natural Theology, 'merely 

 popularising materials, and adapting facts to the improved state of 

 science, is nearly as silent; and from what we can gather from Ray's 

 celebrated ' Wonders of Creation/ it may be doubted whether or 

 not he classed the human soul as a portion of the created system. 



" At first sight," says his Lordship, " it may be deemed that 

 there is an essential difference between the evidence from mental 

 and from physical phenomena. It may be thought that mind is of a 

 nature more removed beyond our power than matter ; that over th$ 

 masses of matter man can himself exercise some control ; that to a 

 certain degree he has a plastic power, that into some forms he can 

 mould them, and can combine them into certain machinery; that he 

 can begin and can continue motion, and can produce a mechanism 

 by which it maybe begun, and maintained, and regulated; while 

 mind, it may be supposed, is totally beyond his reach : over it he 



