168 



annex a mark to eacli, we shall not be astonished that the 

 eminent men to whom I have alluded, should deem the 

 human mind incapable of such an effort, and esteem it ne- 

 cessary to cut the knot by a miraculous intervention of the 

 Deity. 



Hartley conjectures that the communication was first 

 made to Moses, on the delivery, at mount Sinai, of the two 

 tables which the sacred historian declares to have been writ- 

 ten by the finger of God ;* and Wakefield (who, still less 

 than Hartley, can be suspected of weakness or credulity) 

 supports a similar opinion by very convincing arguments,-]' 

 •without adverting, however, to the particular occasion on 

 which the revelation was made to the Hebrews, or even 

 referring to the discussion of Hartley on the subject. But 

 so great are the achievements, so extensive the dominion 

 attempted and attained by the mind of man, that I am more 

 inclined to solve the difficulty in a natural way, by ascrib- 

 ing the discovery to those exertions which have hitherto found 

 a specific for every want, as soon as the want was felt, ra- 

 ther than assume, without manifest necessity, a departure 

 from the course of nature, and those laws by which Provi- 

 dence visibly governs the world. 



It. may be said that when alphabetic writing was first 

 adopted, there was not such a want of the pieans ofre- 



* Hartley on Man, 1st v. 308. octavo edition, 

 f Second Appendix to Gilbert Wakefield's Life. 



