171 



THE THEORY OF SENSATION, 



BY THE BEV. NEWMAN HALL, B.A. 



A PAPEB READ AT THE HULL LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY. 

 DECEMBER 12th, 1849. 



Mr. President — 



I should be doing violence to my own feelings were I to 

 enter upon the subject which I have engaged to bring forward to 

 night, without expressing my high sense of the compliment which 

 was paid me, when I was requested to lecture before this honourable 

 Society. 



That I have not solicited the honour of being enrolled among its 

 members, and that I am not a frequent attendant on its conventions, 

 arises only from the multiplicity of my ministerial engagements, 

 not from any want of interest or sympathy in, far less from any 

 disapproval of, those high objects which it seeks to promote. Next 

 to institutions for the promotion of true religion, I regard societies 

 which, like this, are constituted expressly for the advancement of 

 science, and the cultivation of the human intellect, as among the 

 most valuable which exist. Well persuaded am I, that the more our 

 minds are imbued with, and the more our lives are regulated by, the 

 principles of true philosophy, the greater will be our attainments in 

 happiness — the higher our position in the scale of existence ; and, 

 although, in the fullest sense of that high eulogy, pronounced on 

 such studies by the great Roman Orator, I am ever prepared to 

 maintain, that it can be applicable only to the truths of the Gospel 

 of Jesus Christ, — still with reference to such branches of knowledge 

 as are cultivated in this place, I most fully concur in the well- 

 known but admirable sentiment referred to, — " Haec studia adoles- 

 centiam alunt, senectutem oblectant, secundas res oraant, adversis 

 profugium ac solatium praebent, delectant domi, non impediimt foris, 

 pemoctant nobiscum — peregrinantur — rusticantur." 



Pledged as I am to the publication and defence of what I regard 

 the highest philosophy, I am not, on that account, disposed to under- 

 value other truth in whatsoever path it may be discovered, far less to 

 sanction the absurd idea, so derogatory to the Scriptures and to God, 

 that the diligent cultivation of science, in the spirit of true philo- 

 sophy, can be at all inimical to the interests of religion, or that 

 between the well ascertained conclusions of reason, and the rightly 

 interpreted dicta of revelation, there can ever be found any real 

 antagonism. " Etenim omnes artes quae ad humanitatem pertinent, 

 habent quoddam commune vinculum, et quasi cognatione quadam 



