
ATTENDING THE EXERCISE OF THE SENSES. 537 
are the depositaries or recipients of certain portions of the knowledge, and the 
instruments of certain of the designs, of the superior Mind to which they owe their 
existence. And the “creed of the sceptic,” shewing that it is by no exertion of 
our own reason, and indeed by no process of which we can give any account, that 
so many truths are made known to us, and so many useful acts suggested to us, 
becomes an essential part of the short and simple train of reasoning by which 
that connection is inferred, and which may be thus stated. 
Much of the knowledge which is part of the constitution of our minds, or 
which is awakened in us by the exercise of our senses, is not our knowledge; it is 
neither contained in our sensations, nor deducible by any reasoning from them, 
nor subject to our will, nor acquired by our experience or recollection; yet it is 
found to be accurate, and the possession of it to be useful and necessary to us. 
So also, many of the actions which we perform, which are fitted to the attain- 
ment of ends important to us, and obviously performed in anticipation of those 
ends, are not prompted by any such anticipation of ours. The will which per- 
forms them is ours, but the knowledge of their consequences, with a view to which 
they are performed, is not ours. “Man,” says Guizor, “is a workman, intelligent 
and free, but the work in which he is employed is not his; he sees the intention of 
it only when it has been so far accomplished, and even then, sees it only imper- 
fectly.” In so far, therefore, as the observation of these phenomena of our minds 
leads to an inference of Intelligence,—and if it does not, we have no grounds for 
ascribing intelligence to any of our friends or fellow-citizens,—it must be intelli- 
gence prior to ours, and superior to ours, and on which ours is dependent. 
It seems to me, that it is quite unnecessary to make any additions to the doctrine, 
which we have seen was the common doctrine of RE1p, of Stewart, and of Brown, 
as to the existence and authority of the Intuitive Principles of Belief,—and hardly 
necessary to illustrate this farther than the two former authors had done,—to justify 
the whole of this inference. But farther, it is precisely the same inference which 
we find, if not so fully illustrated, at least distinctly expressed as resulting from 
the contemplation of our mental constitution, by much earlier authors. It was the 
same idea that was expressed by the three memorable words of Cicrro, “‘ Homo 
Rationis Particeps” (not possessor); and by the positive assertion of PLato,— 
that nothing is more certain than that a part of every man’s mind existed before 
he did. Nay, in an earlier record than either of these, of the first metaphysical 
reflections of the human race, in those very words from the Book of Job which 
Dr Rew took as the motto of his Work on the Intellectual Powers, there is, as 
we are assured by an eminent Hebrew scholar, a meaning more exactly in accord- 
ance with the leading principle of Dr Reip’s Philosophy, than, in selecting that 
motto, he was probably aware. The words are, “ Who hath put wisdom in our 
inward parts?” but the more precise expression of the meaning, we are assured, is, 
VOL. XX. PART Iv. 7F 
