OF THE PERSONALITY OF THE DEITY. 333 



CHAP. XXIII. 



OF THE PERSONALITY OF THE DEITY. 



Contrivance, if established, appears to me to prove ev- 

 ery thing which we wish to prove. Amongst other things, 

 it proves the personality of the Deity, as distinguished 

 from what is sometimes called nature, sometimes called a 

 principle : which terms, in the mouths of those who use 

 them philosophically, seem to be intended to admit and to 

 express an efficacy, but to exclude and to deny a personal 

 agent. Now that which can contrive, which can design, 

 must be a person. These capacities constitute personality, 

 for they imply consciousness and thought. They require 

 that which can perceive an end or purpose ; as well as the 

 power of providing means, and of directing them to their 

 end.* They require a centre in which perceptions unite, 

 and from which volitions flow — which is mind The acts 

 of a mind prove the existence of a mind : and in whatever 

 a mind resides is a person. The seat of intellect is a per- 

 son. We have no authority to limit the properties of mind 

 to any particular corporeal form, or to any particular cir- 

 cumscription of space. These properties subsist, in created 

 nature, under a great variety of sensible forms. Also, ev- 

 ery animated being has its scusorium, that is, a certain por- 

 tion of space, within which perception and volition are ex- 

 erted. This sphere may be enlarged to an indefinite ex- 

 tent; may comprehend the universe; and being so imagin- 

 ed, may serve to furnish us with as good a notion, as we 

 are capable of forming, of the immensity/ of the divine na- 

 ture, i. e. of a Being, infinite as well in essence as in pow- 

 er ; yet nevertheless a person, 



cannot be separated into distinct stars by the most powerful telescopes ; 

 these have been observed in some instances to alter their form, which 

 Sir W. Herschell attributed to the mutual attraction of the luminous 

 particles which composed them. 



Some of the fixed stars appear double, and even multiple, vAien 

 highly magnified. The same great astronomer, whom we have just 

 mentioned, v;as induced to believe that there were separate systems ; 

 and his son, assisted by Mr. South, has established that some of them 

 have undoubtedly a revolution round a common centre of gravity anal- 

 ogous to the motions of the sun and planets. Paxton. 



"Priestley's Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever, p. iciSj ed. 2?» 



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