38 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



form of a burning bush, there is nothing to prevent 

 Him from doing so, I am not prepared to contradict 

 you. I neither agree with you nor differ from you, for 

 it is a subject of which I know nothing. But I observe 

 that in such questions regarding Almighty power, your 

 enquiries relate, not to that power as it is actually dis- 

 played in the universe, but to the power of your own 

 imagination. Your question is, not has the Omnipotent 

 clone so and so ? or is it in the least degree likely that 

 the Omnipotent should do so and so ? but, is my imagin- 

 ation competent to picture a Being able and willing to 

 do so and so ? I am not prepared to deny your com- 

 petence. To the human mind belongs the faculty of 

 enlarging and diminishing, of distorting and combining, 

 indefinitely the objects revealed by the senses. It can 

 imagine a mouse as large as an elephant, an elephant 

 as large as a mountain, and a mountain as high as the 

 stars. It can separate congruities and unite incon- 

 gruities. We see a fish and we see a woman ; we can 

 drop one half of each, and unite in idea the other two 

 halves to a mermaid. We see a horse and we see a 

 man ; we are able to drop one half of each, and unite 

 the other two halves to a centaur. Thus also the pic- 

 torial representations of the Deity, the bodies and wings 

 of cherubs and seraphs, the hoofs, horns, and tail of the 

 Evil One, the joys of the blessed, and the torments of 

 the damned, have been elaborated from materials fur- 

 nished to the imagination by the senses. It behoves 

 you and me to take care that our notions of the Power 

 which rules the universe are not mere fanciful or ignor- 

 ant enlargements of human power. The capabilities of 

 what you call your reason are not denied. By the 

 exercise of the faculty here adverted to, you can picture 

 to yourself a Being able and willing to do any and every 

 conceivable thing. You are right in saying that in 



