THE CEREBRUM, AND ITS FUNCTIONS. 787 



attributed to the Divine, in proportion as the low standard of intellectual and 

 moral development in each individual keeps down his idea of possible excellence. 

 Even the lowest form of any such conception, however, embodies (like the Pan- 

 theistic) a great truth, though mingled with a large amount of error. It repre- 

 sents the Deity as a Person; that is, as having that Intelligent Volition, which 

 we recognize in ourselves as the source of the power we determinately exert, 

 through our bodily organism, upon the world around; and it invests Him, also, 

 with those Moral attributes, which place him in sympathetic relation with his 

 sentient creatures. But this conception is erroneous, in so far as it represents 

 the Divine nature as restrained in its operations by any of these limitations 

 which are inherent in the very constitution of Man : and in particular, because 

 it leads those who accept it to think of the Creator as " a remote and retired 

 mechanism, inspecting from without the engine of creation to see how it per- 

 forms," and as either leaving it entirely to itself when once it has been brought 

 into full activity, or as only interfering at intervals to change the mode of its 

 operation. Now the truths which these views separately contain, are in perfect 

 harmony with each other : and the very act of bringing them into combination 

 effects the elimination of the errors with which they were previously associated. 

 For the idea of the universal and all-controlling agency of the Deity, and of 

 his immediate presence throughout Creation, is not found to be in the least 

 degree inconsistent with the idea of His personality, when that idea is detached 

 from the limitations which cling to it in the minds of those who have not 

 expanded their anthropomorphic conception by the scientific contemplation of 

 Nature; on the contrary, when we have once arrived at that conception of Force 

 as an expression of Will, which we derive from our own experience of its pro- 

 duction, the universal and constantly-sustaining agency of the Deity is recog- 

 nized in every phenomenon of the external Universe; and we are thus led to 

 feel that in the Material Creation itself, we have the same distinct evidence of 

 His personal existence and ceaseless activity, as we have of the agency of in- 

 telligent minds in the artistic creations of Genius, or in the elaborate contri- 

 vances of Mechanical skill, or in those written records of Thought which 

 arouse our own psychical nature into kindred activity. 



816. There is, in fact, no part of Man's psychical nature which does not 

 speak to him of the Divine, when it is rightly questioned. The very perception 

 of finite existence, whether in time or space, leads to the idea of the Infinite. 

 The perception of dependent existence leads to the idea of the Self-existent. 

 The perception of change in the external world leads to the idea of an Abso- 

 lute Power as its source. The perception of the order and constancy underly- 

 ing all those diversities which the surface of Nature presents, leads to the idea 

 of the Unity of that power. The recognition of Intelligent Will as the source 

 of the power we ourselves exert, leads to the idea of a like Will as operating 

 in the Universe. And our own capacity for reasoning, which we know not to 

 have been obtained by our individual exertions, is a direct testimony to the 

 Intelligence of the Being who implanted it. So are we led from the very 

 existence of our Moral Feelings, to the conception of the existence of attributes, 

 the same in kind, however exalted in degree, in the Divine being. The sense 

 of Truth implies its actual existence in a being who is himself its source and 

 centre ; and the longing for a yet higher measure of it, which is experienced 

 in the greatest force by those who have already attained the truest and widest 

 view, is the testimony of our own souls to the Truth of the Divine Nature. 

 The perception of Right, in like manner, leads us to the Absolute lawgiver who 

 implanted it in our constitution; and, as has been well remarked, "all the 

 appeals of innocence against unrighteous force are appeals to eternal justice, 

 and all the visions of moral purity are glimpses of the infinite excellence." 

 The aspirations of the most exalted moral natures after a yet higher state of 



