50 GENERAL VIEW AND BASIS OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH. 



been conceived. Every different nation, and every different 

 sect, has had its own idea of a creative power, adapted to 

 its own particular current beliefs, and varying also as know- 

 ledge advanced. The idea of such a power as conceived by an 

 ancient Briton was very different from that by a modern 

 Englishman ; and the latter, in its turn, is being replaced 

 by one more in accordance with existing scientific know T 

 ledge. Every individual also conceives his idea of a First 

 Cause in accordance with the peculiarities and limits of 

 his own finite mind ; and as an intelligent knowledge 

 (based upon verifiable evidence) of a natural cause can 

 only be acquired by studying its effects, so that of an 

 Ultimate natural cause, by a man who is unacquainted 

 with the great principles of nature, is of a more limited 

 and less intelligent kind. A rational way of obtaining 

 an intelligent idea of a Creator, independent of all as- 

 sumption, is by acquiring a thorough knowledge of the 

 laws which regulate created things. As man alone con- 

 stitutes but a very minute part of the Universe, a study 

 of him alone (especially if mental physiology, and its rela- 

 tions to the various forces of nature, be omitted) can only 

 impart a correspondingly inadequate idea of a Creator. 

 Nothing tends so much to hinder the dissemination of 

 true ideas respecting the Infinite Cause of all things, and 

 to perpetuate strife on such a subject, as the great absence 

 of knowledge of the laws of that cause, by those whose 

 especial function it is to teach the nature of the cause 

 itself. 



All scientific ideas are derived either from sensation or 

 reflection, and have therefore been classed intoimmediate 

 and mediate. Immediate ideas are those which are made 

 known to us by our direct conscious perception, and form 

 the primary source of all our beliefs. Mediate ideas are 

 those made known to us by means of reasoning, or by in- 



