MAN'S PLACE IN THE UNIVERSE. 281 



inent of the physical world is important and in- 

 teresting to man, is, as has already been said, 

 through the connexion which this belief has 

 with the conviction of God's government of the 

 moral world ; this latter government being, from 

 its nature, one which has a personal relation to 

 each individual, his actions and thoughts. It 

 will, therefore, illustrate our subject to show that 

 this impression of the difficulty of a personal 

 superintendence and government, exercised by 

 the Maker of the world over each of his rational 

 and free creatures, is founded upon illusory 

 views ; and that on an attentive and philoso- 

 phical examination of the subject, such a govern- 

 ment is in accordance with all that we can dis- 

 cover of the scheme and the scale of the uni- 

 verse. 



1. We may, in the first place, repeat the 

 observation made in the last chapter, on the con- 

 fusion which sometimes arises in our minds, and 

 makes us consider the number of the objects of 

 the Divine care as a difficulty in the way of its 

 exercise. If we can conceive this care employed 

 on a million persons on the population of a king- 

 dom, of a city, of a street there is no real diffi- 

 culty in supposing it extended to every planet in 

 the solar system, admitting each to be peopled 

 as ours is ; nor to every part of the universe, 

 supposing each star the centre of such a system. 

 Large numbers have no peculiar attributes which 



