LAW IMPLIES MIND. 295 



permanence to the figments of so many false 

 divinities. And those who have traced the pro- 

 gress of human thought on other subjects, will 

 not think it strange, that while the fundamental 

 persuasion of a Deity was thus irremoveably 

 seated in the human mind, the developement of 

 this conception into a consistent, pure, and stead- 

 fast belief in one Almighty and Holy Father 

 and God, should be long missed, or never at- 

 tained, by the struggle of the human faculties ; 

 should require long reflexion to mature it, and 

 the aid of revelation to establish it in the world. 



The view of the universe which we have prin- 

 cipally had occasion to present to the reader, is 

 that in which we consider its appearances as 

 reducible to certain fixed and general laws. 

 Availing ourselves of some of the lights which 

 modern science supplies, we have endeavoured 

 to show that the adaptation of such laws to each 

 other, and their fitness to promote the harmo- 

 nious and beneficial course of the world, may be 

 traced, wherever we can discover the laws them- 

 selves ; and that the conceptions of the Divine 

 Power, Goodness and Superintendence which we 

 thus form, agree in a remarkable manner with 

 the views of the Supreme Being, to which reason, 

 enlightened by the divine revelation, has led. 



But we conceive that the general impressions 

 of mankind would go further than a mere assent 

 to the argument as we have thus stated it. To 



