DEDUCTIVE HABITS. 339 



some opposition of tendency is commonly per- 

 ceived between that exercise of the intellect 

 which mathematics requires and those processes 

 which go on in our minds when moral character 

 or imaginative beauty is the subject of our con- 

 templation. 



Thus, while we acknowledge all the beauty 

 and all the value of the mathematical reasonings 

 by which the consequences of our general laws 

 are deduced, we may yet consider it possible that 

 a philosopher, whose mind has been mainly em- 

 ployed, and his intellectual habits determined, 

 by this process of deduction, may possess, in a 

 feeble and imperfect degree only, some of those 

 faculties by which truth is attained, and especially 

 truths such as regard our relation to that mind, 

 which is the origin of all law, the source of first 

 principles, and which must be immeasurably 

 elevated above all derivative truths. It would, 

 therefore, be far from surprising, if there should 

 be found, among the great authors of the develope- 

 ments of the mechanical philosophy, some who 

 had refused to refer the phenomena of the uni- 

 verse to a supreme mind, purpose, and will. And 

 though this would be, to a believer in the Being 

 and government of God, a matter of sorrow and 

 pain, it need not excite more surprise than if the 

 same were true of a person of the most ordinary 

 endowments, when it is recollected in what a 

 disproportionate manner the various faculties of 



