356 RELIGIOUS VIEWS. 



he would probably have said, that to these final 

 causes barrenness was no reproach, seeing they 

 ought to be, not the mothers but the daughters of 

 our natural sciences ; and that they were barren, 

 not by imperfection of their nature, but in order 

 that they might be kept pure and undefiled, and 

 so fit ministers in the temple of God. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

 On the Physical Agency of the Deity. 



1. WE are not to expect that physical investiga- 

 tion can enable us to conceive the manner in 

 which God acts upon the members of the universe. 

 The question, " Canst thou by searching find 

 out God? " must silence the boastings of science 

 as well as the repinings of adversity. Indeed, 

 science shows us, far more clearly than the con- 

 ceptions of every day reason, at what an im- 

 measurable distance we are from any faculty of 

 conceiving how the universe, material and moral, 

 is the work of the Deity. But with regard to 

 the material world, we can at least go so far as 

 this ; we can perceive that events are brought 

 about, not by insulated interpositions of divine 

 power exerted in each particular case, but by 

 the establishment of general laws. This, which 

 is the view of the universe proper to science, 



