INCOMPREHENSIBLE NATURE OF GOD. 375 



Nothing would be uncertain to such an intelli- 

 gence, and the future, no less than the past, 

 would be present to its eyes." If we speak 

 merely of mechanical actions, this may, perhaps, 

 be assumed to be an admissible representation of 

 the nature of their connexion in the sight of the 

 supreme intelligence. But to the rest of what 

 passes in the world, such language is altogether 

 inapplicable. A formula is a brief mode of denot- 

 ing a rule of calculating in which numbers are to 

 be used : and numerical measures are applicable 

 only to things of which the relations depend on 

 time and space. By such elements, in such a 

 mode, how are we to estimate happiness and 

 virtue, thought and will ? To speak of a formula 

 with regard to such things, would be to assume 

 that their laws must needs take the shape of 

 those laws of the material world which our intel- 

 lect most fully comprehends. A more absurd 

 and unphilosophical assumption we can hardly 

 imagine. 



We conceive, therefore, that the laws by which 

 God governs his moral creatures, reside in his 

 mind, invested with that kind of generality, 

 whatever it be, of which such laws are capable ; 

 but of the character of such general laws, we 

 know nothing more certainly than this, that it 

 must be altogether di,fferent from the character 

 of those laws which regulate the material world. 

 The inevitable necessity of such a total difference 



