NATURAL THEOLOGY. 65 



their support, and confirmed by no analogy with 

 which we are acquainted. Were it necessary to 

 inquire into the motives of men's opinions, I mean 

 their motives separate from their arguments ; I 

 should almost suspect, that, because the proof of a 

 Deity drawn from the constitution of nature is not 

 only popular, but vulgar, (which may arise from 

 the cogency of the proof, and be indeed its high- 

 est recommendation,) and because it is a species 

 almost of puerility to take up with it ; for these 

 reasons, minds, which are habitually in search of 

 invention and originality, feel a resistless inclina- 

 tion to strike off into other solutions and other ex- 

 positions. The truth is, that many minds are not 

 so indisposed to any thing which can be offered to 

 them, as they are to the flatness of being content 

 with common reasons: and, what is most to be 

 lamented, minds conscious of superiority are the 

 most liable to this repugnancy. 



The " suppositions" here alluded to all agree in 

 one character ; they all endeavour to dispense with 

 the necessity in nature of a particular, personal 

 intelligence ; that is to say, with the exertion of 

 an intending, contriving mind, in the structure and 

 formation of the organized constitutions which the 

 world contains. They would resolve all produc- 

 tions into unconscious energies, of a like kind, in 

 that respect, with attraction,; magnetism, electrici- 

 ty, &c. ; without any thing further. 



In this, the old system of atheism and the new 

 agree. And I much doubt whether the new 

 7* 



