420 CONSTITUTION OF THE INTELLECT. [CHAP. XXII. 



hills, the intimations of more than that abstract eternity which 

 had rolled away ere yet their dark foundations were laid.* 



9. Refraining from the further prosecution of a train of thought 

 which to some may appear to be of too speculative a character, 

 let us briefly review the positive results to which we have been led. 

 It has appeared that there exist in our nature faculties which 

 enable us to ascend from the particular facts of experience to the 

 general propositions which form the basis of Science ; as well as 

 faculties whose office it is to deduce from general propositions 

 accepted as true the particular conclusions which they involve. 

 It has been seen, that those faculties are subject in their opera- 

 tions to laws capable of precise scientific expression, but invested 

 with an authority which, as contrasted with the authority of the 

 laws of nature, is distinct, sui generis, and underived. Further, 

 there has appeared to be a manifest fitness between the intel- 

 lectual procedure thus made known to us, and the conditions of 

 that system of things by which we are surrounded, such condi- 

 tions, I mean, as the existence of species connected by general 

 resemblances, of facts associated under general laws ; together 

 with that union of permanency with order, which while it gives 

 stability to acquired knowledge, lays a foundation for the hope 

 of indefinite progression. Human nature, quite independently 

 of its observed or manifested tendencies, is seen to be constituted 

 in a certain relation to Truth ; and this relation, considered as a 

 subject of speculative knowledge, is as capable of being studied 

 in its details, is, moreover, as worthy of being so studied, as are 

 the several departments of physical science, considered in the same 

 aspect. I would especially direct attention to that view of the 

 constitution of the intellect which represents it as subject to laws 

 determinate in their character, but not operating by the power of 

 necessity; which exhibits it as redeemed from the dominion of 

 fate, without being abandoned to the lawlessness of chance. We 

 cannot embrace this view without accepting at least as probable 

 the intimations which, upon the principle of analogy, it seems to 

 furnish respecting another and a higher aspect of our nature, its 

 subjection in the sphere of duty as well as in that of knowledge to 



* Psalm xc. 2. 



