MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 



67-1 



Moral where, (see LOGIC, p. 120.) the very natural process 

 ulotophjr. by which the idea of God may be supposed to arise in 

 the human mind ; but it is impossible to demonstrate 

 that it ever has arisen, in any one instance, in this 

 manner. We are firmly persuaded that there is no 

 such thing in the universe as a system of theism, the 

 pure result of human reason ; for it will not be difficult 

 to show that all the religions which have ever been in 

 the world are either traditional or revealed. 



As far as we are acquainted with the religious sys- 

 tems which prevail throughout the immense continent 

 of Asia, from China to the Red Sea, and from Cape 

 Comorin to Siberia, we may discover the traces of a 

 traditional mperitition, but not of a system of natural 

 retigHM ; for its features are too fantastic to pass as the 

 offspring of reason. In the same manner, we may per- 

 ceive that the religions of Greece, of Rome, of Egvpt, 

 and of India, had a common origin, not in reason, but 

 in tradition ; for reason is not so uniform in its aberra- 

 tions, as to run into exactly the same conceits and ab- 

 surdities. 



Where, then, shall we discover the pure religion of 

 natu among the sages of Greece and Rome: 



they evidently and avowedly borrnwed from more an- 

 cient sources. Not among the philosophers and hiero- 

 pbants of Egypt : they, in all probability, borrowed 

 from India. Nowhere, indeed, do we find among any 

 of these nations any pretensions to this religion of na- 

 ture : they altogether disavow this origin of their reli- 

 gious opinions ; for they have, severally, their IripsU 

 ,, tors and their sages, to whom they ascribe the origin 



Swt OO DOC I. , i r>l- 



atcnbc of their laws and of their religion ; and however much 

 the r rrli- they may be disposed to reverence these founders of 

 ftoatoih* their polities civil and sacred, they never ascribe to 

 Bfht of n- them the honour of discovering, by their own ingenu- 

 ity, the laws and religious opinions which they pro- 

 mulgated. These tlu-y ascribe to the particular favour 

 and illumination of the gods. 



This opinion, if not strictly correct, mty, perhaps, 

 us to the truth ; for were we to judge from ap- 

 pearances and partial f.ict*, we would perhaps lie led 

 to conclude, that man, on his creation, was placed un- 

 der a system of revelation, or was made perfectly ac- 

 quainted with the gieat truths of religion, immediately 

 depending on the being and attribute of God. This 

 inference amounts to certainty, if we take the sacred 

 Scriptures for our guide. On the supposition then, 

 (and it is surely a natural one, ) that this primeval re- 

 ligion was taught by the first race of men to their fami- 

 lies and descendants, and by this mean* diffused over 

 the face of the earth, we might nattir.illy expect those 

 diversified features of superstition, which meet us in 

 our retearches, and which betray few marks of their 

 parentage as the offspring of reason, but are exactly 

 what we might expect as the corrupted traditions of 

 primeval revelation. 



If, however, it should be maintained that the due ex- 

 ercise of reason will necessarily lead us to some know- 

 ledge of God, we have no wish to dispute the a*ser- 

 > DM, tion : we only affirm that we have no instance on re- 

 M anj m- cord in which it can be proved that men have come by 

 their religion m this manner : all the religions with 

 *"'* which we are acquainted bear evident marks of a diffe- 

 rent origin: and before the competency of human res- 

 son, to discover the mo-t obvious truths of religion, can 

 be ascertained, it would be necessary to find a nation 

 entirely destitute of every notion of religion ; to watch 

 hs progress in knowledge, and carefully to observe 

 the result of its experience. But, indeed, there is 



Morl 



II rinot 

 k proted 

 Hut reli- 

 has, 

 mmj in- 



every probability that a nation, circumstanced as we 

 have supposed, if unaffected by any external impulse, 

 and unassisted by extraneous example, would remain 

 for ever in the barbarism in which it was found. No 

 nation, however, has been found in this state of absolute 

 ignorance ; by whatever means men have come by 

 their knowledge, they have always been found to have 

 some idea of a superior power ; and, possessing this as 

 the rudiments of religious knowledge, we might natu- 

 rally have expected that they would have made pro- 

 gress in a science so interesting. This expectation 

 will not be realized ; for we discover none of that elas- 

 ticity of mind which prompts to ulterior improvement 

 in religious knowledge : all the efforts of philanthro- 

 py have scarcely been able to shake the inveterate preju- 

 dices of error, or to preserve alive the seeds of know- 

 ledge where they have been sown. If the knowledge 

 of God and his attributes, then, be the result of human 

 reason, the mind goes through a process on this sub- 

 ject, entirely different from that which it follows with 

 regard to any other of its attainments. It advances 

 uniformly and steadily in all those improvements which 

 result from study or experience, and length of time 

 never fails to give maturity and stability to the princi- 

 ples of knowledge. But, in religion, the process is re- 

 versed ; and lapse of time invariably leads to degene- 

 racy and corruption. The most ancient writings of 

 the human race approach nearest to the truth on some 

 of the fundamental principles of religion. Thus, we 

 find the unity of the divine nature explicitly stated in 

 some of the most ancient of the firaminicnl writings, 

 whilst the doctrine is totally unknown among the mo- 

 dern Hindoos, who are. and have been from time im- 

 memorial, the grossest idolaters in the world. 



Lot it be remembered that we are only stating the 

 aberrations of human reason on the grand fundamental 

 principles of religion and morals; and we do not posi- 

 tively affirm that the mind is absolutely incompetent to 

 discover the important truth of the being of God; but 

 facts authorize us to conclude that it never could turn 

 this important truth to any profitable account, with- 

 out ulterior assistance ; for it is instantly disfigured by 

 the prejudices arising from human pissions, and thus 

 becomes the means of perversion rather than of im- 

 provement ; as men canonize their own vices by exalt- 

 ing them into attributes of their gods. 



We conceive it, then, to be absolutely impossible to Natural 

 found a system of morals on the basis of natural religion, religion an 

 which, if cognizable by human reason, is nevertheless, insuffl <'ieni 

 in every instance, so grossly abused as to become a 

 source of error rather than of knowledge. The boun- 

 tiful author of our nature has delivered us from this 

 perplexity by giving us a revelation containing rules of 

 duty which our consciences must instantly approve, 

 and which, on examination, are found to be perfectly 

 consistent with the light of reason, with the interests of 

 man, and with the ordinary arrangements of provi- 

 dence. These rules, however, are not, in general 

 practice, deduced step by step, from the elements into 

 whicli they may be analysed : they resemble, in this 

 respect, the rules deduced from science, or experience, 

 which are delivered to practical artists, and which lead 

 them as immediately to the attainment of their object, 

 as if they thoroughly understood the principles on 

 which the rules were founded. It is evident that 

 some rule of this kind is absolutely neces-ary for regu- 

 lating the moral conduct of men ; for few have time or 

 talents for ingenious or laborious investigations ; and 

 were man left to discover the rules by which his con- 



