256 VESTIGES OF THE 



Beyond this, mental science does not cany us in support 

 of religion : the rest depends on evidence of a different 

 kind. But it is surely much that we thus discover in 

 nature a provision for things so important. The existence 

 of faculties having a regard to such things is a good 

 evidence that such things exist. The face of God is re- 

 flected in the organisation of man, as a little pool reflects 

 the glorious sun. 



The aftective or sentimental faculties are all of them 

 liable to operate whenever appropriate objects or stimuli 

 are presented, and this they do as irresistibly and un- 

 erringly as the tree sucks up moisture which it recpiires, 

 with only this exception, that one faculty often interferes 

 with the action of another, and operates instead by force 

 of superior inherent strength or temporary a(;tivity. For 

 example, alimentiveness may be in powerful opei-ation 

 with regard to its a23propriate object, producing a keen 

 appetite, and yet it may not act, in consequence of the 

 more powerful operation of cautiousness, warning against 

 evil consequences likely to ensue from the desired in- 

 dulgence. This liability to flit from under the control of 

 one feeling to the control of another, constitutes what is 

 recognised as free-will in man, being nothing moi-e than 

 a vicissitude in the supi-emacy of the faculties o^•er each 

 other. 



It is a common mistake to suppose that the individuals 

 of our own species are all of them formed with similar 

 faculties — similar in power and tendency — and that 

 education and the influence of circumstances produce all 

 the diff'erences which we observe. There is not, in the 

 old systems of mental philosophy, any doctrine more 

 opposite to the truth than this. It is refuted at once by 

 the great dilVcrences of intellectual tendency and moral 

 disposition to l)e observed amongst .1 groiq) of young 



