PROVINCES OF E.EASON AND REVELATION. 439 



of all things, a clear knowledge of their duty was wanting 

 to mankind." 



And He, whose name, by the consent of nations, is above 

 all praise, the inventor and founder of the Inductive Philo- 

 sophy, thus breathes forth his pious meditation, *•' Thy crea- 

 tures have been my books, but thy Scriptures much more. 

 I have sought thee in the courts, fields, and gardens, but I 

 have found thee in thy temples." Bacon's Works, V. 4. fol. 

 p. 487. 



The sentiment here quoted had been long familiar to him, 

 for it pervades his writings ; it is thus strikingly expressed 

 in his immortal work. '•' Concludamus igitur theologiam 

 sacram ex Verbo et Oraculis Dei, non ex lumine Naturee 

 aut Rationis dictamine hauriri debere. Scriptum est enim 

 coeli enarrant Glorium Dei, at nusquam scriptum invenitur, 

 coeli enarrant Voluntatem Dei."* f 



Having then this' broad line marked out before us,, and 



* Bacon De Aug-m, Scient. Lib. IX. ch. i. 



f " Nothing," says Sir I. F. W. Herschel, " can be more unfounded 

 than the objection whicli has been taken in limine, by persons well meaning 

 perhaps, certainly narrow-minded, against the study of natural philosophy, 

 and indeed against all science, — that it fosters in its cultivators an undue and 

 overweening self-conceit, leads them to doubt the immortality of the soul, 

 and to scoft" at revealed religion. Its natural effect, we may confidently as- 

 sert, on every well consituted mind, is and must be the direct contrary. No 

 doubt, the testimony of natui'al reason, on whatever exercised, must of ne- 

 cessity stop short of those truths which it is the object of revelation to make 

 known; but while it places the existence and principal attributes of a Deity 

 on such grounds as to render doubt absurd and atheism ridiculous, it unques- 

 tionably opposes no natural or necessary obstacle to farther progress; on the 

 contrary, by cherislilng as a vital ]n-lnciple and unbounded spirit of inquiry, 

 and ardency of expectatioji, it unfetters the mind from prejudices of every 

 kind, and leaves it open and free to every impression of a higher nature which- 

 it is susceptible of receiving, guarding only against enthusiasm and self- 

 deception by a habit of strict investigation, but encouraging, rather than 

 suppressing, every thing that can offer a prospect or a hope beyond the pre- 

 sent obscure and unsatisfactory state. The character of the true Philoso- 

 pher is to hope all things not impossible, and to believe all things not un-- 

 reasonable." Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy, p. 7. 



