184 °^ THE PHILOSOPHY 



and that, as material substance is mere illusion, 

 there exists in this universe only one generic spiri- 

 tual substance, the sole primary cause, efficient, 

 substantial, and formal of all secondary causes and 

 of all appearances whatever, but endued, in its high- 

 est degree, with a sublime providential wisdom, 

 and proceeding by ways incomprehensible to the 

 spirits which emane from it: an opinion which 

 Go'tama never taught, and which we have no au- 

 thority to believe, but which, as it is grounded on 

 the doctrine of an immaterial Creator supremely 

 wise, and a constant Preserver supremely benevo- 

 lent, differs as widely from the pantheism of Spin- 

 oza and Toland as the affirmation of a proposi- 

 tion differs from the negation of it ; though the last- 

 named professor of that insane philosophy had the 

 baseness to ccnceal his meaning under the very 

 words of Saint Paul, which are cited by New- 

 ton for a purpose totally different, and has even 

 used a phrase which occurs, indeed, in the Veda 9 

 but in a sense diametrically opposite to that which 

 he would have given it. The passage to which I 

 allude, is in a speech of V a run a to his son, where 

 he says, " That spirit, from which these created 

 " beings proceed; through which, having proceeded 

 <c from it, they live ; toward which they tend, and 

 «• in which they are ultimately absorbed, that spirit 

 «' study to know ; that spirit is the Great One." 



The subject of this discourse, Gentlemen, is in- 

 exhaustible : it has been my endeavour to say as 

 much on it as possible in the fewest words ; and, at 

 the beginning of next year, I hope to close these 



general 



