122 HUMBLE CREATITRES. 



tained by such men^ we shall quote that of John 

 TiUotsoiij Archbishop of Canterbuxy, who died to- 

 wards the close of the 17th century, and shall leave 

 you for the present to judge how far it recommends 

 itself to your approval, without adding any criticism 

 of our own. 



" God hath discovered our duties to us," he says, 

 " by a kind of natural instinct, by which I mean a 

 secret impression upon the minds of men, whereby 

 they are naturally carried to approve some things as 

 good and fit, and to dislike other things as having a 

 native evil and deformity in them ; and this I caU a 

 natural instinct, because it does not seem to proceed 

 so much from the exercise of our reason, as from a 

 natural propension and iachnation, like those instincts 

 which are in brute creatures, of natural affection and 

 care toward their young ones. And that these in- 

 clinations are precedent to all reason and discourse 

 about them evidently appears by this, that they do 

 put forth themselves every whit as vigorously in 

 young persons as in those of riper reason; in the rude 

 and ignorant sort of people as in those who are more 

 polished or refined. For we see plainly that the 

 young and ignorant have as strong impressions of 

 piety and devotion, as true a sense of gratitude, and 

 justice, and pity, as the wiser and more knowing 

 part of mankiad : — a plain iadication that the reason 

 of mankind is prevented" (that is to say, anticipated) 

 " by a kind of natural instinct and anticipatioji con- 

 cerning the good or evil, the comeliness or deformity 



