No. Xn.] APPENDIX. 209 



a new one acting upon it. Eaoli event, conBequently, must have a com- 

 mencement and a termination. To increase the number of these events 

 ■will not assist us, for, how far soever we carry back the events, still their 

 character is immutable ; there must have been one event which was prior 

 to all others, and that first event must have had a beginning. 



The beginning of the first event affecting matter was the primary 

 attraction, which the subsequent attraction sought to disturb; and the 

 great question which the human mind desires to speculate upon, is the 

 cause of this first exertion of attraction. 



The first exertion of attraction, probably, does not arise from any 

 principle attached to matter ; but still, even if it owed its power of attrac- 

 tion to an imponderable, the cause of the imponderable attaching itself 

 to matter would be the obscure point on which the human mind delights 

 to contemplate ; for the first exertion of attraction, however arising, would 

 alone give to matter its material properties, or, in fact, there would not 

 have been matter (according as we define matter) without the capacity of 

 its particles to set up attraction. 



This power of matter to generate attraction in the first instance would 

 never have arisen from anything inherent : we, therefore, are compelled to 

 admit that fi-om something extraneous it derived its power. If we look at 

 the means necessary to endow matter with the property of attraction, we 

 are instantly astonished at the unbounded magnitude, magnipotence, and 

 magnipresence of that power; for we have evidence to show that that 

 power was evinced over enormous masses of matter separated by hundreds 

 of thousands of millions of miles. If that power is continually being 

 exerted, the Author necessarily appears as the Governor of material phe- 

 nomena ; but if the government of the world is continually being affected, 

 we discover that no variation has taken place in the general properties 

 evinced by matter since the world began : the earth still continues to run 

 its daily and yearly coui'se ; matter continues to be hot, illuminated, and 

 capable of causing sound when acted on in a peculiar manner ; and, as far 

 as we can learn, not the slightest alteration has occurred since the earliest 

 human event was recorded. 



Whether that power was in the first instance implanted for once 

 and for ever, or whether, by a continuance of the exertion of that power, 

 matter continues to attract, are subjects for contemplation far beyond the 

 capacity of human intellect to deduce from physical phenomena. We can 

 only admit that the same power which first caused matter to attract, may 

 also cause, at any given moment, that phenomenon to cease. 



To the source of that immensity of power, which we see either has 

 been exerted once or which continues to be exerted, we attach the name of 

 the Creator or Almighty. 



The attributes of the Creator of all material particles naturally form 

 a subject of the most sublime contemplation for all beings endowed with 

 reason sufficient for that purpose. But here again we must refer to our 

 incapacity to enter into a subject so much beyond human understanding, 

 for man can only appreciate things which are material, and which, by 

 virtue of their properties, communicate impressions through material 

 organs to the human mind. We find that we cannot determine the 

 absolute attributes of the Deity from physical science, but only infer 

 certain attributes by not attributing to His divinity the properties of 



P 



