THE SYNTHETICAL METHOD. 479 



lion of the doctrine of his attributes being independent 

 upon his will. If the free agency of man be admitted, re- 

 sponsibility for our actions* ensues as a necessary conse- 

 quence, unless we can fancy that the Deity should have in 

 this instance acted directly contrary to those principles of 

 order by which we observe the universe to be governed. 

 Free agency without responsibility is an attribute of the 

 Deity ; and to invest a naturally imperfect being like man 

 with it, is as contrary to our notion of divine justice, as 

 that he should be made responsible without being a free 

 agent. With Omnipotence, it must be equally possible to 

 trace out our future actions as to give us perfect freedom 

 of thought and deed ; our disbelief therefore of necessity 



1 in human actions, must rest solely on the consciousness im- 

 planted in us, that we are to a certain degree free agents, 

 and therefore responsible. Revealed religion, however, 

 shows in what a wretched state of misery and despair we 

 should be involved, had we only to abide by the conse- 

 quences of this responsibility. 



Being in this manner convinced of the immateriality of 

 the sentient principle in man, and firmly believing in its ex- 

 istence after the dissolution of the body by death, I placed 

 these truths among my definitions. To those who may 

 believe with me in one plan reigning throughout the uni- 

 verse, I need not say how essential to its uniformity is 

 the existence of secondary immaterial causes, as connect- 

 ing matter with spirit. I shall therefore proceed to enu- 

 merate the leading hypotheses which have been published 

 on the subject of comparative psychology, by persons who 

 believe in the immateriality of the human soul. 



3. The nearest of these theories to materialism, is that 



which has for its fundamental position, that the other ani- 



