404 



ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING. 



organs of sense being in themselves perfect, and the objects fully within 

 their scope,) falls, if 1 mistake not, under the one or the other of these 

 two divisions. 



Demonstrative knowledge, where the intervening proofs or ideas 

 perform their part perfectly, approaches, as 1 have already observed, to the 

 certainty of intuition. But it has generally been held that this kind of de- 

 monstration can only take place in the science of mathematics, or, in other 

 words, in ideas of number, extension, and figure. I coincide, however, 

 completely with Mr. Locke, in believing that the knowledge afforded by 

 physics may not un frequently be as certain. 1 have already stated that 

 the knowledge we possess of our own existence is intuitive. Our 

 knowledge of the existence of a God is, on the contrary, demokstka- 

 tive. Examine, then, the proofs of this latter knowledge, and see 

 whether it be less certain. Am 1 asked where proofs to this effect are to 

 be found ? On every side they press upon us in clusters. — I cannot, in- 

 deed, follow them up at the present moment, for it would require a foho 

 volume, instead of the close of a single lecture ; and I merely throw out 

 the hint that you may pursue it at home. But this I may venture to say, 

 that whatever cluster we take, it will develope to us a certain proof, and 

 in its separate value, fall but little short of the force of self-evidence. If 

 I ascend into heaven, he is there ; in peerless splendour, in ineffable ma- 

 jesty ; diffusing, from an inexiiaustible fountain, the mighty tide of light, 

 and life, and love, from world to world, and from system to system. If I 

 descend into the grave, he is there also ; still actively and manifestly 

 employed in the same benevolent pursuit ; still, though in a different 

 manner, promoting the calm but unceasing career of vitahty and happi- 

 ness ; harmoniously leading on the silent circle of decomposition and 

 re-organization ; fructifying the cold and gloomy regions of the tomb ; 

 rendering death itself the mysterious source of reproduction and new 

 existence ; and thus liteially making the " dry bones live," and the " dead 

 sing praises" to his name. If 1 examme the world without me, or the 

 world within me, I trace him equally to a demonstration : — I feel,^ — nay, 

 more than feel^ — I know him to be eternal, omniscient, omnipotent, the 

 Creator of all things, and therefore Grod. I discover him, not by the vain 

 maxims of tradition, or the visionary conceit of innate principles, but by 

 the faculty with which he has expressly endowed me to search for him, — 

 by my reason. There may, perhaps, be some persons, as well learned 

 as unlearned, who have never brought together these proofs of his exist- 

 ence, and are therefore ignorant of him ; as there certainly are others, 

 who have never brought together the proofs that the three angles of a 

 triangle are equal to two right angles, and are therefore ignorant of 

 geometry : but both facts have a like truth and a hke foundation ; both 

 flow from and return to the same fountain ; for God is the author of 

 .every truth, — for God is truth itself. 



