particularly chriftianity, which has made the notion and belief of a God far more important to mankind than it had ever before appeared, impelled their minds to contemplate this exalted subject, and to employ all their combined faculties in this contemplation. Hence it naturally follows, that reafon has acquired a more extenfive, juft, and adequate knowledge of the nature, attributes, and defigns of God, by a reflection thus excited and invigorated, than it ever before poffeffed.

Whilft, however, we acknowledge this fervice done to natural religion by revelation, we must not forget the benefits and advantages accruing to revealed from pure natural religion, and truths eftablished by reason. The light and confirmation derived to the former from the latter may, perhaps not improperly, be thus difplayed. Let us fuppofe, that a code of laws, in every refpect as perfect as poffible, was given by an intelligent and benevolent philofopher to an ignorant and uncultivated people. On the promulgation of it, the wifeft heads amongst this people, who hitherto had formed no ideas of juftice and injuftice, or at leaft very flight and imperfect ones, and had framed no fyftem of the laws of nature, awaking as it were from a long flumber, would first be led to ftudy thofe laws, inveftigate their principles, and reflect on juftice and injustice in general. They would at length difcover by reflection and reafoning, that they could attain proofs for the excellence of thefe laws, independent of all refpect for their author, which they at first learnt only from the code itself, and took upon truft in him who framed it. Let us alfo fuppofe, that the words of this code, however full and careful the inftructions for guiding the people in the path of juftice might be, were, through lapfe of time and change of circumftances, become doubtful, lefs clear, and liable to be misunderstood; philofophy, and the law

of

of nature, firft learnt by means of this code, would render the moft needful and folid fervice in explaining obfcure and difputed expreffions of the law, making a juft application of general laws to particular cafes, and defeating the mistakes of ignorance or mifapplications of fuperftition. There is nothing abfurd in fuppofing, that, whilft the pofitive law was first made known to fupply the complete want or imperfection of a rational natural law, ftill, when reafon had been thereby formed and affifted in the discovery and knowledge of the natural law, this reason, and the knowledge it had acquired, could and must greatly contribute to explain and confirm the positive law. This, I fay, is by no means contradictory. It is actually the cafe in all civilized nations. In fuch ftates the general law of nature is infufficient to maintain rectitude of conduct amongst their members. Pofitive laws are neceffary, applicable to each particular state, and the peculiar circumstances of its people. Yet thefe laws and ordinances can never be fo clear and perfect, but that it will become requifite to afcertain their meaning, to apply them in certain cafes according to the principles of reafon, and fometimes to have recourse to the general expreffion of the law of nature. Thus, I believe, is it with natural and revealed religion.

For the thinking part of mankind, wonders and prophecies, considered in themselves, are more astonishing than convincing. The power of convincing us of their divine origin will not, indeed, be denied to these peculiar proofs of revelation; they will rather be confidered as deferving a fufficient and neceffary confirmation. But it will fill be thought requifite to a complete and firm affurance of the truth, that the doctrines and tidings which they are intended to confirm bear themselves the feal of truth, and the ftamp of the Deity. Even the virtuous character of him who delivers thefe tidings and

doctrines

doctrines will not render thefe internal evidences of their truth fuperfluous: for virtue is not a fecurity against error and felf-deception, though it is a prefumptive proof of the truth of its doctrines. Thus it feems, thinking people cannot easily attain a confident affurance without having themselves examined and approved the doctrines of revelation. But they can no otherwise prove the decrees of revelation, than by comparing them with that knowledge of God which they derive from reason. So far all revelation requires to be confirmed by natural religion. But fince the doctrines of the latter appear to be not fufficiently clear and evident to the greatest part of those who confider them, as they leave doubts and perplexities in their minds, it feems to be the office and benefit of revelation, to confirm and more clearly ascertain the doctrines common to them both by its own peculiar and fufficient proofs, and to bring the mind, disturbed by doubts, to a peaceful affurance in the truth, by the united means of a folid rational faith and its own light and conviction. And the more these two means mutually affift each other, the stronger will their united effects operate to produce peace and confidence.

PROP. XV. p. 56.

On Free-Will.

ARGUMENTS favouring the mechanism of the human mind have already been adduced by our author, in the conclufion of the first part (vol. I. p. 501—3). But the opponents of the free-will defended there, and in Prop. XIV. of this part, will argue from experience, that man poffeffes another kind of freewill, termed philofophical by Hartley. They say: we feel that we can act differently from the manner

in

in which we do act, and this feeling is the highest and most incontrovertible proof of it! To this Hartley with juftice replies, that in all important actions of our lives, if we attend to our motives, and thofe motives be of fufficient weight, we in effect find, that they were not to be refifted, and confequently have a directly oppofite feeling. Thefe two points, however, deferve to be more ftrictly confidered. Man, as having Man, as having a fentiment of free-will, may be confidered in a three-fold point of view: whilft he is choofing; when he chooses; and after he has chofen. To judge properly of the fentiment we speak of, thefe three ftates or points of time muft be accurately diftinguished. In the firft ftate, whilft a man has not at all or but flightly confidered and compared the grounds of his choice, having only taken a view of them in the grofs, he knows not himself what motives will determine him, or to which fide he fhall incline. Whilft he is in this ftate, and his mind is occupied in confidering and weighing the motives that offer, he must deem a certain action and its oppofite equally poffible for him to perform, like as a balance, which has yet no weight in either fcale and vibrates up and down, may be made to incline to either fide, according to our precedent judgment. In this ftate a man has no doubt the fentiment of free-will, fince in these circumstances he can choose one of two different and oppofite things: but he has it only because he ftill hefitates, and is not yet determined. He will determine, however; and this is the ftate or period of choice. He has now weighed the motives, as far as was fuitable to his circumstances, and his mind has received a fufficient weight to occafion a preponderance. In this

* See the Allgemeine Deutsche Bibliothek, Band XII. Stück 2. S..304. We have here made ufe of the remarks there offered, in order to elucidate the point in queftion.

ftate

ftate he is perfectly confcious of the motives that determine him, or he is not. If the former, he feels (and to this Hartley refers) that he cannot refift the grounds of his choice, and is aware of the power that rules his determination. But if he be clearly confcious of no motive, he afks whether he be, notwithstanding, determined by a motive, or there be in that cafe no motive, and he were determined without ground or caufe, and by chance. If the latter be not admitted, and it cannot be denied, that, as ftrict attention in many inftances informs us, inclination, defire, paffion, and affection, fo far as they are operations of the mind, are compounded of a number of not fufficiently diftinguished, and confequently not clearly noted, perceptions of good and evil, and that in many cafes, on calm and attentive deliberation, they admit of being decompofed and refolved into these unnoticed perceptions as into fo many constituent parts; we ought not from a want of clearly perceived motives to infer an absence of perceptions however obfcure. Philofophical free-will as it is called, would gain but a very poor advantage, were its existence defenfible only in cafes where man acts not from rational principles, but from luft and paffion, and without clearly knowing wherefore. Befides, a blind chance, by which man is determined, must be admitted, instead of the proper motives and impulfes of the will, that are denied. But this is not attributing to him an original power of determining himself to oppofite things without any grounds. Even this power is chance, whilft its determination to A or not A, at the fame time, and under exactly the fame circumftances, is equally poffible. And this is a power which man finds not in himself in the most important actions of his life, if he act with reason and deliberation.

If man, then, though he be not clearly confcious of his motives at the moment of choice, be deter