the substance of the self-existent Being is diffused through the whole universe, a supposition than which none was ever fraught with more numerous or gross absurdities, as has been clearly shown by Dr Law in his Inquiry into the Ideas of Space, Time, Immensity, and Eternity, and in his notes on King's Origin of Evil. To these works I therefore refer you; but as it has been said that we cannot conceive a Being which is not more or less extended, it may be proper to observe here, that the words more or less are what has misled many on this subject, and induced them to conceive that a Being, of which extension cannot be predicated, is like a mathematical point, which, though not extended itself, is the commencement of extension. The fact, however, is, that a sentient and intellectual Being, considered by itself, has no relation whatever to extension or inextension; for a sensation is neither long nor short, nor a judgment either broad or deep. It is merely from our being constantly conversant with bodies, which are all extended, that we find it difficult to break the deeprooted association in our own minds of the idea of existence with that of extension; but were we completely destitute of the power of locomotion, and had no other senses than those of hearing and smelling (I believe I might safely add vision,)* what

Taste might certainly be added, and perhaps even that feeling which is excited by touch; but I have said all that I can say on this subject in the Tract with which you are well acquainted, and am strongly inclined to believe, that, if destitute

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possible idea could we form of extension? Yet even in that state, if we possessed the power of consciousness, which is indeed inseparable from sensation, we would indisputably be conscious of our own existence, without ever dreaming of extension. Our author's argument for the impossibility of two self-existent and perfect Beings, because, "if they differed, as disparates, there must be some genus above them, which is impossible," is perfect trifling-unworthy of him and unworthy of an answer. The words, classes, orders, genera, and species, are, in natural history, mere terms of art, comprehending each a certain number of animals in some respects similar to each other, without implying the superiority of the genus to all the species included in it, or the superiority of any individual of the species to all the other individuals of that species. They are terms invented to shorten what would be otherwise interminable, the description and history of every individual.

Although I have been at some pains to show the futility of the attempts of such eminent men as Clarke and Wollaston to demonstrate that there can be but one self-existent Being, I need not tell you that I believe, as firmly as they did, in the unity of the Divine Nature. We can demonstrate the existence of one uncaused Being, from the phenomena of the universe; but from these phenomena no proof can be brought for the existence of more

of the power of locomotion, we never from our five senses could have acquired the idea of extension.

than one such Being; whilst the uniformity of plan observable in the whole, renders it, as Dr Paley observes, in the highest degree improbable that there are more than one. It would be irrational therefore to acknowledge more than one; for though there had been twenty, we could not, by the light of nature, have traced our relation as creatures to more than one of them as our Creator and Preserver, and therefore the rest of the number could have been no gods to us.

In his eighth proposition Dr Clarke demonstrates that the self-existent and original cause of all things must be an intelligent Being; and here he abandons his "high priori road," and draws his proofs a posteriori from the evident marks of wisdom and design displayed in the works of creation. This is one of the most satisfactory disquisitions in his work; but the subject is treated more fully, and perhaps more perspicuously, by Dr Paley.

That the self-existent Cause of all things is a free agent, endued with liberty and choice, is very ably proved in his ninth proposition, in which it is shown that a necessary agent is in fact no agent at all, but a mere instrument in the hands of another. On this subject King's Origin of Evil deserves to be read with peculiar attention, and likewise Cudworth's Intellectual System of the Universe.

That the self-existent Cause of all things is possessed of infinite or Almighty power is the truth demonstrated in the tenth proposition; and the only question of any difficulty is, to what is such

power equal? Our author replies, that it is equal to every thing which involves not a contradiction. No power can make the same thing to be and not to be, or to be active and inert at the same individual instant, but can Almighty power call any thing into existence; or, in other words, is creation, in the proper sense of the term, possible? Our author shows clearly that it involves no contradiction, though we cannot conceive how it is done. To say that nothing can be made something, or formed into any particular shape, would indeed be a contradiction; for it implies that a substance may be and not be at the same instant of time; and perhaps it is owing to the very improper, though common, expression-that " God made all things out of nothing," that in every age so many men of science have been unwilling to admit of Creation in the proper sense of the word.

It is extremely doubtful, whether any of the philosophers of ancient Greece or Rome admitted of Creation in the sense in which the term is understood by Christians; and it is very certain that many of them, who were not Atheists, believed that matter had been of eternal existence; though they all admitted (I mean all who were not Atheists or Pantheists) that the world cannot have existed in its present state from all eternity, and this naturally led them to inquire by what power it had been brought into its present state; as that inquiry as naturally conducted them to at least one all-powerful Mind, which they acknowledged to be of eternal

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existence, as well as matter, and which they considered as a God. It is comparatively easy to prove that a succession of motions must have originally proceeded from a first mover-himself eternal and immoveable; but I am not aware of the medium by which we can demonstrate that the atoms of matter may not have existed from all eternity. Dr Clarke attempts it from his formal cause necessity,* which, as it operates, according to him, every where alike, would have made matter, were it the formal cause of its existence, infinite without the smallest interstices among the atoms, thus rendering the whole corporeal universe one solid mass ten times denser than gold.

This doctrine of necessity being a formal cause of existence, if not absolutely unintelligible, is certainly fraught with the most absurd consequences; but there is no occasion to have recourse to it; for as it indisputably implies no contradiction that Almighty power may create both matter and minds of different degrees of perfection, we Christians may surely believe on the testimony of God himself, that he hath done both; that he commanded, and the universe started into being. You will indeed find, in Bentley's second sermon, a very satisfactory proof, if not an absolute demonstration, that God is daily creating minds, of which the creation is at · least as difficult to be conceived as the creation of matter; and if so, why should any one hesitate to

*Here, as elsewhere, Mr Wollaston seems to have trode in Dr Clarke's footsteps.