Note 7, page 113, col. 2. ין vantages the rich, and from the latter the poor, by the inevitable conditions of their respective situations, And statesmen boast are precluded. A state which should combine the Of wealth! advantages of both, would be subjected to the evils There is no real wealth but the labor of man. of neither. He that is deficient in firm health, or Were the mountains of gold and the valleys of silver, vigorous intellect, is but half a man: hence it folthe world would not be one grain of corn the richer; lows, that, to subject the laboring classes to unnecesno one comfort would be added to the human race. sary labor, is wantonly depriving them of any opIn consequence of our consideration for the precious portunities of intellectual improvement; and that metals, one man is enabled to heap to himself luxu- the rich are heaping up for their own mischief the ries at the expense of the necessaries of his neigh- disease, lassitude and ennui by which their existence bor; a system admirably fitted to produce all the is rendered an intolerable burthen. varieties of disease and crime, which never fail to English reformers exclaim against sinecures,-but characterize the two extremes of opulence and penury. the true pension-list is the rent-roll of the landed A speculator takes pride to himself as the promoter proprietors: wealth is a power usurped by the few. of his country's prosperity, who employs a number to compel the many to labor for their benefit. The of hands in the manufacture of articles avowedly laws which support this system derive their force destitute of use, or subservient only to the unhallow- from the ignorance and credulity of its victims: they ed cravings of luxury and ostentation. The noble- are the result of a conspiracy of the few against the man, who employs the peasants of his neighborhood many, who are themselves obliged to purchase this in building his palaces, until "jam pauca aratro ju- pre-eminence by the loss of all real comfort. gera regia moles relinquunt," flatters himself that he The commodities that substantially contribute to has gained the title of a patriot by yielding to the the subsistence of the human species form a very impulses of vanity. The show and pomp of courts short catalogue: they demand from us but a slender adduces the same apology for its continuance; and portion of industry. If these only were produced, many a fête has been given, many a woman has and sufficiently produced, the species of man would eclipsed her beauty by her dress, to benefit the labor- be continued. If the labor necessarily required to ing poor and to encourage trade. Who does not see produce them were equitably divided among the that this is a remedy which aggravates, whilst it pal- poor, and, still more, if it were equitably divided liates the countless diseases of society? The poor among all, each man's share of labor would be light, are set to labor,-for what? Not the food for which and his portion of leisure would be ample. There they famish: not the blankets for want of which was a time when this leisure would have been of their babes are frozen by the cold of their miserable small comparative value: it is to be hoped that the hovels: not those comforts of civilization without time will come, when it will be applied to the most which civilized man is far more miserable than the important purposes. Those hours which are not remeanest savage; oppressed as he is by all its insidious quired for the production of the necessaries of life, evils, within the daily and taunting prospect of its may be devoted to the cultivation of the understandinnumerable benefits assiduously exhibited before ing, the enlarging our stock of knowledge, the rehim-no; for the pride of power, for the miserable fining our taste, and thus opening to us new and isolation of pride, for the false pleasures of the hun- more exquisite sources of enjoyment. dredth part of society. No greater evidence is af forded of the wide-extended and radical mistakes of It was perhaps necessary that a period of monopoly civilized man than this fact: those arts which are and oppression should subsist, before a period of culessential to his very being are held in the greatest tivated equality could subsist. Savages perhaps would contempt; employments are lucrative in an inverse never have been excited to the discovery of truth ratio to their usefulness:* the jeweller, the toyman, and the invention of art, but by the narrow motives the actor, gains fame and wealth by the exercise of which such a period affords. But surely, after the his useless and ridiculous art; whilst the cultivator savage state has ceased, and men have set out in the of the earth, he without whom society must cease to subsist, struggles through contempt and penury, and perishes by that famine which, but for his unceasing exertions, would annihilate the rest of mankind. ** * glorious career of discovery and invention, monopoly and oppression cannot be necessary to prevent them from returning to a state of barbarism.-GODWIN'S Enquirer, Essay II. See also POL. JUS., book VIII. chap. 11. I will not insult common sense by insisting on the doctrine of the natural equality of man. The ques- It is a calculation of this admirable author, that all tion is not concerning its desirableness, but its prac- the conveniences of civilized life might be produced, ticability: so far as it is practicable, it is desirable. if society would divide the labor equally among its That state of human society which approaches nearer members, by each individual being employed in labor to an equal partition of its benefits and evils should, two hours during the day. Note 8, page 113, col. 2. Or religion I am acquainted with a lady of considerable ac cæteris paribus, be preferred: but so long as we conceive that a wanton expenditure of human labor, not for the necessities, not even for the luxuries of the mass of society, but for the egotism and ostentation of a few of its members, is defensible on the ground of public justice, so long we neglect to approximate complishments, and the mother of a numerons family, to the redemption of the human race. whom the Christian religion has goaded to incurable Labor is required for physical, and leisure for insanity. A parallel case is, I believe, within the exmoral improvement: from the former of these ad-perience of every physician. *See Rousseau, "De l'Inégalité parmi les Hommes," note 7. Nam jam sæpe homines patriam, carosque parentes LUCRETIUS Note 9, page 114, col. 2. Even love is sold. in both cases, excludes us from all inquiry. The language of the votarist is this: The woman I now love may be infinitely inferior to many others; the Not even the intercourse of the sexes is exempt creed I now profess may be a mass of errors and from the despotism of positive institution. Law pre- absurdities; but I exclude myself from all future tends even to govern the indisciplinable wanderings information as to the amiability of the one and the of passion, to put fetters on the clearest deductions truth of the other, resolving blindly, and in spite of of reason, and, by appeals to the will, to subdue the conviction, to adhere to them. Is this the language involuntary affections of our nature. Love is inevi- of delicacy and reason? Is the love of such a frigid tably consequent upon the perception of loveliness. heart of more worth than its belief? Love withers under constraint: its very essence is The present system of constraint does no more, in liberty it is compatible neither with obedience, the majority of instances, than make hypocrites or jealousy, nor fear: it is there most pure, perfect, and open enemies. Persons of delicacy and virtue, ununlimited, where its votaries live in confidence, happily united to one whom they find it impossible equality, and unreserve. to love, spend the loveliest season of their life in un How long then ought the sexual connexion to last? productive efforts to appear otherwise than they are, what law ought to specify the extent of the griev- for the sake of the feelings of their partner, or the ances which should limit its duration? A husband and welfare of their mutual offspring: those of less wife ought to continue so long united as they love generosity and refinement openly avow their disapeach other: any law which should bind them to co-pointment, and linger out the remnant of that union, habitation for one moment after the decay of their which only death can dissolve, in a state of incurable affection, would be a most intolerable tyranny, and bickering and hostility. The early education of their the most unworthy of toleration. How odious a children takes its color from the squabbles of the usurpation of the right of private judgment should parents; they are nursed in a systematic school of that law be considered, which should make the ties ill-humor, violence, and falsehood. Had they been of friendship indissoluble, in spite of the caprices, suffered to part at the moment when indifference the inconstancy, the fallibility, and capacity for im- rendered their union irksome, they would have been provement of the human mind. And by so much spared many years of misery; they would have conwould the fetters of love be heavier and more unen- nected themselves more suitably, and would have durable than those of friendship, as love is more found that happiness in the society of more congenial vehement and capricious, more dependent on those partners which is for ever denied them by the desdelicate peculiarities of imagination, and less capable potism of marriage. They would have been sepaof reduction to the ostensible merits of the object. rately useful and happy members of society, who, The state of society in which we exist is a mixture whilst united, were miserable, and rendered misanof feudal savageness and imperfect civilization. The thropical by misery. The conviction that wedlock is narrow and unenlightened morality of the Christian indissoluble holds out the strongest of all temptations religion is an aggravation of these evils. It is not to the perverse: they indulge without restraint in even until lately that mankind have admitted that acrimony, and all the little tyrannies of domestic life happiness is the sole end of the science of ethics, as of all other sciences; and that the fanatical idea of mortifying the flesh for the love of God has been discarded. I have heard, indeed, an ignorant collegian adduce, in favor of Christianity, its hostility to every worldly feeling!* when they know that their victim is without appeal. If this connexion were put on a rational basis, each would be assured that habitual ill temper would terminate in separation, and would check this vicious and dangerous propensity. Prostitution is the legitimate offspring of marriage But if happiness be the object of morality, of all and its accompanying errors. Women, for no other human unions and disunions; if the worthiness of crime than having followed the dictates of a natural every action is to be estimated by the quantity of appetite, are driven with fury from the comforts and pleasurable sensation it is calculated to produce, then sympathies of society. It is less venial than murder: the connexion of the sexes is so long sacred as it and the punishment which is inflicted on her whe contributes to the comfort of the parties, and is natu- destroys her child to escape reproach, is lighter than rally dissolved when its evils are greater than its the life of agony and disease to which the prostitute benefits. There is nothing immoral in this separation. is irrecoverably doomed. Has a woman obeyed the Constancy has nothing virtuous in itself, independent- impulse of unerring nature;-society declares war ly of the pleasure it confers, and partakes of the against her, pitiless and eternal war: she must be temporizing spirit of vice in proportion as it endures the tame slave, she must make no reprisals; theirs is tamely moral defects of magnitude in the object of the right of persecution, hers the duty of endurance. its indiscreet choice. Love is free: to promise for She lives a life of infamy: the loud and bitter laugh ever to love the same woman, is not less absurd than to promise to believe the same creed: such a vow, of scorn scares her from all return. She dies of long and lingering disease; yet she is in fault, she is the criminal, she the froward and untamable child,* The first Christian emperor made a law by which se- and Society, forsooth, the pure and virtuous matron, duction was punished with death: if the female pleaded who casts her as an abortion from her undefiled her own consent, she also was punished with death; if the bosom! Society avenges herself on the criminals of parents endeavored to screen the criminals, they were her own creation; she is employed in anathematizing banished and their estates were confiscated; the slaves the vice to-day, which yesterday she was the most who might be accessory were burned alive, or forced to zealous to teach. Thus is formed one-tenth of the swallow melted lead. The very offspring of an illegal love were involved in the consequences of the sentence.- population of London: meanwhile the evil is twofold GIBBON'S Decline and Fall, etc. vol. ii. page 210. See also, Young men, excluded by the fanatical idea of chasfor the hatred of the primitive Christians to love, and tity from the society of modest and accomplished even marriage, page 269. women, associate with these vicious and miserable beings, destroying thereby all those exquisite and climate of Hindostan for their production. The delicate sensibilities whose existence cold-hearted researches of M. Bailly‡ establish the existence of a worldlings have denied; annihilating all genuine people who inhabited a tract in Tartary, 49° north passion, and debasing that to a selfish feeling which latitude, of greater antiquity than either the Indians, is the excess of generosity and devotedness. Their the Chinese, or the Chaldeans, from whom these body and mind alike crumble into a hideous wreck nations derived their sciences and theology. We find, of humanity; idiocy and disease become perpetu- from the testimony of ancient writers, that Britain, ated in their miserable offspring, and distant genera- Germany and France were much colder than at tions suffer for the bigoted morality of their fore- present, and that their great rivers were annually fathers. Chastity is a monkish and evangelical frozen over. Astronomy teaches us also. that since superstition, a greater foe to natural temperance even this period, the obliquity of the earth's position has than unintellectual sensuality; it strikes at the root been considerably diminished. of all domestic happiness, and consigns more than half of the human race to misery, that some fow may monopolize according to law. A system could not well have been devised more studiously hostile to human happiness than marriage. Note 11, page 116, col. I. No atom of this turbulence fulfile A vague and unnecessitated task, I conceive that, from the abolition of marriage, the sible le principe qui vient d'ètre posé; nous emprun fit and natural arrangement of sexual connexion terons l'un du physique et l'autre du moral. Dans would result. I by no means assert that the inter- un tourbillon de poussière qu'élève un vent impétucourse would be promiscuous: on the contrary; it eux, quelque confus qu'il paroisse à nos yeux; dans appears, from the relation of parent to child, that la plus affreuse tempête excitée par des vents opposés this union is generally of long duration, and marked qui soulèvent les flots, il n'y a pas une seule moléabove all others with generosity and self-devotion. cule de poussière ou d'eau qui soit placée au hasard, But this is a subject which it is perhaps premature qui n'ait sa cause suffisante pour occuper le lieu où to discuss. That which will result from the abolition elle se trouve, et qui n'agisse rigoureusement de la of marriage, will be natural and right, because choice manière dont elle doit agir. Un géomètre qui conand change will be exempted from restraint. naîtroit exactement les différentes forces qui agissent In fact, religion and morality, as they now stand, dans ces deux cas, et les propriétés des molécules compose a practical code of misery and servitude: qui sont mues, démontreroit que d'après des causes the genius of human happiness must tear every leaf données, chaque molécule agit précisément comme from the accursed book of God, ere man can read elle doit agir, et ne peut agir autrement qu'elle ne the inscription on his heart. How would morality, dressed up in stiff stays and finery, start from her own disgusting image, should she look in the mirror of nature! Note 10, page 115, col. 1. To the red and baleful sun fait. Dans les convulsions terribles qui agitent quelquefois les sociétés politiques, et qui produisent souvent le renversement d'un empire, il n'y a pas une seule action, une seule parole, une seule pensée, une seule volonté, une seule passion dans les agens qui concourent à la révolution comme destructeurs ou comme victimes, qui ne soit necessaire, qui n'agisse comme elle doit agir, qui n'opère infailliblement les effets qu'elle doit opérer suivant la place qu'occupent ces dent pour une intelligence qui sera en état de saisir agens dans ce tourbillon moral. Cela paroîtroit éviesprits et des corps de ceux qui contribuent à cette et d'apprécier toutes les actions et réactions des révolution.-Système de la Nature, vol. I. page 44. Note 12, page 116, col. 2. Necessity, thou mother of the world! The north polar star, to which the axis of the earth, in its present state of obliquity, points. It is exceedingly probable, from many considerations, that this obliquity will gradually diminish, until the equator coincides with the ecliptic: the nights and days will then become equal on the earth throughout the year, and probably the seasons also. There is no great extravagance in presuming that the progress of the perpendicularity of the poles may be as rapid as the progress of intellect; or that there should be a perfect identity between the moral and physical im- He who asserts the doctrine of Necessity, means provement of the human species. It is certain that that, contemplating the events which compose the wisdom is not compatible with disease, and that, in moral and material universe, he beholds only an imthe present state of the climates of the earth, health, mense and uninterrupted chain of causes and effects, in the true and comprehensive sense of the word, is no one of which could occupy any other place than out of the reach of civilized man. Astronomy it does occupy, or act in any other way than it does teaches us that the earth is now in its progress, and act. The idea of necessity is obtained by our exthat the poles are every year becoming more and perience of the connexion between objects, the more perpendicular to the ecliptic. The strong evi-uniformity of the operations of nature, the constant dence afforded by the history of mythology, and geo- conjunction of similar events, and the consequent logical researches, that some event of this nature has inference of one from the other. Mankind are taken place already, affords a strong presumption, that this progress is not merely an oscillation, as has been surmised by some late astronomers.* Bones of animals peculiar to the torrid zone have been found in the north of Siberia, and on the banks of the river Ohio. Plants have been found in the fossil state in the interior of Germany, which demand the present * Laplace. Systême du Monde. therefore agreed in the admission of necessity, if they admit that these two circumstances take place in voluntary action. Motive is, to voluntary action in the human mind, what cause is to effect in the material universe. The word liberty, as applied to † Cabanis, Rapports du Physique et du Moral de l'Homme, vol. ii. page 406. Lettres sur les Sciences, à Voltaire.-Bailly. mind, is analogous to the word chance, as applied with circumstances and characters; motive is, to to matter: they spring from an ignorance of the voluntary action, what cause is to effect. But the certainty of the conjunction of antecedents and con- only idea we can form of causation is a constant sequents. conjunction of similar objects, and the consequent inference of one from the other: wherever this is the case, necessity is clearly established. Every human being is irresistibly impelled to act precisely as he does act: in the eternity which preceded his birth a chain of causes was generated, The idea of liberty, applied metaphorically to the which, operating under the name of motives, make will, has sprung from a misconception of the meanit impossible that any thought of his mind, or any ing of the word power. What is power ?--id quod action of his life, should be otherwise than it is. potest, that which can produce any given effect. To Were the doctrine of Necessity false, the human deny power, is to say that nothing can or has the mind would no longer be a legitimate object of power to be or act In the only true sense of the science; from like causes it would be in vain that word power, it applies with equal force to the loadwe should expect like effects; the strongest motive stone as to the human will. Do you think these would no longer be paramount over the conduct; all motives, which I shall present, are powerful enough knowledge would be vague and undeterminate; we to rouse him? is a question just as common as, Do could not predict with any certainty that we might you think this lever has the power of raising this not meet as an enemy to-morrow him with whom we weight? The advocates of free-will assert that the have parted in friendship to-night; the most probable will has the power of refusing to be determined by inducements and the clearest reasonings would lose the strongest motive: but the strongest motive is that the invariable influence they possess. The contrary which, overcoming all others, ultimately prevails; of this is demonstrably the fact. Similar circum- this assertion therefore amounts to a denial of the stances produce the same unvariable effects. The will being ultimately determined by that motive precise character and motives of any man on any which does determine it, which is absurd. But it is occasion being given, the moral philosopher could equally certain that a man cannot resist the strongest predict his actions with as much certainty as the motive, as that he cannot overcome a physical imnatural philosopher could predict the effects of the possibility. mixture of any particular chemical substances. Why The doctrine of Necessity tends to introduce a is the aged husbandman more experienced than the great change into the established notions of morality, young beginner? Because there is a uniform, unde- and utterly to destroy religion. Reward and punishniable necessity in the operations of the material ment must be considered, by the Necessarian, merely universe. Why is the old statesman more skilful as motives which he would employ in order to prothan the raw politician? Because, relying on the cure the adoption or abandonment of any given Ime necessary conjunction of motive and action, he pro- of conduct. Desert, in the present sense of the word, ceeds to produce moral effects, by the application of would no longer have any meaning; and he, who those moral causes which experience has shown to should inflict pain upon another for no better reason be effectual. Some actions may be found to which than that he deserved it, would only gratify his re we can attach no motives, but these are the effects venge under pretence of satisfying justice. It is not of causes with which we are unacquainted. Hence enough, says the advocate of free-will, that a crimthe relation which motive bears to voluntary action inal should be prevented from a repetition of his is that of cause to effect; nor, placed in this point crimes: he should feel pain, and his torments, when of view, is it, or ever has it been the subject of justly inflicted, ought precisely to be proportioned to popular or philosophical dispute. None but the few his fault. But utility is morality; that which is infanatics who are engaged in the herculean task of capable of producing happiness is useless; and though reconciling the justice of their God with the misery the crime of Damiens must be condemned, yet the of man, will longer outrage common sense by the frightful torments which revenge, under the name supposition of an event without a cause, a voluntary of justice, inflicted on this unhappy man, cannot be action without a motive. History, politics, morals, supposed to have augmented, even at the long-run, criticism, all grounds of reasonings, all principles of the stock of pleasurable sensation in the world. At science, alike assume the truth of the doctrine of the same time, the doctrine of Necessity does not in Necessity. No farmer carrying his corn to market the least diminish our disapprobation of vice. The doubts the sale of it at the market price. The master conviction which all feel, that a viper is a poisonous of a manufactory no more doubts that he can pur- animal, and that a tiger is constrained, by the inevichase the human labor necessary for his purposes, table condition of his existence, to devour men, does than that his machinery will act as it has been ac- not induce us to avoid them less sedulously, or, even customed to act. more, to hesitate in destroying them: but he would But, whilst none have scrupled to admit necessity surely be of a hard heart, who, meeting with a seras influencing matter, many have disputed its do- pent on a desert island, or in a situation where it minion over mind. Independently of its militating was incapable of injury, should wantonly deprive it with the received ideas of the justice of God, it is of existence. A Necessarian is inconsequent to his by no means obvious to a superficial inquiry. When own principles, if he indulges in hatred or contempt; the mind observes its own operations, it feels no con- the compassion which he feels for the criminal, is nexion of motive and action: but as we know "no- unmixed with a desire of injuring him; he looks thing more of causation than the constant conjunc-with an elevated and dreadless composure upon the tion of objects and the consequent inference of one links of the universal chain as they pass before his from the other, as we find that these two circum- eyes; whilst cowardice, curiosity and inconsistency stances are universally allowed to have place in vol- only assail him in proportion to the feebleness and untary action, we may be easily led to own that they indistinctness with which he has perceived and reare subjected to the necessity common to all causes." jected the delusions of free-will. The actions of the will have a regular conjunction Religion is the perception of the relation in which Note 13, page 117, col. 1. This negation must be understood solely to affect a creative Deity. The hypothesis of a pervading Spirit coeternal with the universe, remains unshaken. we stand to the principle of the universe. But if the principle of the universe be not an organic being, the model and prototype of man, the relation between it and human beings is absolutely none. Without some insight into its will respecting our actions, religion is nugatory and vain. But will is only a mode of animal A close examination of the validity of the proofs mind; moral qualities also are such as only a human adduced to support my proposition, is the only secure being can possess; to attribute them to the principle way of attaining truth, on the advantages of which of the universe, is to annex to it properties incom- it is unnecessary to descant: our knowledge of the patible with any possible definition of its nature. It existence of a Deity is a subject of such importance, is probable that the word God was originally only an that it cannot be too minutely investigated; in conexpression denoting the unknown cause of the known sequence of this conviction, we proceed briefly and events which men perceived in the universe. By the impartially to examine the proofs which have been vulgar mistake of a metaphor for a real being, of a adduced. It is necessary first to consider the nature word for a thing, it became a man, endowed with of belief. human qualities and governing the universe as an earthly monarch governs his kingdom. Their addresses to this imaginary being, indeed, are much in the same style as those of subjects to a king. They acknowledge his benevolence, deprecate his anger, and supplicate his favor. When a proposition is offered to the mind, it perceives the agreement or disagreement of the ideas of which it is composed. A perception of their agreement is termed belief. Many obstacles frequently prevent this perception from being immediate; these the mind attempts to remove, in order that the perBut the doctrine of Necessity teaches us, that in ception may be distinct. The mind is active in the no case could any event have happened otherwise investigation, in order to perfect the state of percepthan it did happen, and that, if God is the author of tion of the relation which the component ideas of good, he is also the author of evil; that, if he is en- the proposition bear to each, which is passive: the titled to our gratitude for the one, he is entitled to investigation being confused with the perception, has our hatred for the other; that, admitting the existence of this hypothetic being, he is also subjected to the dominion of an immutable necessity. It is plain that the same arguments which prove that God is the author of food, light, and life, prove him also to be the author of poison, darkness, and death. The widewasting earthquake, the storm, the battle, and the tyranny, are attributable to this hypothetic being, in Belief, then, is a passion, the strength of which, the same degree as the fairest forins of nature, sun-like every other passion, is in precise proportion to shine, liberty, and peace. the degrees of excitement. But we are taught, by the doctrine of Necessity, that there is neither good nor evil in the universe, otherwise than as the events to which we apply these epithets have relation to our own peculiar mode of being. Still less than with the hypothesis of a God, will the doctrine of Necessity accord with the belief of a future state of punishment. God made man such as he is, and then damned him for being so. for to say that God was the author of all good, and man the author of all evil, is to say that one man made a straight line and a crooked one, and another man made the incongruity. induced many falsely to imagine that the mind is active in belief,—that belief is an act of volition,in consequence of which it may be regulated by the mind. Pursuing, continuing this mistake, they have attached a degree of criminality to disbelief; of which, in its nature, it is incapable: it is equally incapable of merit. The degrees of excitement are three. The senses are the sources of all knowledge to the mind; consequently their evidence claims the strongest assent. The decision of the mind, founded upon our own experience, derived from these sources, claims the next degree. The experience of others, which addresses itself to the former one, occupies the lowest degree. (A graduated scale, on which should be marked the capabilities of propositions to approach to the test of the senses, would be a just barometer of the belief which ought to be attached to them.) Consequently no testimony can be admitted which is contrary to reason; reason is founded on the evidence of our senses. Every proof may be referred to one of these three divisions: it is to be considered what arguments we receive from each of them, which should convince us of the existence of a Deity. A Mahometan story, much to the present purpose, is recorded, wherein Adam and Moses are introduced disputing before God in the following manner. Thou. says Moses, art Adam, whom God created and animated with the breath of life, and caused to be wor shipped by the angels, and placed in Paradise, from whence mankind have been expelled for thy fault. Whereto Adam answered, Thou art Moses, whom God chose for his apostle, and intrusted with his 1st. The evidence of the senses. If the Deity should word, by giving thee the tables of the law, and whom appear to us, if he should convince our senses of his he vouchsafed to admit to discourse with himself. existence, this revelation would necessarily command How many years dost thou find the law was written belief. Those to whom the Deity has thus appeared before I was created? Says Moses, Forty. And dost have the strongest possible conviction of his existence. thou not find, replied Adam, these words therein, But the God of Theologians is incapable of local visiAnd Adam rebelled against his Lord and transgress- bility. ed? Which Moses confessing, Dost thou therefore 2d. Reason. It is urged that man knows that whatblame me, continued he, for doing that which God ever is, must either have had a beginning, or have wrote of me that I should do, forty years before I existed from all eternity: he also knows, that whatwas created; nay, for what was decreed concerning ever is not eternal must have had a cause. When me fifty thousand years before the creation of heaven this reasoning is applied to the universe, it is necessary and earth?-SALE'S Prelim. Disc. to the Koran, page to prove that it was created: until that is clearly demonstrated, we may reasonably suppose that it has 164. |