it from its course, and render it subservient to his will. Ocean extends o'er half the globe its liquid plain, in which no path appears, and the rude winds oft lift its waters to the sky; but there the skill of Man may launch the strong-knit bark, and make the trackless deep a highway through the world. In such a state of things, knowledge is truly power; and it is highly important to human beings to become acquainted with the constitution and relations of every object around them, that they may discover its capabilities of ministering to their advantage.

Where these physical energies are too powerful to be controlled, Man has received intelligence by which he may observe their courses, and accommodate his conduct to their influence. This capacity of adaptation is a valuable substitute for the power of regulating them by his will. He cannot arrest the sun in its course, and thus avert the wintry storms and cause perpetual spring to bloom around him; but, by the exercise of his intelligence and his corporeal energies, he is able to foresee the approach of dark clouds and rude winds, and to place himself in safety from their injurious effects. These powers of applying nature to his use, and of accommodating his conduct to its course, are the direct results of his rational faculties; and in proportion to their cultivation is his sway extended. While ignorant, he is a helpless creature, but every step in knowledge is accompanied by an augmentation of his command over his own condition.

Man, ignorant and uncivilised, is cruel, sensual, and superstitious. The world affords some enjoyments to his animal feelings, but it perplexes his moral and intellectual faculties. External nature exhibits to his mind a mighty chaos of events and a dread display of power. The chain of causation appears too intricate to be unravelled, and the power too stupendous to be controlled. Order and beauty, indeed, occasionally gleam forth to his eye from detached portions of nature, and seem to promise happiness and joy; but more frequently clouds and darkness brood over the scene, and disappoint his fondest expectations. Nature is never contemplated by him with a clear perception of its adaptation to promote the enjoyment of the human race, or with a well-founded confidence in the wisdom and benevolence of its Author.

On the other hand, when civilised and illuminated by knowledge, Man discovers, in the objects and occurrences

around him, a scheme beautifully arranged for the gratification of his whole powers, animal, moral, and intellectual; he recognises in himself the intelligent and accountable subject of an all-bountiful God, and in joy and gladness desires to study His works, to ascertain His laws, and to yield to them a steady and willing obedience. Without undervaluing the pleasures of his animal nature, he tastes the higher, more refined, and more enduring delights of his moral and intellectual capacities; and he then calls aloud for education, as indispensable to the full enjoyment of his powers.

If this representation be correct, we perceive the advantage of gaining knowledge of our own constitution and of that of external nature, with a view to the regulation of our conduct according to rules drawn from such knowledge. Our constitution and our position equally imply that we should not remain contented with the pleasures of mere animal life, but should take the dignified and far more delightful station of moral and rational occupants of the world.

As long as Man remained ignorant of his own nature, he could not designedly form his institutions in accordance with it. Until his faculties and their relations became the subjects of his observation and reflection, they operated chiefly as blind impulses. His habits were savage, because at first his animal propensities were not directed by the moral sentiments or enlightened by reflection. He next assumed the condition of the barbarian, because his higher powers had made some advance, but had not yet attained supremacy; and now he devotes himself, in Britain, to commerce and manufactures, because his inventive and constructive faculties have given him power over physical nature, while his love of property and his ambition are predominant, and are gratified by such employments.

Not one of these conditions, however, has been adopted from design, or from perception of its suitableness to the nature of Man. He has been ill at ease in them all; but it does not follow that he must continue for ever equally ignorant of his nature, and equally incapable of framing institutions in harmony with it. The simple facts that the Creator has bestowed on Man reason, capable of discovering his own nature and its relations to external objects; that He has left him to apply it in framing suitable institutions ensure his happiness; that, nevertheless, Man has hitherto been ignorant of his nature and of its relations ; and that, in consequence, his modes of life have never been

to

adopted from enlightened views of his whole qualities and capacities, but have sprung up from the impulsive ascendency of one blind propensity or another-warrant us in saying that a new era will begin when Man shall study his constitution and its relations with success; and that the future may exhibit him assuming his station as a rational creature, seeking his happiness where it is really to be found, and at length attaining to higher gratification than any which he has hitherto enjoyed.

In our own country, two views of the constitution of the world and of human nature have long been prevalent, differing widely from each other, and which, if legitimately followed out, would lead to different practical results. The one is that the world, including both the physical and moral departments, is in itself well and wisely constituted, on the principle of a progressive system, and therefore capable of improvement. This hypothesis ascribes to the power and wisdom of the Divine Being the whole phenomena which nature, animate and inanimate, exhibits; because, in conferring on each part the specific qualities and constitution which belong to it, and in placing it in the circumstances in which it is found, He is assumed to have designed, from the first, the whole results which these qualities, constitution, and circumstances are capable of exhibiting. This theory affords the richest and most comprehensive field imaginable for tracing the evidence of Divine power, wisdom, and goodness in creation.

The other hypothesis is that the world was perfect at first, but fell into derangement, continues in disorder, and can be rectified only by supernatural means.

If the former view be sound, an important object of Man, as an intelligent being in quest of happiness, must be to study the elements of external nature and their capabilities; the elementary qualities of his own nature and their applications; and the relationship between these. His second object will be to discover and carry into effect the conditions-physical, moral, and intellectual-which, in virtue of this constitution, require to be realised before the fullest enjoyment of which he is capable can be attained.

According to the second view, little good can be expected from the merely natural action of creation's elements, especially the mental ones, these being all essentially disordered; and human improvement and enjoyment must be derived chiefly from spiritual influences. If the one hypothesis be

sound, Man must fulfil the natural conditions requisite to the existence of religion, morality, and happiness before he can reap full benefit from religious truth; according to the other, he must believe aright in religion, and be the subject of spiritual influences to rectify the disorders of nature, before he can become capable of virtue or enjoyment: in short, according to it, science, philosophy, and all arrangements of the physical, moral, and intellectual elements of nature are subordinate, in their effects upon human happiness on earth, to religious faith.*

I have brought prominently into view, and endeavoured to substantiate and apply, a doctrine which, in my opinion, is the key to the true theory of the Divine government of the world, but which has not hitherto been duly appreciated —namely, THE INDEPENDENT OPERATION OF THE LAWS OF NATURE.

The meaning which I attach to the expressions "Laws of nature" and "Natural laws may be thus explained :-Every object and being in nature has received a definite constitution, and also specific powers of acting on other objects and beings. The action of each force in the same circumstances is so regular, that we describe the force as operating under laws imposed on it by God; but these words indicate merely our perception of the regularity of the action. It is impossible for man to alter or break a natural law, in this sense of the phrase; for the action of the forces, and the effects they produce, are placed beyond his control. But the observation of the action of the forces leads Man to draw rules from it for the regulation of his conduct, and these rules also are called "natural laws," because it is through nature that God reveals and prescribes them to the human mind.

In perusing the following pages, this double signification of the phrase should be steadily kept in view the former is the sense in which it is employed by the physiologist and the natural philosopher; the latter, that in which it is most commonly used by the jurist and the moralist. To speak of obeying" and "disobeying " a natural law in the latter sense of the phrase is to speak literally and with precision; but to speak of "obeying" or "disobeying" a natural law in the former sense (as, for instance, the law of gravitation)

*This subject is fully discussed in the author's work, "On the Relation between Science and Religion."

is to say in a figurative manner that we adapt, or fail to adapt, our conduct to the fixed order and mode of action of things.

The laws of nature may, for our present purpose, be divided into three great classes-Physical, Organic, and Intellectual and Moral; and the doctrine I would enforce is that the objects governed by these classes of laws respectively manifest distinct forces, each of which acts according to its own laws, that the human constitution has been framed with designed relation to the forces; that Man cannot alter or evade their action, nor avert the consequences of them; and that hence his well-being is greatly influenced by the extent of his knowledge of, and compliance with, the laws of their operation.

For example, the most pious and benevolent missionaries sailing to civilise and Christianise the heathen may, if they embark in an unsound ship, be drowned by disregarding a physical law, without the slightest reference to the moral excellence of their design. On the other hand, if the greatest monsters of iniquity were embarked in a staunch and strong vessel, and managed it well, they might and on the general principles of the government of the world they would escape drowning in circumstances exactly similar to those which would send the missionaries to the bottom. There appears something inscrutable in such events, if only the moral qualities of the men be contemplated; but if the principle be recognised that ships float in virtue of a purely physical law, and that physical objects and moral beings act under distinct laws, each set being paramount in its own sphere, the consequences will assume a totally different aspect.

In like manner, organised bodies act under laws different from those to which purely physical substances and moral beings are subject. Thus one man, who has inherited a sound bodily constitution from his parents, and observed the rules of temperance and exercise, may cheat, lie, blaspheme, and annoy his fellow-men, and nevertheless for a long time enjoy robust health; while another, if he have inherited a feeble constitution, and disregarded the laws of diet and exercise, may suffer pain and sickness, although he may be a paragon of every Christian virtue. These results are frequently observed; and on such occasions the darkness and inscrutable perplexity of the ways of Providence are generally moralised upon-or a future life is