OF

NATURE.

BY

JAS.-HENRY-BERNARDIN DE SAINT-PIERRE.

MISERIS SUCCURRERE DISCO.

TRANSLATED BY

HENRY HUNTER, D. D.

LATE MINISTER OF THE SCOTS CHURCH, LONDON - WALL

FIFTH EDITION.

IN FOUR VOLUMES.

VOL. III.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR J. MAWMAN; J. WALKER; LONGMAN, HURST, REES, AND
ORME; VERNOR, HOOD, AND SHARPE; C. LAW; LACKINGTON,
ALLEN, AND CO.; B. CROSBY AND CO.; J. RICHARDSON;
AND J. M. RICHARDSON.

1809.

J. G. Barnard, Printer, Skinner Street.

CONTENTS.

VOL. III.

STUDY XII. Of some Moral Laws of Nature

Weakness of Reason, of Feeling; Proofs of the

Divinity, and of the Immortality of the Soul

from Feeling

Of Physical Sensations

Page

1

ib.

35

ib.

Of the Sentiment of Love._._.

Of some other Sentiments of Deity, and, among

others, of that of Virtues

... 116

STUDY

STUDY XIII. Application of the Laws of Nature to the

Disorders of Society

Page

134

STUDIES OF NATURE.

STUDY TWELFTH.

OF SOME MORAL LAWS OF NATURE.

Weakness of Reason; of Feeling; Proofs of the Divinity, and of the Immortality of the Soul, from Feeling.

SUCH are the physical proofs of the existence of

the DEITY, as far as the feebleness of my reason has enabled me to produce and arrange them. I have collected perhaps ten times as many; but I perceived that I was after all but at the beginning of my career; that the farther I advanced, the farther it extended itself before me; that my own labour would soon overwhelm me; and that, conformably to the idea of Scripture, nothing would remain to me after a complete survey of the Works of Creation, but the most profound astonishment.

It is one of the great calamities of human life, that in proportion as we approach the source of truth, it flies away from before us; and that when by chance. we are enabled to catch some of it's smaller ramifications, we are unable to remain constantly attached to them. Wherefore has the sentiment which yesterday exalted me to Heaven, at sight of a new relation VOL. III.

B

of