2. God in the Universe.

THUS I continue then, said Theocles, addressing myself, as you would have me, to that guardian Deity and inspirer, whom we are to imagine present here; but not here only. For 'O mighty Genius! sole-animating and inspiring Power! author and subject of these thoughts! thy influence is universal, and in all things thou art inmost. From thee depend their secret springs of action. Thou movest them with an irresistible, unwearied force, by sacred and inviolable laws, framed for the good of each particular being, as best may suit with the perfection, life, and vigour of the whole. The vital principle is widely shared, and infinitely varied; dispersed throughout; no where extinct. All lives, and by succession still revives. The temporary beings quit their borrowed forms, and yield their elementary substance to new comers. Called, in their several turns, to life, they view the light, and viewing pass; that others too may be spectators of the goodly scene, and greater numbers still enjoy the privilege of Nature. Munificent and great, she imparts herself to most; and makes the subjects of her bounty infinite. Nought stays her hastening hand. No time nor substance is lost or unimproved. New forms arise; and when the old dissolve, the matter whence they were composed, is not left useless, but wrought with equal management and art, even in corruption, Nature's seeming waste, and vile abhorrence. The abject state appears merely as the way or passage to some better. But could we nearly view it, and with indifference, remote from the antipathy of sense, we then perhaps should highest raise our admiration; convinced that even the way itself was equal to the end. Nor can we judge less favourably of that consummate art exhibited through all the works of nature; since our weak

eyes, helped by mechanic art, discover in these works a hidden scene of wonders; worlds within worlds, of infinite minuteness, though as to art still equal to the greatest, and pregnant with more wonders than the most discerning sense, joined with the greatest art, or the acutest reason, can penetrate or unfold.

But it is in vain for us to search the bulky mass of matter; seeking to know its nature; how great the whole itself, or even how small its parts.

If, knowing only some of the rules of motion, we seek to trace it further, it is in vain we follow it into the bodies it has reached. Our tardy apprehensions fail us, and can reach nothing beyond the body itself, through which it is diffused. Wonderful being, (if we may call it so,) which bodies never receive, except from others which lose it; nor ever lose, unless by imparting it to others. Even without change of place it has its force; and bodies big with motion. labour to move, yet stir not; whilst they express an energy beyond our comprehension.

In vain too we pursue that phantom Time, too small, and yet too mighty for our grasp; when shrinking to a narrow point, it escapes our hold, or mocks our scanty thought by swelling to eternity an object unproportioned to our capacity, as is thy being, O thou ancient Cause! older than Time, yet young with fresh Eternity.

In vain we try to fathom the abyss of space, the seat of thy extensive being; of which no place is empty, no void which is not full.

In vain we labour to understand that principle of sense and thought, which seeming in us to depend so much on motion, yet differs so much from it, and from matter itself, as not to suffer us to conceive how thought can more result from this, than this arise from thought. But thought

we own preeminent, and confess the reallest of beings; the only existence of which we are made sure, by being conscious. All else may be only dream and shadow. All which even sense suggests may be deceitful. The sense itself remains still; reason subsists; and thought maintains its eldership of being. Thus are we in a manner conscious of that original and externally existent thought, whence we derive our own. And thus the assurance we have of the existence of beings above our sense, and of Thee (the great exemplar of thy works), comes from Thee, the all-true, and perfect, who hast thus communicated thyself more immediately to us, so as in some manner to inhabit within our souls; Thou who art original soul, diffusive, vital in all, inspiriting the whole!

All nature's wonders serve to excite and perfect this idea of their Author. It is here He suffers us to see, and even converse with Him, in a manner suitable to our frailty. How glorious is it to contemplate Him, in this noblest of His works apparent to us, the system of the bigger world!' -From The Moralists, a Philosophical Rhapsody.

3. Common-Sense Morality.

A MAN of thorough good-breeding, whatever else he be, is incapable of doing a rude or brutal action. He never deliberates in this case, or considers of the matter by prudential rules of self-interest and advantage. He acts from his nature, in a manner necessarily, and without reflection: and if he did not, it were impossible for him to answer his character, or be found that truly well-bred man, on every occasion. It is the same with the honest man. He cannot deliberate in the case of a plain villany. A plum is no temptation to him. He likes and loves himself too well,

to change hearts with one of those corrupt miscreants, who amongst them gave that name to a round sum of money gained by rapine and plunder of the commonwealth.

who would enjoy a freedom of mind, and be truly possessor of himself, must be above the thought of stooping to what is villanous or base. He, on the other side, who has a heart to stoop, must necessarily quit the thought of manliness, resolution, friendship, merit, and a character with himself and others. But to affect these enjoyments and advantages, together with the privileges of a licentious principle; to pretend to enjoy society, and a free mind, in company with a knavish heart, is as ridiculous as the way of children, who eat their cake, and afterwards cry for it. When men begin to deliberate about dishonesty, and finding it go less against their stomach, ask slyly, 'Why they should stick at a good piece of knavery, for a good sum?' they should be told, as children, that they cannot eat their cake, and have it.

When men, indeed, are become accomplished knaves, they are past crying for their cake. They know themselves, and are known by mankind. It is not these who are so much envied or admired. The moderate kind are the more taking with us. Yet, had we sense, we should consider, it is in reality the thorough profligate knave, the very complete unnatural villain alone, who can any way bid for happiness with the honest man. True interest is wholly on one side, or the other. All between is inconsistency, irresolution, remorse, vexation, and an ague-fit; from hot to cold; from one passion to another quite contrary; a perpetual discord of life; and an alternate disquiet and self-dislike. The only rest or repose must be through one, determined, considerate resolution: which when once taken, must be courageously kept, and the

passions and affections brought under obedience to it; the temper steeled and hardened to the mind; the disposition to the judgment. Both must agree; else all must be disturbance and confusion. So that to think with one's self, in good earnest, 'Why may not one do this little villany, or commit this one treachery, and but for once?' is the most ridiculous imagination in the world, and contrary to common sense. For a common honest man whilst left to himself, and undisturbed by philosophy, and subtile reasonings about his interest, gives no other answer to the thought of villany, than that he cannot possibly find in his heart to set about it, or conquer the natural aversion he has to it. And this is natural and just.

The truth is, as notions stand now in the world, with respect to morals, honesty is like to gain little by philosophy, or deep speculations of any kind. In the main, it is best to stick to common sense, and go no further. Men's first thoughts, in this matter, are generally better than their second; their natural notions better than those refined by study, or consultation with casuists. According to common speech, as well as common sense, Honesty is the best policy: but, according to refined sense, the only welladvised persons, as to this world, are errant knaves; and they alone are thought to serve themselves, who serve their passions, and indulge their loosest appetites and desires.—Such, it seems, are the wise, and such the wisdom of this world!

An ordinary man talking of a vile action, in a way of common sense, says naturally and heartily, 'He would not be guilty of such a thing for the whole world.' But speculative men find great modifications in the case; many ways of evasion; many remedies; many alleviations. A good gift rightly applied; a right method of suing out a pardon;