called in, as the scene in which these crooked paths are to be made straight. But if my views are correct, Divine wisdom and goodness are conspicuous in these events themselves; for by this distinct operation of the organic and moral laws order is preserved in the creation, and, as will afterwards be shown, the means of discipline and improvement are afforded to all the human faculties.

The moral and intellectual laws also have an independent operation. From an attentive study of our constitution, it appears that the Divine Ruler has conferred on Man organs of respiration, a heart and blood-vessels, a stomach and other organs of nutrition, and so forth; that to each of these systems He has given a definite constitution and specific modes of action; and that He has appointed definite relations between each of them and all the others, and between each of them and the objects of external nature; and experience teaches us that health accompanies the normal and harmonious action of the whole, and that disease, pain, and premature death are the consequences of their disproportionate and abnormal action.

It has been remarked above that God has attached to the action of natural objects consequences which Man cannot alter, but that the human constitution is adapted to natural agencies in such a manner, that by acting in accordance with them we may reap enjoyment, while by conduct in opposition to them we shall bring upon ourselves suffering. I regard the consequences of acting in the latter way as not only inevitable, but as pre-ordained by the Divine Mind for a purpose. That purpose appears to be to deter intelligent beings from infringing the laws instituted by God for their welfare, and to preserve order in the world.

When people think of physical laws, they generally perceive the consequences of these to be natural and inevitable; but they do not sufficiently reflect upon the intentional preordainment of the consequences as a warning or instruction to intelligent beings for the regulation of their conduct. It is the omission of this element that renders of so little use the knowledge of the natural laws which is actually possessed. The popular interpretations of Christianity have thrown the public mind so widely out of the track of God's natural providence, that His object or purpose in this pre-ordainment is rarely thought of; and the most flagrant, and even deliberate, infractions of the natural laws are spoken of as mere acts of imprudence, without the least notion that the

infringer is contemning a rule deliberately framed for his guidance by Divine wisdom, and enforced by Divine power.

In considering moral actions, on the contrary, the public mind leaves out of view the natural and inevitable. Being accustomed to regard human punishment as arbitrary, and capable of abeyance or alteration, it views in the same light the inflictions asserted to take place under the natural moral law, and does not perceive Divine pre-ordainment and purpose in the natural consequences of such moral actions. The great object which I have had in view in the present work is to show that this notion is erroneous, and that to the infringement of every natural law there is attached a pre-ordained natural consequence, which Man can neither alter nor evade. To express this idea correctly, a term is required something between simple consequence" and "punishment." The former fails to convey my idea in its totality, and the latter adds something to distort it.

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I have endeavoured to exhibit the administration of the present world in a light calculated to arrest attention, and to draw towards it that degree of consideration to which it is entitled. This proceeding will be recognised as the more necessary if a principle, largely insisted on in the following pages, shall be admitted to be sound-viz., that religion operates on the human mind in subordination, and not in contradiction, to its natural constitution. If this view be correct, it will be indispensable that all the natural conditions required by the human constitution as preliminaries to moral and religious conduct be complied with before any purely religious teaching can produce its full effects.

sequence

If, for example, certain physical circumstances and occupations such as insufficient food and clothing, unwholesome workshops, dwelling-places, and diet, and severe and long-protracted labour-have a natural tendency, in conof their influence on the nervous system in general, and on the brain in particular, to blunt all the higher feelings and faculties of the mind, and if religious emotions cannot be experienced with full effect by individuals so situated, the ascertainment of the nature, causes, and effects of these impediments to holiness, with a view to their removal, is not a matter of indifference.

This view has not been systematically adopted and acted on by the religious instructors of mankind in any age or any country; and, in my humble opinion, for these reasons that the state of moral and physical science did

not enable them either to appreciate its importance or to carry it into effect, and that their own dogmas led them to undervalue the influence of natural forces on human wellbeing. By presenting Nature in her simplicity and strength, we may perhaps give a new impulse and direction to their understandings; and they may be induced to consider whether their universally confessed failure to render men as virtuous and happy as they desired may not, to some extent, have arisen from their non-fulfilment of the natural conditions instituted by the Creator as preliminaries to success. They have complained of war waged, openly or secretly, by philosophy against religion; but they have not duly considered whether religion itself warrants them in treating philosophy and all its dictates with neglect in their instruction of the people. True philosophy is a revelation of the Divine Will manifested in nature; it harmonises with all truth, and cannot, with impunity, be neglected.

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CHAPTER I.

THE NATURAL LAWS.

IN natural science, three subjects of inquiry may be distinguished 1st, What exists? 2dly, What is the use of what exists? and 3dly, Why was what exists constituted such as it is?

It is matter of fact, for instance, that Arctic regions and the Torrid zone exist; that a certain kind of moss is abundant in Lapland in winter-that the reindeer feeds on it, and enjoys health and vigour in situations where most other animals would die; that camels exist in Africa-that they have broad hoofs, and stomachs fitted to retain water for a considerable time, and that they flourish amid arid tracts of sand, where the reindeer would hardly live for a day. All this falls under the inquiry, What exists?

In contemplating these facts, the understanding is naturally led to infer that one object of the Lapland moss is to feed the reindeer; and that broad feet have been given to the camel to qualify it to walk on sand, and a retentive stomach to fit it for arid places, in which water is found only at wide intervals. By these arrangements the reindeer and the camel are fitted to assist Man. These conclusions result from inquiries into the uses or purposes of what exists; and such inquiries constitute a legitimate exercise of the human intellect.

But, further, we may ask, Why were animals formed of organised matter? Why were trackless wastes of snow and burning sands called into existence? Why were all the elements of nature created such as they are? These are inquiries why what exists was made such as it is, or into the will of the Deity in creation.

Now, Man's perceptive faculties are adequate to the first inquiry, and his reflective faculties to the second; but it may well be doubted whether he has powers suited to the third. My investigations are confined to the first and second, and I do not discuss the third.

The Creator has bestowed on physical nature, on Man, and on the animals, definite constitutions, which act according to fixed laws. A law of nature is, as I have said, a fixed mode

of action; it implies a subject which acts, and that the actions or phenomena of that subject take place in an established and regular manner; and this is the sense in which I shall use the phrase when treating of physical substances and beings. Water, for instance, when at the level of the sea, and cooled to 32° of Fahrenheit's thermometer, freezes or becomes solid; when, under a certain pressure, it is heated to 212° of that instrument, it rises into vapour or steam. Here water is the substance, and the freezing and rising in vapour are the phenomena presented by it; and when we say that they take place according to a law of nature, we mean only that these modes of action appear, to our intellects, to be established in the very constitution of the water, and in its natural relationship to heat; and that the processes of freezing and rising in vapour always occur when, in the same circumstances, the temperature of the water is 32° and 212°.

The points chiefly to be kept in view are, 1st, That all substances and beings have received definite natural constitutions; 2dly, That every mode of action which is inherent in the constitution of the substance or being may be said to take place according to a natural law and 3dly, That the modes of action are universal and invariable wherever and whenever the substances or the beings are found in the same circumstances. For example, water boils at the same temperature in China, in France, in Peru, and in England; and there is no exception to the regularity with which it undergoes the change, when all its other conditions are the same. This qualification, however, must constantly be attended to; as it must be in all departments of science. If water be carried to the top of a mountain 10,000 feet high, it will boil at a far lower temperature than 212°; but this also takes place according to fixed and invariable laws. The atmosphere exerts a pressure on water at the level of the sea the pressure is everywhere nearly the same, and in that situation the boiling point is the same all over the world; but on the top of a high mountain the pressure is much less, and the water, not being held down by so great a power of resistance, rises as vapour at a lower temperature than 212°.

This change of phenomena does not indicate a change in the constitution of the water, but only a variation in the circumstances in which it is placed; and hence it is not correct to say that water boiling on the tops of high moun