trols, the minds of men-but then they are conscious of it; and I equally maintain, that the general actions of mankind are self-originated; and of this too every man is conscious.

The conclusion at which we have now arrived, concerning the intelligent nature of all causes, will help us to decide on the well-known controversy concerning the relation of Cause and Effect. I suppose that no man will now doubt that there is, and must be, a necessary connexion between an intelligent originator and the thing originated—a thinker and a thought—an agent and an act. Could any one, who understands the meaning of words, say that it was the result of accident, that an intelligence originated an action? that is to say, that there was merely a sequence of two events?"-So that it might have. possibly happened that the relation between them should have been wholly reversed, and the action have been cause, and the intelligence effect? Such a proposition has absolutely no meaning at all. To suppose that an action could become a true "cause," contradicts what has been before proved-That intelligence is the only Cause. To say that an active principle could be " originated" by that which is, by its very nature, passive, is a most vehement absurdity. Whatever can "begin to originate" ceases to be passive, and becomes an active principleessential intellect, Nas. A perception of the true nature of a cause enables us therefore, at once, to decide, That it has an efficient connexion with its effect.

But concerning what

G

are erroneously called

"physical causes," that is, the instruments and occasions of things (in other words the whole sensible world), I must undoubtedly agree with those who assert that there is no necessary efficient connexion between any two objects. To suppose, indeed, that there is anything more than the fact of Sequence, and, occasionally, the fact of Fitness, would overthrow all our former conclusions. It would make every sensible occasion, every law of nature, and every abstraction of mind, to be an efficient active principle, an Intelligent cause. It has ever appeared to me to be wholly impossible to allow any degree of innate efficiency to any such merely nominal cause, as a "Law of Nature," without embracing the whole system of Pantheism. Nor can it be imagined that the denial of this efficiency introduces the least doubt or uncertainty into philosophy. The invariable present and future junction of Antecedents and Consequents (the former the subject of experience-the latter of belief in the Law of Causation) will give just as much certainty and stability to the Laws of Nature and our conclusions therefrom, as any supposed efficient powers in Nature itself; and indeed still greater, unless these supposed powers are omnipotent; because such invariable junction results, as we must admit, from an Intelligent Cause: and the believer in God will maintain that the invariable Sequence in Nature is the result of the firm ordination of Him who is the Intelligent and Mighty Cause of all.

Thus the whole question lies before us in very small compass --

Wherever there is Originating Efficiency there must be Life-Power-Spontaneous Motion-in a word, Intelligence. Therefore, to say that any "Laws " or Nominal "Powers of Nature" are Efficient, Self-originating, or Self-operating, is to deify Nature; and such a system of Pantheism may suit Spinoza, but will not suit the Christian; for whatever the Philosopher may say, it is practical Atheism. Yet, strange as it may seem, this Atheistic notion of the necessary connexion of natural things, is most extensively entertained in the world, and is often dexterously represented as the foundation of the argument for the existence of Deity!-while, on the contrary, it is so utterly destructive of every such argument, that the man who entertains it may be safely challenged to give a reason for his faith

in God.

The amount of our conclusions thus far, founded on the "Truth of Reason"-"That whatever begins to be has a Cause '-appears to be simply this:

Proposition I. Every Cause is an Intelligence. And, conversely, every Intelligence is a Cause. Whence,

Proposition II. There is an Efficient necessary connexion between such True

Causes and their Effects; but not between any other two objects or events. Whence we deduce, PropositionIII. There is a Law of Invariable

Sequence, (frequently manifesting fitness) among natural objects and

events (which must be the result of some Intelligence); so that from the Antecedence of one we may expect another, as its subsequent; but not as its consequent.

These three Propositions are necessary, both to Theology as a Science, and to Religion as a Reality. They develope, in more explicit language, the General Doctrine of Causation, with which this Dissertation commenced, and are to be considered as DATA for our future arguments.

85

SECTION II.

OF MORAL CAUSES.

THERE is, I am fully aware, a too general impresIsion that the Doctrine of Causation is inconsistent with the Free-agency of Man. Many respectable writers, who seem to have felt the force of the argument for this doctrine, have hesitated to receive it, on account of its apparent repugnance to Moral Freedom. Thus the very argument from Effect to Cause, on which they generally relied for their proof of the Being of God, seemed, when thoroughly carried out, to undermine all Morality and Religion. Before we enter, therefore, on the consideration of what are called "Final Causes" it seems necessary to consider the subject of Moral Causation. For, unless a right judgment be formed on this point, Theology, as a natural science, is the most barren of all speculations. We might, indeed, erect a gloomy altar to "an unknown God" but if we be not Moral Agents, we could not reverence, love, or rationally obey him. He would be to us a dark abstraction. The first link in the iron chain of the Universe! The obscure Theology of Nature is an object not worth pursuing, if Religion and Morality are impossible.

If the Doctrine of Causation had been always clearly understood in the manner which I have en