mental affection. A smell, for example, is nothing more than a certain impression on the mind, communicated through the olfactory nerves. But no necessary connection can be perceived between this affection, and belief in the existence of a rose: the mind may undergo the affection called a smell, just as it experiences the emotion called joy, and a material object may have as little to do in causing the one as the other. Hence Dr Berkeley concluded, that we have philosophical evidence for the existence only of mind and mental affections, and none for the existence of the material world. Hume carried this argument farther, and maintained, that as we are conscious only of ideas, and as the existence of ideas does not necessarily imply the existence of mind, we have philosophical evidence for the existence of ideas only, and none for that of either matter or mind. Dr Reid answered Berkeley's objection by maintaining, that the belief in external objects, consequent on perceiving them, is intuitive, and hence requires no reason for its support.

Phrenology enables us to refer these different speculations to their sources in the different faculties. Individuality (aided by the other perceptive faculties), in virtue of its constitution, perceives external objects, and its action is accompanied by intuitive belief in their existence. But Berkeley employed the faculty of Causality to discover why it is that this perception is followed by belief; and because Causality could give no account of the matter, and could see no necessary connection between the mental affection called perception, and the existence of external nature, he denied that that nature exists. Dr Reid's answer, translated into phrenological language, was simply this:-The cognizance of the existence of the outward world belongs to Individuality: Individuality has received its own constitution and its own functions, and cannot legitimately be called on to explain or account for these to Causality. In virtue of its constitution, it perceives the existence of external objects, and belief in that existence follows; and if Causality cannot see how this happens, it is a proof that Causality's powers are limited, but not that Individuality is deceitful in its indications.

Another class of philosophers, by an error springing from an analogous source, have denied causation. When Eventuality contemplates circumstances connected by the relation of cause and effect, it perceives only one event following another in immediate and invariable sequence. For example, if a cannon be fired, and the shot knock down a wall, Individuality and some other perceptive faculties observe only the existence and appearance of the powder. Eventuality perceives

the fire applied to it, the explosion, and the fall of the building, as events following in succession; but it forms no idea of power in the gunpowder, when ignited, to produce the effect. When Causality, on the other hand, is joined with Eventuality in contemplating these phenomena, the impression of power or efficiency in the exploding gunpowder to produce the effect, arises spontaneously in the mind, and Causality produces an intuitive belief in the existence of this efficiency, just because it is its constitution to do so; and it is as absurd for Eventuality to deny the existence of some quality in the powder which gives rise to this feeling, because only Causality perceives it, as for Causality to deny the existence of the external world, because only Individuality perceives it.

There is no reason to believe that the qualities and relations of external nature, made known to man through these faculties, embrace all that it possesses. Indeed, the reverse is obviously the fact. INDIVIDUALITY reveals to us only the existence of substance, and we possess no faculty for discovering its essence or ultimate nature. The researches of chemists lead us to believe in the existence of atoms obeying certain laws of attraction and repulsion, as the ultimate form in which matter exists; but this is mere matter of inference. No one has yet seen or felt these atoms in their individual state; and even although this point were reached, the problems of their essence, of the causes which have produced them and endowed them with their properties of attraction and repulsion,— and the nature of these powers of attraction and repulsion, would still remain to be solved. The faculty of Causality, as we have seen, affords no aid in penetrating into these mysteries. It appreciates only the existence of the powers which the supposed atoms manifest, and, from these manifestations, connects them in its own conceptions with their effects. But it is quite conceivable that a being endowed with additional and higher faculties than man possesses, might be capable of penetrating more deeply into the arcana of nature than we. The monkey, from wanting organs of Causality, cannot comprehend the causation embodied in external nature, and cannot profit by applying it to his own advantage as man does. A being endowed with faculties which should enable him to perceive intuitively the nature and relations of physical objects and beings, might not only perceive every thing at a glance which man can learn only by multiplied observations and experience, but he might thereby acquire a power of combining and applying the forces of nature far transcending that assigned to the human race. Man, apparently, is only entering on his career in this world as a

moral and intellectual being, and commencing his studies of Nature, and the application of her powers. Future investigations may add incalculably to his knowledge and power; but we may safely predict that no part of that knowledge will differ in kind from what we now possess, or go beyond the limits of the faculties which have been bestowed on him. New organs in the brain may be discovered for mental powers of which we are conscious, such as the perception of heat and cold, roughness and smoothness, and others; but no new mental powers themselves could be added to our present endowment without changing our nature. Add Causality equal to man's to the dog, and it would on longer be a dog. Give us faculties capable of discovering the ultimate nature and relations of things, and we should cease to be human beings.

If the foregoing considerations be well founded, they appear to shew that man is constituted with a special reference to the existing state of the physical world, and that it is framed with a corresponding relation to his endowments; whence the inference seems to follow that practically, the sphere of his duties, and the fountains of his sufferings and enjoyments, will, to a great extent, be found by studying, comprehending, and acting in conformity with these arrangements. Moreover, as these are divine institutions, they, and the consequences that flow from them, may be regarded as forming a sacred woof which may, with great advantage, be woven into the warp of our religious emotions, and thus be made to constitute the texture of a natural religion. Do they not also set boundaries to our powers of receiving the revelation of supernatural truths, and go deep into the question as to the capacity of our nature, as it is now constituted, for existing in a state of being different from that which prevails in this world? The late Dr Chalmers appears to have had some glimpses of this inference, for I heard him preach an eloquent discourse, subsequently published, the object of which was to shew that there must be a new earth, as well as new heavens, for the future abode of man, to afford scope for the exercise and enjoyment of his natural faculties; in other words, that his existence in a sphere in which there is no matter, would imply a radical change of his whole nature-not simply his reproduction as man, with his capacities purified and enlarged, but amounting to the substitution of a new and different being in his place.

CHAPTER V.

OF GOD.

THE highest object to which the religious emotions of any people are directed, constitutes their God. When their notions concerning that object are combined with the religious emotions, the object becomes sacred, is hallowed and adored; and these opinions become the grand foundation of the rest of their faith. The natural mental process by which ideas of God have been formed appears to be the following. The faculties of Wonder and Veneration give us a tendency intuitively to believe in a supernatural cause of the remarkable phenomena of nature which we see and feel, but cannot comprehend. The faculties of Individuality and Imitation prompt us intuitively to personify abstract ideas and active powers. The Greeks and Romans, unable to account scientifically for the cause of the winds, ascribed it to a supernatural power, personified it, and called it Eolus, or the God of the Winds. Roused to admiration by the teeming fertility of the soil, and unable to comprehend its cause, they attributed it also to a supernatural power, and personified it; and as, in the animal economy, the producer is feminine, they were led by analogy to invest it with this sex; hence arose the Goddess Ceres. These nations multiplied deities to represent the causes of all the interesting and impressive phenomena of nature of which they could give no other account, including human passions, emotions, and intellectual powers. Mars was the God of War, the personification of Combativeness and Destructiveness; Minerva the Goddess of Wisdom, the personification of the moral sentiments and intellect; and so forth.

These notions being entwined in youth with the religious emotions of the people, became religious truths, and led to important results. First-They diverted the national mind from inquiring into the natural causes of the phenomena, which they accounted for by ascribing them to the agency of these supernatural powers; and hence, when evil overtook them, such as famine, or shipwreck, or pestilence, they ascribed it to the displeasure of Ceres, or of Eolus, or of Jupiter. Instead of endeavouring to remove its natural causes, or to

use measures to protect themselves, as far as possible, against their influence, they sought to discover why the supernatural Power was offended, and how it might be appeased, and its favour secured; and ascribing to it their own passions and emotions, they sacrificed animals and occasionally men to assuage its anger, and offered incense, sang praises, and presented gifts, to gratify its senses and its Love of Approbation. Secondly-These errors having become sacred, prompted the people to regard every one who desired to deliver them from their superstitions as a blasphemer and contemner of the Gods, and to slay him.

The Jews were taught higher conceptions of the great supernatural Power named God. Their Scriptures represent Him as existing in the form of a Man; for we are told that God made man after his own image, which implies that God had a form like the human; and it is narrated that, on one occasion, Moses saw a portion of God's person like the hinder parts of a man. Moreover, the Jewish Scriptures ascribe to God human passions: He is angry, jealous, revengeful, capable of being moved from his object by entreaty, and pleased with praise, sacrifices, and incense. Along with these qualities they ascribe to Him the sublimest attributes which the human faculties can conceive: Unity, eternal existence, ubiquity, omniscience, omnipotence, and all the human virtues.

These ideas of God were woven into the religious emotions of the Jewish people, and became the foundation of their religion. They were greatly superior to those of the Greeks and Romans, and of other contemporaneous nations; and this superiority has been one natural cause why the Jews have maintained themselves as a distinct people after their expulsion from Judea, when living in society with the professors of all the other creeds of the world.

Mahometan writers recognise, to some extent, the distinction between theology and religion, and name the first Imân, and the second Din. Mahomet was the founder of this faith, and he appears to have borrowed his ideas of God from the Jews. He emphatically proclaims that there is but one God, the Creator and Governor of the universe-omnipresent, eternal, omniscient, omnipotent-most holy, wise, good, and merciful." In the Koran, we find these words:-"God! there is no God but he, the living, the self-subsisting; . . . he knoweth that which is past, and that which is to come; his throne is extended over heaven and earth, and the preservation of both is no burden to him. He is the high and mighty." (Koran ch. vi.) And again: "He hath spread the earth as a bed for you, and the heaven as a covering; and hath caused water to

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