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THE

CONSTITUTION

OF

SOCIETY,

AS DESIGNED BY GOD.

EFFINGHAM WILSON,

ROYAL EXHANGE, LONDON.

MDCCCXXXV.

Of LAW there can be no less acknowledged, than that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world. All things in Heaven and earth do her homage; the very least as feeling her care, and the greatest as not exempted from her power: both angels and men, and creatures of what condition soever, though each in different sort and manner, yet all with uniform consent, admiring her as the mother of their peace and joy.-(Hooker's Eccl. Pol.)

If this work be of men, it will come to nought,—but if it be of God ye cannot overthrow it, lest haply ye be found even to fight against God. (Acts v.-38, 39.)

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FEB

G. H. Davidson, Printer, Tudor Street, Blackfriars.

INSCRIBED

TO THE KING,

THE MEMBERS OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS,

AND

THE MEMBERS OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.

(See the Appendix, page 631.)

PREFACE.

NEWTON has evinced that a portion of the material world is governed by the great law of attraction. Every atom of matter of which the sun is composed, gravitates or is attracted towards its centre. The earth and the other primary planets revolve around the sun; and the secondaries, as the moon, &c. around their primaries. Each of the planets of both classes, is, like the sun, held together by attraction, as all are thereby kept in their orbits. And, reasoning by analogy, it cannot be doubted that the great Law of Attraction regulates the whole Material Universe.

LOCKE and succeeding writers, who have written on the Philosophy of Mind (among whom the late Dr. Thomas Brown of Edinburgh deserves especial mention), have evinced, though not with the clearness the importance of the subject demands, that the law of association regulates our ideas. It remains for succeeding writers to remove the obscurity, as it will without doubt be found, that by this great Law all the operations of mind are governed. And reasoning by analogy, it may be considered to apply to created intellectual beings of whatever rank. Hence, the Law of Association regulates the operations of the whole created Intellectual Universe. The word attraction, applied to the material world, and the word association applied to the intellectual, are strictly synonimous.

As far as humble abilities will allow, it is proposed in the following Essay, to do for the Moral, what Newton did for the Material World ;that is, consider of the application of the Law of Association to the Moral World. Asto this, it is called Love (Mat. xx11.—37 to 39), and should regulate all our actions. Had all created intellectual beings, from the first moment the Most High commenced the work of creation, been obedient to his will; it may be presumed that the whole Universe would have formed one Great Association, all the members of which would unceasingly have gone on educing nothing but good to each other, and the glory of their Great Creator! His will might have been done less

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