organs. That our senses do not always show us things as they really are, is probably true, but that there should not be some cause of our sensations, existing independently of the sensations themselves,. is impossible; because whatever is produced by motion, supposes a moving power, which exists. independently, and is prior to the thing moved, in the order of causality and nature. The moving power does not infer the existence of the thing moved, but the latter infers the former.

It is the misery of sceptics still vainly to reason, while they destroy the only base on which they can stand; for it is the grossest ignorance not to know, that all truths cannot be demonstrated, because it is impossible that demonstration should run back to infinity, without stopping at certain principles, or first truths, which are called self-evident, because more certain and more necessary in themselves than any arguments that could be produced in proof of them. It is also evident, that mankind cannot have perfect wisdom without a knowledge of the first cause of things, and to deny a first cause, is to deny all causation; therefore, to deny God, is to deny truth, wisdom, and demonstration, upon which all reasoning and principles are founded. But things may be perfectly true which do not admit of demonstration. There is a science, says Aristotle, preceding that of geometry, in simplicity, as well as dignity, which, instead of contemplating properties and their affections, con

templates being and its properties; that which gives life, and that which takes it away.

The knowledge of first principles is therefore the source of all other knowledge or wisdom, and a knowledge of the Divinity, of whom the universe is but one great truth, is the only means by which we can fully comprehend it. Thales maintained that water was the first principle of things; but now we know that water is divisible into separate elementary principles, by which his doctrine is confuted. Anexemines and Diogenes, perceiving that water might be resolved into air, maintained that air was the original principle of all bodies; but they did not then know the different kinds of air and their different properties and principles; or that, if a portion of oxygen air, by combining with a portion of hydrogen, did not form water, the atmospherical air would be such as to extinguish life. They were however, perhaps, near the point of truth; for, most likely, all bodies and substances, if their decomposition could be found out, would be resolvable into air. Heppasus and Heraclitus believed fire to be the first cause; but fire alone has not the power to create, although it has the power to destroy. Empedocles, considering all these three substances as principles, added to them earth, as a fourth principle; but our present knowledge proves, that he was far from the truth of either first principles, or sole elementary substances. Anaxagoras introduced the obscure doc

trine of the omœomeria, or the production of bodies from indefinitely small organic particles, exactly resembling the bodies themselves, and, therefore, maintained principles to be infinite. He should have added, derived from one infinite cause. Aristotle treats the first cause as a being totally distinct from matter; as necessary, eternal, infinite in perfection, one substantially and numerically; the primary cause of motion, himself immovable.

There is no absolute reduction of existence into nothing; for, as the minutest particle of matter still possesses all the properties of body, it is still capable of division, and is therefore not an atom. To suppose an infinite progression of causes, in making and arranging the world, says Aristotle, is the same thing as supposing it made or arranged without any cause at all. He argues that the material universe cannot be infinite; for, could a radius be infinitely extended from the earth's centre, to the remotest body of the universe, that body could never perform a complete circular revolution; because an infinite extent of space could not be passed over in a definite space of time. Space, therefore, cannot be infinite, since space is only the receptacle of body, or the sphere where body may exist; and if space be not infinite, neither is motion, which depends on space, nor time, which depends on motion. Unalterable and divine substances, therefore, exist in a manner

totally unfathomable to our present faculties. In this manner the First Cause, or Supreme Deity, exists necessarily; neither generated in space, nor growing old in time; unchangeable and impassive; enjoying the best and most perfect life through all eternity.

Aristotle calls God the first energising principle, which, being unceasingly active, as the first efficient cause must necessarily be, is simple, unmixed, and pure energy. On such a principle as this, eternally and substantially active, both the heavens and the earth depend. He is the spring of motion, the fountain of life, the source of order and beauty. In all the motions or changes of body, or matter, there must always be one part acted upon, as well as another that acts, otherwise no action, and consequently no motion, could take place; but when we separate this acting part from the inert mass with which it is united, it cannot be wholly self moved; and the part which gives the impulse must always be different from that which receives it. By division and subdivision without end, we should never come nearer to a solution than at first setting out, but should always be compelled to consider matter as something fit to be moved, changed, or acted upon, but constantly deriving its motion, change, or activity, from some foreign cause. The primum mobile, or first canse, then is necessarily immaterial, and therefore indivisible, immovable, impassive, and invariable; ever

acting upon this visible system, as is plain from the phenomena arising from the principles, both of intellection and volition, which exactly coincide, when traced up to the Deity, their primitive cause. "He ever is what he is, existing in energy before time began," since time is only an affection of motion, of which God is the author and cause.

That kind of life which, in a degree, the best and happiest of men enjoy, occasionally, in the unobstructed exercise of their highest powers, belongs, according to Aristotle, eternally to God, in a degree that should excite admiration, in proportion as it surpasses comprehension. This doctrine, he says, was delivered down from the ancients, and remains with their posterity, though many additions to it, and strange suppositions have been employed for the service of legislation, and for bridling the passions of the multitude. Yet, if from this motley mass of fiction we separate this single proposition, that Deity is the first of substances, it will appear to be divinely said, and to have been saved, as a precious remnant, in the wreck of arts and philosophy which, it is probable, have often flourished and often fallen to decay.

Here appears to be a proof that, notwithstanding the changes that may constantly have taken place in the revolutions of human affairs, since the creation of the world, of which, perhaps, there is no certain date to be found, yet a proof of the Divinity and the way in which the world was produced and