[120] Serm. 8th, at the Rolls.
[121] [Consult, in favor of the doctrine of necessity, atheistical writers generally; such as Fichte, Hegel, D’Holback, Comte, Crousse, Martineau, Leroux, and Holyoake—also, Belsham’s Essays, Collins on Liberty, Crombie on Phil. Necessity, Hobbes’ Liberty and Necessity, and Leviathan, Priestley on Liberty, Hartley on Man, and Edwards on the Will.Against the doctrine, see Beattie’s Works, Part 2; Replies to Hobbes by Bramhall and Lawson; Replies to Priestley by Palmer and Bryant; Grove on Liberty; Clarke’s Sermons at the Boyle Lectures; Gibb’s Contemplations; King’s Origin of Evil; Reid on the Mind; Watts on Liberty; Harris’ Boyle Lectures; Jackson’s Defence; Butterworth on Moral Government.]
[122] [Maimonides makes use of the following similitude. “Suppose one of good understanding, whose mother had died soon after he was born to be brought up on an island, where he saw no human being but his father nor the female of any beast. This person when grown up inquires how men are produced. He is told that they are bred in the womb of one of the same species and that while in the womb we are very small and there move and are nourished. The young man inquires whether when thus in the womb we did not eat, and drink, and breathe, as we do now, and is answered, No. Then he denies it, and offers demonstration that it could not be so. For says he, if either of us cease to breathe our life is gone; and how could we have lived close shut up in a womb for months? So if we cease to eat and drink, we die, and how could the child live so for months? and thus he satisfies himself that it is impossible man should come into existence in such a manner.”]
[123] [Let us imagine a person to be taken to view some great historical painting, before which hangs a thick curtain. The attendant raises the curtain a few inches. Can the spectator, from the unmeaning strip of foreground, derive any conception of the figures yet concealed? Much less is he able to criticize their proportions, or beauty, or perspective, or even the design of the artist? The small fragment of a tree, or flower, or animal, or building, may seem quite unmeaning and even ugly, though the whole would present beauty, fitness, or grandeur. Now the portion of God’s dominions within our survey, is as utterly insignificant, compared to the universe, and its interminable duration, as, an atom compared to a planet or a man’s age to eternity.The concluding observations of this chapter, abundantly remove every difficulty as to such ignorance being as valid against the proofs of religion, as it is against objections to it.]
[124] [No truly philosophical mind can be arrogant; because the wider the range of thought, the greater are the discoveries of our ignorance. The young student may well hesitate to decide points, on which the profoundest thinkers take opposite sides, and when conscious of inability intrust himself to the guidance of those whose lives are best.]
[129] P. [68], and [Part II. chap. vi.]