suspensions of Law, such a conception of a Deity as is proposed by theologians must be pronounced irrational and derogatory. It is impossible for us to conceive a Supreme Being acting otherwise than we actually see in nature, and if we recognize in the universe the operation of infinite wisdom and power, it is in the immutable order and regularity of all phenomena, and in the eternal prevalence of Law, that we see their highest manifestation. This is no conception based merely upon observation of law and order in the material world, as Dr. Mansel insinuates,(1) but it is likewise the result of the highest exercise of mind. Dr. Mansel "does not hesitate to affirm with Sir William Hamilton "that the class of phenomena which requires that kind of cause we denominate a Deity is exclusively given in the phenomena of mind; that the phenomena of matter, taken by themselves, do not warrant any inference to the existence of a God."(2) After declaring a Supreme Being, from every point of view, inconceivable by our finite minds, it is singular to find him thrusting upon us, in consequence, a conception of that Being which almost makes us exclaim with Bacon: "It were better to have no opinion of God at all than such an opinion as is unworthy of him; for the one is unbelief, the other is contumely."(3) Dr. Mansel asks: "Is matter or mind the truer image of God?"(4) But both matter and mind unite in repudiating so unworthy a conception of a God, and in rejecting the idea of suspensions of Law. In the words of Spinoza: "From miracles
we can neither infer the nature, the existence, nor the providence of God, but, on the contrary, these may be much better comprehended from the fixed and immutable order of nature;"(1) indeed, as he adds, miracles, as contrary to the order of nature, would rather lead us to doubt the existence of God.(2)
Six centuries before our era, a noble thinker, Xenophanes of Colophon, whose pure mind soared far above the base anthropomorphic mythologies of Homer and Hesiod, and anticipated some of the highest results of the Platonic philosophy, finely said:—
"There is one God supreme over all gods, diviner than mortals, Whose form is not like unto man's, and as unlike his nature;
But vain mortals imagine that gods like themselves are begotten, With human sensations, and voice, and corporeal members;'
So if oxen or lions had hands and could work iu man's fashion, And trace out with chisel or brush their conception of Godhead, Then would horses depict gods like horses, and oxen like oxen, Each kind the Divine with its own form and nature endowing."(4)
He illustrates this profound observation by pointing out that the Ethiopians represent their deities as black with flat noses, while the Thracians make them blue-eyed with ruddy complexions, and, similarly, the Medes and the Persians and Egyptians portray their gods like
