about it than that it contains such a detached part, may very well laugh at the effects related of the whole machine; but, in truth, the fault lies in his own ignorance of the subject.

We

But these two processes of reasoning which have been described, are not exclusively applied to physical causes and effects: We reason precisely in the same way with regard to men and their actions. When the history of a man's life is presented to us, we naturally theorize upon it; and from a comparison of the different facts contained in it, we arrive at a conviction that he was actuated by ambition, avarice, benevolence, or some other principle. know that these principles exist, and we know also their ordinary mode of operation: When, therefore, we see the operation, we refer it to the cause which best explains it. In this manner we arrange the characters with which we are acquainted under certain classes ; and we anticipate the conduct of our friends when they come to be placed in certain circumstances; * and when we are at a distance from any of them, and receive an account of their conduct upon some particular occasion, we give our unhesitating belief at once, if the account coincides with that abstract view which we have taken of their characters. But if the

history recounted to us varies very considerably from or is directly opposed to our view of them, we refuse our immediate belief, and wait for further evidence. Thus, if we hear that a friend, in whose integrity we have perfect confidence, has committed a dishonest action, we place our former knowledge of our friend in opposition to the testimony of our informer, and we anxiously look for an explanation. Before our minds are easy on the subject, we must either discover some circumstance in the action which may bring it under the general principle which we have formed with regard to his character, or else we must form to ourselves some new general principle which will explain it.

We reason in the same way of the intelligence of actions as we do of their morality.When we see an object obtained by means of a plan evidently adapted for its accomplishment, we refer the formation of the plan to design. We reason in this case also from the cause to the effect; and we conclude, that a strong intelligence, when combined with a desire after a particular object, will form and execute some plan adapted to the accomplishment of that particular object. An ambitious man of talents will, we are sure, fix his desires

on some particular situation of eminence, and will form some scheme fitted for its attainment. If an intimate and judicious friend of Julius Cæsar had retired to some distant corner of the world, before the commencement of the political career of that wonderful man, and had there received an accurate history of every circumstance of his conduct, how would he have received it? He would certainly have believed it; and not merely because he knew that Cæsar was ambitious, but also because he could discern that every step of his progress, as recorded in the history, was adapted with admirable intelligence to accomplish the object of his ambition. His belief of the history, therefore, would rest on two considerations,-first, that the object attributed by it to Cæsar corresponded with the general principle under which he had classed the moral character of Cæsar; and, secondly, that there was evident, through the course of the history, a perfect adaptation of means to an end. He would have believed just on the same principle that compelled Archimedes to believe the history of the steam-boat.

In all these processes of reasoning, we have examples of conviction, upon an evidence which is, most strictly speaking, internal,—an evidence altogether independent of our confi

dence in the veracity of the narrator of the facts.

Surely, then, in a system which purports to be a revelation from heaven, and to contain a history of God's dealings with men, and to develop truths with regard to the moral government of the universe, the knowledge and belief of which will lead to happiness here and hereafter, we may expect to find (if its pretensions are well-founded) an evidence for its truth, which shall be independent of all external testimony. But what are the precise principles on which the internal evidence for or against a Divine revelation of religion must rest? We cannot have any internal evidence on a subject which is in all its parts and bearings and relations entirely new to us; because, in truth, the internal evidence depends solely on our knowledge that certain causes are followed by certain effects: Therefore, if a new train of causes and effects perfectly different from any thing which we have before known, be presented to us, all our notions of probability, all our anticipations of results, and all our references to causes, by which we are accustomed to judge of theories and histories, become utterly useless. In the hypothetical case of Archimedes deciding on the story of the steam-boat, the

judgment which he may be supposed to have given was grounded on his belief that similar causes would produce similar effects, and on his experience that the causes which the traveller specified were actually followed in nature by the effects which he specified. The philosopher had never seen this particular combination of causes; but he knew each distinct cause, with its distinct train of consequents; and thus he anticipated the general result of the combination.

So also the credit attached to the narrative of Cæsar's exploits, by his distant friend, was grounded on the conviction that ambition would lead Cæsar to aim at empire, and on the knowledge that this object could not be attained except by that course which Cæsar pursued. Although the circumstances were new, he could almost have predicted, from analogy, that, whether the design proved finally successful or not, Cæsar would certainly form the design, and construct some such plan for its accomplishment.

Our acquaintance, then, with certain causes as necessarily connected with certain effects, and our intuitive conviction that this same connexion will always subsist between these causes and effects, form the basis of all our just antici, pations for the future, and of all our notions of