semblance of the universe to a house, or of God to man, in every particular.

TOм. "But why select so minute, so weak, so bounded a principle, as the reason and design of animals is found to be upon this planet? this planet? What peculiar privilege has this little agitation of the brain which we call thought, that we must thus make it the model of the whole universe? Our partiality in our own favour does indeed present it upon all occasions; but sound philosophy ought carefully to guard against so natural an illusion *"

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TIM. It is not "our partiality in our own favour that presents it to us upon all occasions," but the necessity of the case. There is no other way of speaking upon the subject, so as to be understood. Knowledge in God and man, however different in degree, or attained in a different manner, is the same in kind, and produces the same effects, so far as relates to our present purpose. The knowledge of God is intuitive and perfect; that of man is by deduction, and is therefore imperfect, either when his premises are false, or when passion and prejudice enter into his conclusion. But wisdom, which consists in fixing upon proper ends, and fitly proportioning means to those ends, is wisdom, in whatsoever object, mode, or degree, it may exist; and there is therefore no illusion, in saying, every house is builded by some man, but he that built all things is God." You speak of thought, reason, or design, as "a little agitation of the brain;" as if you imagined, that Paradise Lost, or the Advancement of Learning, might at any time be produced by simmering a man's brains over the fire. Certainly an author cannot compose without brains, heart, liver, and lungs; but I am of opinion something more than all four must have gone to the composition even of the Dialogues concerning Natural Religion. "Minute, weak, and bounded, as this principle of reason and design is found to be in the inhabitants of this planet," it can form and frustrate mighty schemes; it can raise and subvert empires; it can invent and bring to perfection a variety of arts and sciences; and in the hands of some very worthy gentlemen of my acquaintance, it can set itself against all that is called God, and revile the works of the

* Dialogues, p. 60.

up

Almighty, through three hundred and sixty-four pages together.

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TOм. I cannot but still think there is something of partiality and self-love in the business. Suppose there were a planet wholly inhabited by spiders (which is very possible), they would probably assert, with the Bramins, that the world arose from an infinite spider, who spun this whole complicated mass from his bowels, and annihilates afterwards the whole, or any part of it, by absorbing it again, and resolving it into his own essence. This infer

ence would there appear as natural and irrefragable as that which in our planet ascribes the origin of all things to design and intelligence. To us indeed it appears ridiculous, because a spider is a little contemptible animal, whose operations we are never likely to take for a model of the whole universe *."

TIM. Possibly not; but I should take that "little contemptible animal" for an exact model of a sceptical philosopher :

"It spins a flimsy web, its slender store;

And labours till it clouds itself all o'er."

And were there a planet wholly inhabited by these same philosophers, I doubt not of their spinning a cosmogony worthy an academy of spiders. And so, Tom, the voluntary humility, which discovered itself at your setting out, ends at last in degrading man to a spider; and reason is either exalted to the stars, or depressed to the earth, as best serves the cause of infidelity. In this particular, however, you are at least as bad as the parsons t. But let us proceed. What have you more to say against the argument of the house?

TOм. I say that arguments concerning facts are founded on experience. I have seen one house planned and erected by an architect, and therefore I conclude the same with regard to others. But "will any man tell me, with a serious countenance, that an orderly universe must arise from some thought and art like the human, because we have experience of it? To ascertain this reasoning, it were requisite that we had experience of the origin of worlds +."

* Dialogues, p. 142.

↑ Ibid. p. 37.

+ Ibid.

p. 66.

TIM. Truly I know not how that can well be; for worlds are not made every day. I have heard of the production of none since our own, and man could not see that made, because he himself was made after it; and he could not exist before he was made. The contrary supposition was indeed once ventured on by the master of a Dutch puppet-show. Whether he were a metaphysician I never heard. In the beginning of this ingenious drama, Mr. Punch posting over the stage in a very large pair of jackboots, and being asked whither he was going at so early an hour, replies, I am going to be created. His evidence, if you can procure it, is very much at the service of scepticism, and may go near to determine the matter. In the mean time, I shall presume my argument to be still good, that, if a house must be built by thought and design, a world cannot have been built without; though I have seen the one, and never was so fortunate as to see the other. Let me add farther, that if in the general contrivance and construction of the world there be evident demonstration of consummate wisdom, that demonstration cannot be set aside by seeming or real inconveniences in some parts, which, for good reasons, were either originally designed, or may have been since introduced, for the trial or punishment of its inhabitants, or for other purposes, unknown to This is the plain conclusion formed by common sense, and surely ten times more rational than to talk of eggs, and seeds, and spiders, and the necessity of seeing the world made, in order to know that it had a maker.

us.

LETTER V.

I SHALL not pursue any farther, at present, the wild ramblings of the spirit of scepticism in the Dialogues on Natural Religion. If your disorder should return hereafter, dear sir, we may take another handful or two of the hasty-pudding. Let us advert in the mean time to something more mischievous than the Dialogues, because more intelligible to the generality of readers, I mean an Essay

on Suicide, in which that practice is vindicated, and recommended to his Majesty's liege subjects, not only as lawful and innocent, but as containing and comprehending, in many cases, almost the whole duty of man.

The Essay opens with a panegyric on philosophy as the only remedy for superstition. But may not the remedy prove worse than the disease? A young gentleman, some years ago, suffered himself to be seduced to popery. His friends sent him to the sage of Ferney for a cure; and a most effectual one indeed was wrought. He came home a confirmed infidel, and has employed himself ever since in writing against Christianity. Popery may be bad; but irreligion is not better.

Pag. 1. Mr. Hume laments that "men endowed with the strongest capacity for business and affairs, crouch all their lives under slavery to the grossest superstition."

Superstition surely is not the failing of the present age in Great Britain. We have reason to wish there was a little more of it than there is; since by "the grossest superstition," philosophers often mean neither more nor less than the Christian religion.

Pag. 2. "The fair sex feel many of their joys blasted by this importunate intruder.”

And lo, Mr. Hume, in his panoply of "sound philosophy," "sallies forth as their champion, to slay the giant, and deliver the captive damsels. But of what kind are the female "joys" here alluded to? Innocent ones are heightened by religion, and those that are otherwise ought to be "blasted." Mr. Hume, we have been told, delighted much in the company of women that were modest, though the system of morals, with which he favoured the world, was by no means calculated to make or to keep them such. If they were edified by his conversation, I am heartily glad of it: "I do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice."

Ibid. 66

Superstition being founded on false opinion. must immediately vanish, when true philosophy has inspired juster sentiments of superior powers."

But where is this same "inspiring true philosophy" to be found? In the writings of the ancient heathens? Assuredly not. They were not agreed whether there were many gods, one God, or no God. In the writings of Mr.

Hume? Alas! his famous Dialogues on Natural Religion shew that, by studying their works, he had brought himself, and wished to bring his readers, into the very same uncertainty. "Just sentiments of superior powers" can be" inspired" only by those powers. From the apostasy of the nations to the coming of Christ, philosophy laboured at the task in vain; and if she has succeeded in any respect better since, it is because she has borrowed light from Revelation, and not been honest enough to own it. Christianity is founded not upon "false opinions," but facts, the truth of which all Mr. Hume's philosophy has never been able to disprove.

Page 3. To the direful effects of superstition enumerated by Cicero, Mr. Hume adds one still more direful; that a man under its dominion, " though death alone can put a full period to his misery, dares not fly to this refuge, but still prolongs a miserable existence, from a vain fear lest he offend his Maker by using the power with which that beneficent Being has endowed him. The presents of God and nature are ravished from us by this cruel enemy, and notwithstanding that one step would remove us from the regions of pain and sorrow, her menaces still chain him down to a hated being, which she herself chiefly contributes to render miserable."

The superstition intended by Cicero is pagan superstition. But what is that superstition which in these times is understood to prohibit suicide? Evidently it is the Christian religion. It is this, therefore, which by Mr. Hume is called "the modern European superstition *. This is the "virulent poison †," the "cruel enemy ‡, the "inhuman tyrant §," that " chiefly contributes to render life miserable;" and the deity is complimented by him as a "beneficent Being," because he has " endowed a man with power" to cut his throat, or blow out his brains, in order to escape. The same beneficent Being has endowed a man with "power" (if that be all which is wanted) to cut the throat or blow out the brains of his neighbour, should he judge that neighbour to be the cause of his misery. Upon the principles advanced by Mr. Hume, it is no easy matter to give a good and sufficient reason

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