to this Being that he is to approach. It is his happiness who found occupation in the construction, adjustment, and adornment of all this magnificent universe, that he is to share. It is his faculties, a portion of whose works have employed all the extremest stretch of mind that the generations of men have been able to exert, that he is to im prove by. In short, it is to the First Cause of all existence and its modes, that he is called; it is to the Author of his own genius, whom already he resembles in kind, though in degree his wisdom and talents are so infinitely inferior to his God's.

CHAPTER II.

NOTHING that exists in creation can be accidental. Among the works which man produces, effects may arise which are foreign to his intention; but the reason is, that he acts merely by means of the laws established by the First Cause, and may inadvertently call some of them into action, or be unable to control the operation of those he has designedly made use of, and so effects may arise, which, as far as regards his intention, are accidental. But these laws are themselves dependent upon the will of the Creator, or rather are his own modes of action. Therefore they cannot act independently of him, having no separate existence; and all that he does must be what he wills and intends to do.

Among the rest of his works, accordingly, the capacities of the human intellect are such as he designed them to be. Man has no ability to learn which is not a gift and intention of God, established at the time he was called into being, and made a part of his imperishable mind. There is a sort of mechanism established, which is calculated to develop the capacity of knowledge bestowed on the mind, and to direct it in the exertion of this power;

a one does not so act, something is perpetually deficient in his happiness, which makes him discontented with life and with himself. This may be called (in the light in which we are now considering it), the mind's capacity for virtue, until it acts up to which it is conscious of disparity between its powers and its exertions.

Any infirmity of body or mind deprives him who suffers it of that degree of pleasure attached to the perfection which it attacks. Bodily enjoyments become more valuable as they are more intimately united with the mind, and affect its activity or powers. For instance, health is precious from the sympathy established between our physical and moral nature, which causes the injury of one to be attended with the lassitude and depression of the other. The bodily senses are exceedingly precious; for the mind, which is the thing which sees and hears, is deprived, by the obscurity of any one, of the pleasure attached to that particular manner of receiving impressions which we call sight and sound *; and for which species of knowledge the mind having capacity, it is deficient in a portion of its proper happiness, when it is withdrawn. The rest of the intellectual powers form a large class, the absence of whose activity is a chasm in human en

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These are the two most precious of our senses, because most nearly allied to the mind. The others are more bodily,

joyments; and their presence so congenial, that their possessor feels himself as much happier than the man who has never developed them, as the free man does than the captive chained down in perpetual rest. It appears to me as reasonable to imagine a heaven without the exercise of them, as to believe it a place where sight and sound are withdrawn. The organs and modes of the latter may change, but it would certainly be no increase of happiness to become blind and deaf after having once been conscious of the qualities of matter to which the senses relate; so likewise the objects upon which some of the mental powers expand here, may vanish with this first stage of existence and the manner in which others are exercised, may alter with our development in the rank of being; but that an angel will not have all the powers of a man, and all the enjoyments which afford congenial occupation to the immortal part here, is a thing which it is against reason and order to believe.

Such are the general powers which the mind delights in employing; let us now inquire more particularly into the mechanism by which each is excited to exertion. The intellectual powers may be divided loosely into two parts, the reasoning and imaginative powers. The objects of the first are knowledge, and of the latter purely pleasure; at least if they are considered in their simple character

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of intellectual powers. These objects are ultimate; they cannot be said to be intended only as influential upon our moral characters, for the effect they produce upon it is rather accidental than direct. Perhaps the moral has as much influence on the intellectual, as the intellectual on the moral character; and both of them seem created as separate parts of the whole being, man, who is formed to be both virtuous and understanding. The effect produced would be inadequate to the means employed, if the whole object of the talents and capacities consisted in the effect they produce upon our opinions of the Creator, and our desires to imitate him. The end which they in fact answer is acquainting us with the objects around and within us, whether of mind or matter; and with pleasures which ornament and render smooth our lives, and occupy us for their own sakes, through the fascination bestowed upon them by the creating hand. The end which I observe their nature causes them to produce, I believe to be the design with which they were made. Every appearance of contrivance which brings it about, confirms this opinion, as is the case in the mechanism of the material world, throughout which we trace the end intended from the means employed.

Let us observe, then, in the first place, that there are certain first principles in the mind of which no account can be given except the will of the Creator.