On this page

• Text (1)

  Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

  • 

    Untitled Article

• Transcript

  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    Untitled Article

    and all the elementary substances out of which this complicated mass is compounded , to be regarded as so many agents , exerting real , intrinsic and efficient power , and

    performing various actions in obedience to certain laws ? Is this a just philosophical view of the frame and course of things ? For my part I confess I cannot bring myself thus to think of the constitution of

    nature . There seems to me a difficulty , which I know not how to surmount , in supposing any thing to act which does not perceive ; any thing to exert force which has

    no power ; any thing to obey laws , which has no consciousness or intelligence . If this difficulty be really insurmountable , it evidently

    follows that we cannot justly consider these inanimate parts of the creation as themselves producing any effect whatever , but merely as the subjects on which some

    superior agent exerts his force ; as fur-Dishing the occasions on which the power and energy of the Creator are brought into action . Hence we are led to conclude , that what

    we call the laws of nature do not imply any real action or power exerted by impercipient , or indeed by any secondary causes whatever , but are merely the modes of the divine operations ; the rules by

    which he regulates his actions ; the general principles according to which , for purposes infinitely wise and benevolent , he sees it fit that the whole procedure of the divine government should in all cases be directed .

    If this account of the true meaning of the phrase , laws of nature , be correct , we shall easily perceive the impossibility of regarding the created universe in any point of view at all analogous to that of a

    Untitled Article

    machine , whose parts are so adjust * ed as that it shall govern and regulate itself , without the necessity of any controul or guidance from the hand of an intelligent director . It

    will follow that all real power must be considered as emanating directly from the . supreme Disposer of all things ; that he is in a certain sense the only agent in the universe ; and that as in every creature and object we behold the work of his forming hand , so in each event we contemplate the immediate exertion of his Almighty power . This will be the case , though we adopt the opinion of

    the majority of mankind , who conceive that the objects which affect the organs of sense , the various collections of sensible qualities with which we are surrounded , have a real and independent existence distinct from any

    intelligent mind perceiving them . But if the theory of those philosophers be correct who suppose that these are nothing more than collections of sensible qualities , which have no existence but in so far as they are perceived , the argument in favour of this view of divine Providence

    will become still stronger . For then , denying not merely all power , but all separate existence ^ to impercipient matter , it will evidently follow that the impressions which are made on our minds , the sensations which we experience , and the ideas which are excited in us

    through the medium of these sensations , are all so many instances of the immediate exertion ot divine power acting according to a regular and uniform system of operations ; which system we denominate the laws of nature ; and the course of which , so far as the material world ( meaning by that

    Untitled Article

    Essay on the different Views of Providence , 461

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1814, page 461, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2443/page/13/