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Untitled Article
are inseparably connected . Now this inseparable connexion , whether it be supposed to arise from a necessity of nature , or to result from the express appointment of Providence , must be perceived by Infinite Wisdom , which therefore cannot fail to approve of the one , and to disapprove of the Other . Mr . Stewart ' s own account of this somewhat intricate and difficult subject is that which derives obligation from the supreme authority of conscience . In this opinion he follows Bishop Butler , to whose writings he very frequently refers with high admiration and respect .
"The chief merit , " says he , " of Butler , as an ethical writer , undoubtedly lies in what he has written on the Supreme Authority of Conscience , a doctrine which he has placed in the strongest and happiest lights , and which , before his time , had been very little attended toby the moderns . "—P . 296 . Are we , then , to understand that the conscience of an Indian savage , of a persecuting inquisitor , of an ignorant peasant , of a profligate worldling , of a learned but unbelieving philosopher , of a pious Christian , are all of them entitled to exercise this supreme authority ? If so , what becomes of the immutability of virtue ? But if not , there must be some other superior standard , by an appeal to which we are to check their conflicting decisions *
In the third book our author expatiates * with a degree of minuteness of detail for which he thinks it necessary to apologize in his preface , on some of the leading doctrines of natural religion . After examining at some length Mr . Hume ' s puzzling , but sophistical argument , derived from his view of the relation of cause and effect , he proceeds with the following just and ingenious observations : " But leaving these abstract topios , let us for a moment attend to the scope of the sceptical argument as it bears on the evidences of natural religion .
To those who examine it with attention , it must appear obvious that , if it proves anything , it leads to this general conclusion , that it would be perfectly impossible for the Deity , if he did exist , to exhibit to man any satisfactory evidence of design by the order and perfection of his works . That every thing we see is consistent with the supposition of its being the work of an intelligent author , Philo would ( I presume ) have granted j and at any rate , supposing the order of the universe to have been as complete as imagination
can conceive , it would not obviate in the least the objection stated in the dialogue ^ inasmuch as this objection is founded not on any appearances of disorder or imperfection ^ but on the impossibility of rendering intelligence and design manifest to our faculties by the effects they produce . Whether this logical proposition is or is not true , can be decided only by an appeal to the judgment of the human understanding in analogous circumstances . If I were thrown ashore on a desert island , and was anxious to leave behind
me some memorial which might inform those who should afterwards visit the same spot that it had once been inhabited by a human being , what expedient could I employ but to execute some work of art , to rear a dwelling , to inclose a piece of ground , or to arrange a number of stones in such a symmetrical order , that their position could not be ascribed to chance ? This would surely be a language intelligible to all nations , whether civilized or savage , and which , without the help of reasoning , would convey its meaning
with the force of a perception . It was thus that Aristippus , the Cyreniac , felt (" according to the story told by Vitruvius ) when , being shipwrecked on an unknown coast , and seeing some geometrical diagrams traced on the sand , he called aloud to his companions , ' Bene speremus , comites , hominum enim vesti g ia video . ' " Now all this seems wonderfully applicable to the subject before us . If the universe had really been erected by a powerful and intelligent being ,
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36 Dugald Stewart .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1829, page 36, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2568/page/36/
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