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More strongly still, it may be said the conscience xefdses to be persuaded that sin is no evil ; and in like manner the purest feelings of man, which agree with conscience, cry out aloud against the denial of a God to be worshipped, or against a surrender of our being voluntarily to annihilation. So that, on the whole, what is wisest and best in our nature seems to be on one side, with which also happiness takes part in experience ; while what is most brutish, selfish, and miserable, only is left for the other. At this point, then, I should say to any Sankhyast, 138 INFERENCE OF DIVINE OBJECT. or other speculator who makes the apparent freedom of a man only a deceptive form of necessitarianism, Be it so, if you please, but then at least religion is a necessity of our nature — there is either some heavenly influence, or at least the capacity of belief in such an influence, which is to the virtue, the peace, and the permanent happiness of Man, pretty much what the physical dew and light are to all plants that grow. Even then upon your principles, I must still turn the eyes of my mind to that light without which all my moral perceptions are in danger of being obscured, and my hope, of languishing away. " Now, however, arises a farther question. Can we stop here? For my own part I cannot ; and probably few can, if they only consider. Surely it seems absurd to find prayer necessary for man's mental health, yet to imagine there is no one to pray to. Even logic, although the most remorseless of sciences, cannot refuse to recognise here the existence of the heart, and its prac- tical needs. For the logician can only argue upon facts, and if he does not take them into account as they are, his art becomes useless. Again, it would be very strange if the same cast of sentiment which is most for the honour of a Divine Being should also be most for the benefit of all mankind, and yet that Being should have no consciousness whether this sentiment is enter- tained. Still more does my own impression of the strangeness of such an imagination grow, if I extend my thoughts from each man individually to men assembled in societies. For whatever happiness springs from a pious regard to the Deity, and what- ever wickedness or misery creeps on with the reverse, it becomes in either case multiplied, when its effects extend over a family. Neither affectionate care for the helplessness of infants, nor again filial gratitude, nor in general the due reverence for the sanctity of life, and all the ties necessary to its improvement, seem to retain a firm hold upon society, except where each man considers himself accountable to a Divine Ruler, who has fixed the duties of his place. I should only weary you by attempting to follow out at large the same idea, as applied to the destiny of nations : NECESSITY OF POSITIVE OBJECT. 139 though indeed it is in the history of the kingdoms of men that the principle for which I contend is exemplified on the grandest scale. Not that in politics the nature of religion should be different from what it is in any man's secret prayer. Only, as the field extends, good and evil principles have a more compli- cated play. The history of India alone would shew that when nations are strong they believe firmly in God, as if not only virtue, but strength and success, could not exist without that principle to animate them. For if you mount up to that re- mote period when the Brahmanical tribes were extending their dominion from the Punjaub over Southern India, you will find a religious faith was then strong in them; and whether you modify the test by examining the progress of S^kya. Muni's principles, to which our friend here has alluded, or whether again you read of the incursions of Sultan Mahmud, or, later still, of the establishment of the Mogul Empire, you would find a strength of religious belief animating in each case the conqueror. Again, at a period nearer to our own times, when the Sikhs organised a mixed multitude into a formidable kingdom, the great bond of union was a fervid glow of faith, which one might justly call fanaticism. But yet, if any one says to men. Let us believe, and in the strength of our belief succeed, such an exhortation, without reasons or disinterested motives to believing, has no sort of tendency to realise its effort. Eather indeed, those who have talked most loudly of the force of belief relatively to man's mind, without having an adequate object to propound, only fall into the greatest imbecility of heart and mind. For it is the very nature of faith that it cannot be purchased, but must be fixed on some one who has a right to it. Shew to mankind the person or the being who has that right, and they require neither bribery nor compulsion to believe ; but discourses upon the energy of belief signify nothing. The case then stands thoB. Not only the affections of every man severally require a Divine Being to trust in ; but the whole history of families and nations everywhere involves the same requirement. Even 140 WHETHER ANALOGUE TO MIND OB BODY. language beais the impress of that general feeling ; and it may "be added that all righteous laws are intended to embody prin- ciples such as men conceive to be the will of the Supreme Ruler of the world. Who or what however that Ruler may be, indeed, there are different conjectures, and we have still farther to in- quire ; but that he is some one, and that we ought to think of Him as far as possible as He is in reality, and not to dream of making Him be in a particular way by thinking of Him in that way, are points on which the sound-minded among mankind have long ago agreed. Here then let me revert to that first argument, which in recapitulating about the aflFections I omitted. " The question here is, whether we have any reason to take for our. beginning either Deity as Mind planning and governing, or Nature as matter blindly evolving itself. You may try it either by the existence of the world, or by its history ; that is, as men generally say, either by Nature or by Providence. Certainly the second of the two will be stronger, but even the first appears absolutely binding. For every one allows that Thought is more motive than any of the physical agencies which it employs, and it is in virtue of thinking, and in proportion as he thinks, that man makes and disposes. Thought on man's part underlies all the greatness of mankind. Just then as a child, who had lost its parents among mankind, and went about searching for them, would certainly not begin with stones, or even with brute beasts, 80, if ever mankind are to find their first Parent and Author of their being, they must begin with nothing lower than them- selves, nor with the lower and less active principle in themselves. Whatever intellectual knowledge we have, certainly to the Deity we must ascribe more ; and whatever we call Mind as that to which our higher knowledge belongs, far more eminently must that be attributed to Deity. You say it makes no difference, whether we start in our speculation firom mind or matter, that is, from God or the world. I answer, fully as much as whether we say the living horse draws the dead chariot, or whether he is drawn by it. It is true that animal life can generate simply POSSIBLY TRANSCENDENT. 141 its like ; but we see only one kind of Being anywhere which can produce a multiplicity of things, some of which therefore are unlike: and this manifoldly creative being is merely Mind. Now that our conceptions of the Supreme Mind which is above all things, as an architect is above a house, must be inadequate, I most readily allow ; and I will endeavour to explain hereafter, why the argument from design probably appears to you not so convincing as it does to men in general. But, though such a feeling of inadequacy may well induce one to wish for more light on the subject, — and perhaps none could ever duly image the Eternal without its throwing forward some likeness of itself veiled in flesh, and so coming in contact with our earthly humanity, — ^yet to the common sense of mankind there remains the conviction, that after all our researches in the world of matter and sense the Eternal Upholder remains behind.