dark respecting the thinking principle within us, both as to its real nature and its various operations. And after all that has been advanced by some to prove, that we may know as much of mind as of matter, it is certain, that the spiritual part of our composition is not so easily subjected to our investigation as a body, which, by presenting one constant appearance to the senses, may be examined at leisure; whereas the phænomena of the former are fugitive and variable, and are often with difficulty seized for a single moment. This, undoubtedly, has been one chief obstruction to the progress metaphysics; and perhaps it is fairly questionable whether any modern metaphysician has, upon the whole, given a more probable account, either of the origin of our ideas, or of our mode of perception, of judging, or of reasoning, than Aristotle and some other ancient philosophers have done. The great error seems to have been, both with ancients and moderns, that instead of a humble history, they have

of

affected to give a theory of the human mind, and thus suffered nature to escape through the subtilty of their abstractions*.

This want of progression in the philosophy of mind we shall not much regret, when we consider, that the cause of virtue and happiness, and even of useful knowledge, is but little connected with such disquisitions; that a man may think justly, act virtuously, and live and die comfortably, without any assistance from the ideal speculations of Plato or Aristotle, of Malbranche or Locke; and that, with all the metaphysical skill of these great men united, he may pass his days to no practical purpose, and at last die in a fatal self-ignorance.

To know ourselves, therefore, in the important sense of the precept, is to know

"He who would philosophize in a due and proper manner, must dissect nature, but not abstract her, as they are obliged to do who will not dissect her.”

BACON, vol. iii. p. 587. Shaw's edit.

our moral situation; and to do this we must get properly acquainted with the following particulars:

First, With the law of our creation, and with our defection from it.

Secondly, In what degree, according to the constitution of the gospel, we must be restored to a conformity with this law, in order to our present peace and final happiness; and in what manner it is most usual for men to deceive themselves upon this subject.

What is the law of our creation, we may learn from the answer made by our Saviour to the scribe, who asked him, which was the first commandment of all? To this Jesus replied, The first of all the command. ments is, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord; and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength; which evidently implies an

utter exclusion of all other deities, and an entire devotedness to the worship and service of the only true God. This, with the next great commandment, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, constitutes that law of perfection, which shone in man with a clear and convincing light, till, by the entrance of sin, his power of spiritual perception became so weakened and depraved, that the light has since mostly shone in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not.

This was eminently the condition of the heathen world, where the true God was either not known at all, or not known as the object of our entire devotion, gratitude, and dependence; where the vulgar were occupied with a multitude of fictitious deities, to whom they were taught to look up as to the only tutelar and avenging powers that presided over mankind, though described under characters so flagitious, that to resemble them, human nature must have sunk beneath its ordinary degree of

depravity. And this, in fact, was the deplorable consequence of a devotion to such dissolute and ferocious divinities as their Bacchus and Venus, their Mars and their Saturn; while the philosophers, instead of reclaiming the people from this base idolatry, helped to strengthen them in it, by their own conformity to the popular religion, and their recommendation of it to others. So far were the wisest, even among the Greeks, from any just acquaintance, with the true God, and with their duty towards him, unless we will suppose them to have spoken and acted in opposition to their own secret sentiments, which would reflect still greater disgrace upon their name and character.

The second great commandment, which respects our neighbour, lies more within the comprehension of human reason; and a tolerable system of ethics, so far at least as our outward conduct is concerned, might perhaps be drawn from heathen philosophers and moralists, if taken collec