present to the mind, is unquestionable. Now it is evident, that a cause must have at least as much force and reality as its effect. For how can it create or bestow that which it has not in itself? The ideas in my mind are images or pictures, which may want something of the perfection that is in their archetype, but cannot go beyond the magnitude and excellence of their cause. Among other ideas in the mind, I find one of the Deity, understanding thereby an infinite and independent Being, the highest Intelligence, the Omnipotent cause of all things. The more this notion is examined, the more evident it is, that it does not proceed from me alone, that it is not the mere offspring of my imagination. Therefore, God necessarily exists; for the idea of an infinite being cannot be created by me, who am finite, but it must proceed from some other substance, which is itself infinite. It cannot be objected to this argument, that the Infinite is not perceived by a positive idea, but only through a negation of the Finite, just as I conceive of rest and darkness through a negation of motion and light. For there is more reality in an infinite substance, than in a finite one, and the knowledge of the former is prior in time to that of the latter; that is, I have an idea of God, before I have one of myself. The acknowledgment of a want and the sense of imperfection can proceed only from the idea of a more perfect being, by comparison with whom I perceive my own defects.

It only remains, therefore, to inquire how this idea of God was obtained. It came not from the senses, for it did not rise unexpectedly, creating a feeling of surprise, as the ideas of external things do, when they strike upon the or gans of perception for the first time. Nor was it made by my own agency, for I can neither enlarge nor diminish it. It is infinite, and therefore cannot be increased. An idea of perfection cannot be lessened, except only by removing

it, and substituting another in its place. As the idea, then, had not its origin from the senses, and is not factitious, it must be innate; it bears the artificer's own stamp, put upon his work to show who made it. In fine, "when I turn my attention within, I perceive that I am a being incomplete, dependent upon another, and reaching after something higher and better than my present state; and that He, on whom I depend, enjoys all the perfections towards which I aspire, enjoys them not merely potentially and to an indefinite extent, but in very truth and in an infinite degree. My nature could not be what it is, that is, it could not possess this innate conception of the Deity, unless he actually existed, and possessed all those attributes, which my thoughts can in no wise picture forth, or comprehend, and marked by no defects." Nothing can be an attribute of the Divine nature, which implies limit or imperfection. Now, all fraud or violation of confidence proceeds from some moral defect. Consequently, we owe implicit faith to the testimony of those faculties, with which our Maker has endowed us, since he is a Being of perfect veracity, and cannot wilfully deceive. Thus, by contemplating the nature of the Deity, we rise from skepticism to a system of sure and well-grounded belief.

This sketch is sufficient to show, that Descartes used the great doctrine of natural theology only as a stepping-stone in his philosophical inquiries, as a means of accrediting the human faculties, and thereby of rising from universal doubt to a confident anticipation of success in the search after truth. The peculiarities of the argument, also, may be traced to the use which the author intended to make of it; for he could not avail himself of any evidence from the external world, nor rest his proof upon any preëstablished fact or principle, except that of his own existence and the of ideas to his mind. To reason from final causes,

presence

would expose him to the charge of first appealing to the divine attributes in proof of the authority of his faculties, and then of appealing to these faculties in proof of the existence of a God. He flattered himself, that the reasoning was wholly a priori, and that it amounted to a perfect demonstration of the doctrine. As such it was generally received by the eminent men of his time, and even Locke ventured to express his dissent only in a cautious and guarded manner. As in all other instances in the "Essay," of controverting the doctrines of Descartes, he does not mention their author, not caring to appear openly as the opponent of a writer, whose authority stood so high in the philosophical world. "How far the idea of a most perfect being," he remarks, "which a man may frame in his mind, does or does not prove the existence of a God, I will not here examine. For, in the different make of men's tempers and application of their thoughts, some arguments prevail more on one, and some on another, for the confirmation of the same truth. But yet, I think, this I may say, that it is an ill way of establishing this truth, and silencing atheists, to lay the whole stress of so important a point as this upon that sole foundation; and to take some men's having that idea of God in their minds, (for it is evident some men have none, and some worse than none, and the most very different,) for the only proof of a Deity." The objection is here rather hinted at than openly propounded, but it is a fatal one. Locke's tolerant and liberal disposition forbade him to reject entirely an argument, which might have some weight with minds peculiarly constituted, even while he showed the weakness of its claims as a demonstration.

We are far from denying any utility to this or the other

*

Essay on Human Understanding, Book 4. Ch. x. § 7.

so-called arguments a priori. Dugald Stewart long since remarked, that there is something peculiarly wonderful and overwhelming in those conceptions of Immensity and Eternity, which it is not less impossible to banish from our thoughts, than the consciousness of our own existence; and that, when we have once established, from the evidences of design everywhere manifested around us, the existence of an intelligent and powerful Creator, we are unavoidably led to apply these conceptions, and to conceive him as filling the infinite extent of space and duration with his presence and his power. So, too, the notion of necessary existence, which is, perhaps, first derived from this source, becomes more easy of apprehension when applied to the Supreme Being. Whatever lifts the mind by such powerful means from contemplating the finite and contingent things of this world, cannot fail to predispose it towards receiving the sublime doctrines of natural theology. It is only when the claims of such reasoning are injudiciously urged, when it is set forth as a perfect demonstration, that it becomes necessary to examine its validity, and to guard against arguments of the same class, that are retorted against those proofs of the being of a God, which are open to every capacity, and which constitute to most minds the sole ground of belief. If such speculations are viewed only in their proper light, as abstract theories falling within the province of the metaphysician, or if they are brought in only as subsidiary to the real argument, by which great practical truths are established, much good may be the result. But these fine-spun reveries of an ingenious and philosophical mind form weapons, that may be wielded on either side with nearly equal effect. If their use is allowed to be unexceptionable in such a cause, if even the whole weight of proof is rested upon them, then the objections of Hume and other skeptical metaphysicians must be admitted.

to be fairly and appropriately urged, and must be refuted by arguments of the same class. But let the nature of the subject be properly considered, and the reasoning confined to the ordinary channel for the proof of facts, and these cobweb difficulties may be dispersed by a breath, though they would otherwise be powerful enough to shake the whole fabric of religious faith.

The argument of Descartes, when closely scrutinized, will be found to differ very little from those which we have already examined. The great fallacy in it consists in supposing, that the enlarged and grand conception of Deity, which the mind gradually forms by precept and reflection, is wholly original and spontaneous in its growth, because some of its elements undoubtedly possess this character. Descartes did not consider how difficult of execution was his plan to revoke all his past opinions into doubt, and to present his mind as a tabula rasa for the reception of pure and well-accredited truth. The thoughts and impressions of a whole lifetime could not be wiped away by a single effort of the will. They had left indelible traces on his intellect, and with all his acuteness he could not distinguish between them and the original characters, in which he would fain recognise the handwriting of his Maker. The ideas of infinitude and perfection are the only ones, the spontaneous origin of which can be affirmed with the least shade of probability; and how far are these abstract and general notions from constituting our whole conception of the Supreme Being. Personality, real existence, unity, and activity must all be joined to these two abstract notions, before the idea is complete, and he must be a bold theorist, indeed, who will maintain the primitive character, the origin a priori, of all these elements. Thus the proof by Descartes appears nearly the same with that by Clarke, the only difference being, that the former argues from the in