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In the first place, then, we do not agree with our author that he has established his important rule, that no testimony can prove a breach of the uniformity of causation in physical events; and, in the second place, we believe that the exhibition of miracles does not necessarily imply such a breach. In no instance more strikingly than in the case before us, are men apt to be misled by terms adopted by themselves to aid their researches. The terms breach, suspension, and violation of a law, appear to us highly objectionable if invariably applied to the operations of the Disposer of events. These terms, having been used figuratively, and by way of accommodation, to express our imperfect conceptions of the mode of Divine agency, are afterwards used as the basis of arguments to which they afford no solid foundation. It is impossible to enlarge on this subject here; but we will just observe, that the belief of the Deity being restricted by laws arises from a very narrow and imperfect conception of him; and that though the term is perhaps the best we can employ to express our conviction of the immutability of his purposes, and the impartiality of his dispensations, it ought never to be made the occasion of limiting our faith in his infinite power. The invariable sequence of cause and effect is analogous to the steady operation of laws in the social system, and naturally suggests the use of the term; but our reasoning faculty exceeds its commission if the analogy be carried further, and the inference deduced that this sequence can never have been interrupted or obscured but by caprice or some other moral imperfection, and therefore that a miracle is impossible.

From our author's next position we also dissent. Testimony cannot prove the uniformity of causation, because it reaches only a limited number of events: but this limitation does not affect its evidence in any particular instance. If

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human testimony established the uniformity of causation in a thousand instances, without any exception, this would be no proof, though a presumption, that the sequence of cause and effect was universal: but if it established this sequence in nine hundred and ninety-nine cases, and asserted its failure in one, we see no reason for rejecting its evidence. Testimony can never prove the rule universal; but, by establishing one exception, it can prove that it is not universal. Here the writer again assumes the connexion of cause and effect to be not only uniform, but necessary, inevitable, indispensable; which is clearly begging the question.

The last observation, that the being of a God is proved by physical evidence, is obvious and indisputable.

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We cannot dwell so long on the next chapter as its contents deserve. It treats of Possibility, Probability, and their Opposites. The term Possibility is shown to imply a defect of knowledge on our parts, and to designate a state of the mind, and not an attribute of events. An impossible event is described as being one which contradicts our experience, or which implies that the same causes have produced different effects," or vice versa. It is clear that the assumption of the uniformity of causation is here made to rest on our experience, and not on a primary principle of the mind.

We should be inclined, when speaking philosophically, to restrict the use of the term impossible to that which is self-contradictory. Our author adopts a less limited signification, and declares impossible, and involving a deviation from the uniform succession of causes and effects, to be convertible terms. Whatever may become of this definition, it contains nothing incompatible with the belief that “what is impossible with man is possible with God."

The term Probability is well explained.

The doctrine of Philosophical Necessity we hold to have been previously fully proved. Our high appreciation of

the value of testimony is owing to our belief in the uniformity of causation in the moral world. On our author's mind, however, this belief appears to have a directly opposite effect, as we judge from the conclusion of his ninth chapter. Because the causes which actuate the mind are, as a whole, less known to us than those which operate on the physical world, he would rather disbelieve the testimony of a great number of persons, acting and speaking under an ascertained set of motives, struggling against obloquy, threats, and violence, enduring hardship, torture, and death, for their convictions, than be convinced of what he calls a physical impossibility. That is, he admits the belief of many miracles, to escape the acknowledgment of one.

In the establishment of one great point, the doctrine of Philosophical Necessity, (as it is commonly called,) our author appears to have succeeded; in the other, the determination of the legitimate bounds of testimony, (so as to exclude the miracles,) to have failed. On neither are.we aware that he has brought forward any thing new: and our reason for commenting on the third Essay at such length is, that from its popular form, its interesting style, and the undeniable truth of a great part of its contents, it may have the power of working much mischief among infirm and unwary intellects. The reputation which the author deservedly gained by his former works affords a presumption that the present volume will obtain an extensive circulation; and while we believe that some of his observations and reasonings cannot be too widely diffused, we lament that truth and error should be so mixed up together, as that a greater degree of caution and discernment is required to separate them than can be expected from the generality of his readers. In his opinions concerning the communication of truth we fully coincide; and the integrity of his motives to publication we have certainly no inclination to question,

But if the subject has been, as he declares, "maturely considered," and if his sole aim in treating it as he has done is “the establishment of truth in a momentous and difficult sphere of inquiry," we can only lament that the patient labors of an enlightened intellect have produced such results, and that the benevolent wishes of an ingenuous mind are doomed to disappointment.

THE RELIGION OF SOCRATES.*

THERE have been frequent and elaborate comparisons of Socrates with the inspired men of Judea, of him who, in moral purity and intellectual vigor and ripeness, was eminently and unaccountably superior to all other philosophical teachers, with the accredited messengers of Jehovah. The comparisons have been industriously carried through, point by point, as far as the abstract character of the men was concerned; but the results have ever appeared to us unsatisfactory, for want of a due consideration of the position of the several individuals. Socrates is pronounced to be, in comparison with the prophets and apostles, blind with respect to the Divine Nature, idolatrous in his worship, superstitious with respect to the dealings of Providence in general, and especially as they regarded himself; low in his conceptions of piety and holiness, and capable of none but the crudest conceptions of a future state. His immeasur able superiority over his Heathen brethren of every rank, being at the same time universally admitted, it becomes *The Religion of Socrates. Dedicated to Sceptics and Scepticmakers. 8vo. pp. 106, London. Fellows. 1831,

an object of deep interest to ascertain for what design, and by what means, he was thus placed in a position so far above the many, and so far below the few; and whether any considerations have been omitted by which we may rectify the estimates of him, which are too various to be correct.

The Jewish prophets were born on holy ground; they were bred up beneath the shadow of the tabernacle; and nurtured by Jehovah himself. Socrates dwelt in a land whose golden fields and gorgeous gardens were, with all their splendor, a wilderness, compared with the sandy plains and rugged fastnesses of Judea, because no visible glory shone on them from heaven. He sought the shade of temples, where no eye looked for a unity of essence amidst the diversity of the forms of beauty; and the ministrations by which his powers were matured were, even if understood by himself, unrecognised by any besides.

The Jewish prophets were sent, with the light of Deity shining in their faces, to deliver express messages from Jehovah to his people. When they preached, the thundercloud was beneath their feet, and the lightnings in their hands. They were empowered to proclaim, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is One Lord;" and their office being thus express, they were not subject to the perplexities of a discretionary power, and had only to discharge their commission, and bear the consequences. Socrates had no credentials to exhibit; his appeals were enforced by no power on which he could visibly repose, and were addressed to a people who were united by no common bond of acknowledged truth. He was compelled to exercise a caution as difficult as it must have been irksome. He could only intimate great truths by means of such analogies as would interest and engage his Athenian auditors, leaving it to those whom it might concern to interpret rightly his countenance of popular superstitions: and, after all, his

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