all others be most commonly selected in proof of the powers of Reason, i.e. the gravitation subsisting between the heavenly bodies, it will only be necessary to point out why this is believed to be a fact.

Astronomers have found out by telescopes and other contrivances that the Sun and Planets are globes, that the former is very large with respect to every one of the latter, that they revolve round about it in conic sections, and that their velocities and periodic times depend in a certain fixed manner on their distances from it. Newton discovered, that if particles of matter are supposed to attract one another with a force varying inversely as the squares of their distances, then globes made up of such particles conglomerated, would attract one another with a force varying directly as the quantity of such particles contained in each, and inversely as the squares of the distances between their centres; and that, such being the case, if any number of such globes were projected in space, some one of them being very large with respect to the others, these would revolve about it in conic sections, with velocities and periodic times depending upon their distances from it, in exactly the same way as the velocities and periodic times of the Planets depend on their distance from the Sun. And therefore, since all we know about the motions of the heavenly bodies is exactly what it must be, if the force of attraction existed, we suppose as the simplest account of these motions that it does exist. It will be observed that the truth of this supposition rests

not on any demonstration which reason tells us to be certainly true, but on the assumed accuracy of telescopes and other instruments in the first instance, and secondly on the further assumption, that what these instruments have shown us respecting the motions of the heavenly bodies is all that is to be known on the subject: two things, either of which may turn out to have been a mistake, for aught Reason tells us to the contrary. Thus, for aught we know by Reason, a planet may hereafter be discovered which shall move on some other curve than a conic section, and with velocities depending in no fixed way on its distance from the sun and this discovery, though it would contradict the belief that the force of attraction, as stated by Newton, is a universal principle, would in no way contradict Reason, nor ought in the least degree to stagger our reliance. on it. Nor is the likelihood that such a planet may be discovered at all affected by any of the reasonings on which Newton's system is founded. Reason tells us just as exactly about the motions of heavenly bodies acted on by any forces whatever, as by the particular force of gravitation, and affords no conclusive presumption in favour of the reality of one force more than of another, nor indeed any presumption in favour of the reality of any force.

It tells us that, if the force of attraction varied inversely as the cubes of the distances between the heavenly bodies, instead of the squares, they would revolve in spirals, instead of conic sections, and all

at last fall into the Sun. And the fact that the known Planets do not revolve in such spirals, may just as correctly be said to oppose Reason, as the discovery of other Planets not revolving in conic sections could be said to oppose it.

With respect to astronomy then, Reason, in the sense in which it is the basis of the Newtonian System, cannot be said to give us any information about matters of fact, either negative or affirmative; nor can any astronomical phenomenon whatever, that either experience may discover or fancy imagine, be, in any correct sense of the words, either opposed to Reason or consistent with it. And the same truth holds with respect to all other matters of fact, whether moral, political, or religious. Reason, if it means the faculty by which we trace the relations of ideas, and demonstrate one proposition from having previously ascertained another, is altogether unable to take cognisance of them; it can affirm nothing respecting them, and therefore cannot be contradicted by any thing we may fancy about them, be it true or false.

2. Again, if by Reason is understood the faculty by which we are enabled to weigh evidence, in this sense it is equally unintelligible to speak of it as opposed to Faith.

To assent to any doctrine or precept of religion, whether natural or revealed, on any other ground, except that the balance of evidence points out the reasonableness of doing so, is what no man was ever commanded to do by God, and what in the

nature of things it is impossible he should do. That some doctrines and precepts are received by some men, against which others think there is a balance of probabilities, is indeed perfectly true: but that, if these men were to argue together, the question would turn on, which ought to be trusted, Reason or Faith, is absurd; the real question being, which is the most reasonable, Faith or Disbelief. I believe in the miraculous conception of our Blessed Lord, another person disbelieves it; but then my belief is not founded on a submission of Reason to Faith, nor again, is his belief a triumph of Reason over Faith. His notions of the laws of evidence are different from mine: [whether or not] he be right and I wrong, the question between us is not, which ought to be most trusted, Faith or Reason, but whose notions of evidence are most reasonable, his or mine. He attributes more weight than I do, to the presumption drawn from experience, that the course of nature is uniform, and therefore cannot have been deviated from in this particular instance; I attribute more weight than he does to the testimony, which proves Scripture authentic, and the text, in which this miracle is stated, genuine. His reason teaches him to think it more probable that the parts of the Bible are a forgery, or at least couched in vague and random language, than that the order of nature which we see around us should have been so wonderfully set aside; mine teaches me the reverse. Thus it is not his Reason and my Faith that are opposed, but his reliance on expe

rience and my reliance on the genuineness and authenticity of Scripture: each of us being equally ready to appeal to Reason as the arbiter.

Experience and the declarations of Scripture are indeed seemingly opposed to one another at every turn, and it is the office of Reason to judge which is most to be trusted; but to oppose Reason to Faith is absolutely unmeaning, just as much so indeed as to oppose Reason to Experience. Nor would it be any greater abuse of terms to say that those who explain away the declarations of Scripture prefer Experience to Reason, than it is to say that those who accept them literally prefer Faith to Reason.

Nor let it be thought that all this is a mere cavil about words. Any man, doubtless, has a right, if he pleases, to mean by Reason something different either from the faculty by which we trace the relations of ideas, or that by which we weigh evidence ; he is perfectly at liberty to invent any new notion whatever and to call it Reason, and to write books in which he calls it so; but then it should be distinctly borne in mind that what he calls Reason is not what is commonly called so, is something very different from the exalted faculty which is allowed to be "the only faculty wherewith we have to judge concerning any thing, even revelation itself." And thus, in the case before us, any one is at liberty to write books in which he opposes Reason to Faith ; but then it ought always to be borne in mind that

1 Butler's Anal. ii. 3.