ture may suggest to him, that if this conclusion I pretend to abide by were my real ultimate opinion, I should not be so inconsistent with myself as to divulge it. For the discovery that a man's own safety will supersede all obligations, is of a nature not to be communicated without lessening its value to the owner: he may believe then I should have locked it carefully up, as a precious deposit to be reserved for private use, that if ever the case should so happen as that I cannot obey the dictates of honor and conscience, without endangering my person, I might avail myself of this secret to slip my own neck out of the collar: but it would certainly be for my interest to persuade the world that the duties of virtue are indispensable, and they ought to sacrifice everything for the good of the public, whereof I am a member, and must consequently share in the fat of their sacrifices. Therefore I think it is no unreasonable favor to expect, that he will suppose I have already run over in my own mind the matters I am to present him with by-and-by, and foresee something will occur among them, which will oblige me to recant the odious part of my doctrine, and come over to his sentiments. Let us then take leave in good hopes, that however we may part a little out of humor for the present, we shall grow better satisfied with one another upon our next conversation. THE LIGHT OF NATURE PURSUED. THEOLOGY. CHAP. I. SUBSTANCE. HITHERTO I have proceeded only upon a view of human nature, and the things we are daily conversant with; in order to frame some rules for our conduct, as well in the prudential management of our powers with regard to our own interests, as in joining our mutual endeavors towards promoting those of one another, whereby we may render life more comfortable and happy. But as I proposed in my general introduction to examine the foundations both of Religion and Morality, the reader may think himself disappointed in that, after having attended me through so large a portion of my work, he finds me amusing him with one of them alone without mentioning a single word of the other, and that in such manner as to leave it grossly defective at the conclusion. I am now going to satisfy him in this particular, by which, if pursued with tolerable success, he may expect I shall be able to restore morality to that completion whereof he thinks I have defrauded her. Let us now therefore, enter upon a careful examination of what other principles may be found besides those we have already collected, and push our researches beyond the scene exhibited by our senses and our experience. And as this attempt will lead us to take a view of external nature and things invisible, or which can be discovered only by the eye of reason, we shall have an ample field to expatiate in, distant objects and extensive prospects to contemplate, no less than universal Nature, comprehending things visible and invisible, with the connections and dependencies running between them, so far as the feeble optics of human understanding can reach to discern them. In the progress of this task I must learn to handle the telescope, the vastness of whose scenes may demand as close an attention to view them distinctly. as our minute observations of the microscope have done before. For the objects we are ordinarily conversant amongst lie within a certain compass of magnitude: whatever greatly exceeds or greatly falls short of the sizes familiar to our acquaintance, carries a strangeness and unwieldiness forbidding and irksome to those who read for amusement only. The description of them must not be read but studied, and the describer can do no more than strive to make the study as little laborious as possible. But I cannot yet consent totally to lay aside the microscope, for I pretend to no extraordinary illumination nor direct intuition of things invisible, but can hope only to investigate them by the things that are seen therefore, it behoves me to attend still for a while to minute objects, being desirous to lay the remainder of my foundation with the same exactness I have endeavored at before. 2. But before we enter upon a view of external nature or proceed to investigate causes from their effects, in order to discover what powers or what laws there may be to govern the invisible world, it will be proper to consider whether we are likely to have any concern in their operation. For as Epicurus rightly observed, that what shall happen after we cease to exist is nothing to us, it will be superfluous to inquire into the sources of enjoyment or suffering in future times, until we have satisfied ourselves that we shall stand in a capacity of being affected by them. Nothing is more certain than that this bodily frame of ours shall be dissolved in a few years; we daily see instances of its mouldering into dust or putrefying into corruption, so that we cannot flatter ourselves with its having a long continuance: but it has been made appear in our survey of human nature, that the body serves only as a channel of conveyance to the mind, which is properly ourselves as being our sentient principle which perceives whatever is perceived by us, acts all that we do, and receives notices from external objects through the corporeal organs. So that our capacity of good and evil to come must depend upon the durableness of the mind concerning which we can know nothing from sense or experience, for they inform us not what becomes of the mind upon dissolution of the body, we do not see it moulder and putrefy like that, yet neither do we see it give any signs of life or existence; nor can we learn anything from the testimony of others |