CHAPTER XXIII.

OF THE PERSONALITY OF THE DEITY.

CONTRIVANCE, if established, appears to me to prove every thing which we wish to prove. Amongst other things it proves the personality of the Deity, as diftinguished from what is fometimes called nature, fometimes called a principle: which terms, in the mouths of those who use them philofophically, feem to be intended, to admit and to express an efficacy, but to exclude and to deny a personal agent. Now that which can contrive, which can defign, must be a perfon. These capacities conftitute personality, for they imply consciousnefs, and thought. They require that which can perceive an end or purpose; as well as the power of providing means, and of directing them to their end*. They require a centre in which perceptions unite, and from which

*Priestley's Letters to a Philofophical Unbeliever, P. 153, ed. 2.

volitions flow; which is mind. The acts of a mind prove the existence of a mind: and in whatever a mind refides is a perfon. The feat of intellect is a perfon. We have no authority to limit the properties of mind to any particular corporeal form, or to any particular circumfcription of space. These properties fubfift, in created nature, under a great variety of fenfible forms. Alfo every animated being has its fenforium, that is, a certain portion of fpace, within which perception and volition are exerted. This fphere may be enlarged to an indefinite extent; may comprehend the univerfe: and, being fo imagined, may serve to furnish us with as good a notion, as we are capable of forming, of the immensity of the divine nature, i. e. of a Being, infinite, as well in effence, as in power; yet nevertheless a perfon.

"No man hath feen God at any time." And this, I believe, makes the great difficulty. Now it is a difficulty, which chiefly arifes from our not duly eftimating the state of our faculties. The Deity, it is true, is the object of none of our fenfes: but reflect what limited capacities animal fenfes are. Many animals feem to have but one fenfe, or perhaps two

at

at the most, touch and tafte. Ought fuch an animal to conclude against the existence of fmells, founds, and colours? To another fpecies is given the sense of smelling. This is an advance in the knowledge of the powers and properties of nature: but, if this favored animal fhould infer from its fuperiority over the class last decribed, that it perceived every thing which was perceptible in nature, it is known to us, though perhaps not fufpected by the animal itself, that it proceeded upon a falfe and presumptuous eftimate of its faculties. To another is added the fense of hearing; which lets in a class of fenfations entirely unconceived by the animal before spoken of; not only distinct, but remote from any which it had ever experienced, and greatly fuperior to them. Yet this laft animal has no more ground for believing, that its fenfes comprehend all things, and all properties of things, which exift, than might have been claimed by the tribes of animals beneath it: for we know, that it is ftill poffible to poffefs another fenfe, that of fight, which fhall disclose to the percipient a new world. This fifth sense makes the animal what the human animal is: but to infer that poffibility ftops here; that either this

fifth fenfe is the last sense, or that the five comprehend all existence, is just as unwarrantable a conclufion, as that which might have been made by any of the different fpecies which poffeffed fewer, or even by that, if fuch there be, which poffeffed only one. The conclufion of the one fenfe animal, and the conclufion of the five fense animal, ftand upon the fame authority. There may be more and other fenfes than thofe which we have. There may be senses suited to the perception of the powers, properties, and fubftance of spirits. These may belong to higher orders of rational agents; for there is not the smallest reason for fuppofing that we are the highest, or that the scale of creation ftops with us.

The great energies of nature are known to us only by their effects. The fubftances which produce them, are as much concealed from our fenfes as the divine effence itself. Gravitation, though conftantly prefent, though conftantly exerting its influence, though every where around us, near us, and within us; though diffused throughout all space, and penetrating the texture of all bodies with which we are acquainted, depends, if upon a fluid, upon a fluid, which, though both powerful

and universal in its operation, is no object of fense to us; if upon any other kind of subftance or action, upon a substance and action from which we receive no diftinguishable impreffions. Is it then to be wondered at, that it should, in some measure, be the fame with the divine nature?

Of this however we are certain, that, whatever the Deity be, neither the universe, nor any part of it which we fee, can be he. The universe itself is merely a collective name: its parts are all which are real; or which are things. Now inert matter is out of the queftion; and organized fubftances include marks of contrivance. But whatever includes marks of contrivance, whatever, in its conflitution, teftifies defign, neceffarily carries us to fomething beyond itself, to fome other being, to a defigner prior to, and out of, itself. No animal, for inftance, can have contrived its own limbs and fenfes; can have been the author to itself of the defign with which they were conftructed. That fuppofition involves all the abfurdity of felf-creation, i. e. of acting without exifting. Nothing can be God, which is ordered by a wisdom and a will, which itself is void of which is indebted for any of its properties