The great end of reason, is to regulate the impulses of desire, and to render appetite subservient

cy of human actions, as though he were possessed of infinite power. But we cannot conceive the idea of a decree, abstracted from the idea of infinite power; and therefore it follows, that prescience and destiny are totally different in their natures, as well as founded up on two distinct attributes of Deity-discernment and power; which, in the present consideration, can have no necessary connexion. The necessary effect of a decree, is the positive accomplishment of it; but the necessary effect of absolute foreknowledge, is what I have never yet been able to discove.

Every action must bear some relation to the knowledge of it, because the knowledge of an action is the communication of itself; without this relation, there can be no knowledge. And to say, that an action may be, or is known, while that action which is thus known, is in futurity, even in idea, while the knowledge of it is now actually existing, is to make the effect to exist prior to its own cause; and is to suppose a relation between that which is, and that which is not; which is a glaring contradiction.

Whenever we form an idea of prescience, and speak of it as applying to the infinitely wise God, according to our weak perceptions of His attributes; we either behold him stepping into futurity, and there beholding actions in their dark recesses, or calling futurity to his bar, to develope its hidden mysteries; but in either case, the action itself, and the knowledge of that ac tion, must be brought into contact with one another.

That the relative ideas of past and future, must be inapplicable to the eternal God, is too evident to require proof, or admit denial, there being but few abstract propositions more certain; and therefore, the idea of successive existence, must be precluded by the Omnipresency of his nature; and in the physical relation in which things stand to God, nothing can be said to be remote from him. If, then, we admit a future action to be known to, and present with God, we in

to the principles of immutable justice while the great end of instinct, is to gratify the impulses of

futurity admit its actual existence; and while we admit this event which is future to us, to be present with, and therefore known to God, we admit, that nothing which is in futurity to us, can be remote from Him; but we behold this future action, actually existing now before God. Here, then, we behold the certainty of the action perfectly existing before God, and perfectly remote from the relative idea of futurity; and that action which is future with us, is in actual existence with Him.

Whatever event or action is said to be foreknown, can only be so in relation to us, but not to God. With hin the event or action is only simply known. And as the simple discernment of an action, necessarily presupposes the pre-existence of that action; the action itself is not subsequent upon, but antecedent to that discernment, which is founded upon it. If an action, which is future with us, be totally destitute of all existence, in the most absolute sense of the word, it never can be an object even of infinite discernment, because the supposition includes a contradiction; for he who discerns that which is destitute of all existence, discerns what is admitted even by the supposition itself to be undiscernible. The existence of an action, is therefore necessary to the discernment of it. If, then, an event which is future to us, be actually present with God; and if the actual existence of an event be necessary to his discernment of it, its mutable state is already past, and its destiny is as inevitable, as those events which are enrolled in the antediluvian annals. And as the knowledge of an event, must necessarily presuppose the previous existence of that event, the knowledge of it can never influence that event, or any of its peceding mutations, upon which this knowledge itself must depend for its own existence.

Discernment itself, whether divine or human, necessarily implies an object; for it is a contradiction in terms, to suppose any being to discern an object which

desire, independent of right or wrong. Right and wrong, are what instinct can form no conception of; but without right and wrong, reason can have no existence. Whether what instinct adopts, may

we conceive has no kind of existence. To suppose that the discernment of an object may exist, while we suppose the object itself to be a pure nonentity, is to suppose the object to be at once discernible and not discernible, to be an entity and a nonentity, at the same time.

However distant the modes of God's discernment are from those of our own, yet when we ask the questionHow can any thing be different from what God foresees it? we have recourse to our own modes of apprehension, and incorporate in that question, the idea of successive duration, with his mode of apprehension; although in our abstract reasoning upon it, we exclude all kinds of succession from that idea.

In all our abstract reasoning upon the prescience of God, we exclude the idea of successive existence, and speak the language of philosophy and reason; but when we apply the prescience of God, to the contingency of human action, we lose sight of the only exclusive foundation on which the question can stand, and incorporate with it the relative ideas of past and future; and thus re-adopt that successive existence, which we had previously excluded from our abstract idea of the prescience of God. It is for want of this distinction, that we have such confusion in our ideas on the subject. Only let the idea of successive existence, be excluded from incorporating with that of prescience, and the difficulty will disappear, the question will assume an inoffensive form, and the prescience of God will be perfectly reconcileable with the contingency of human actions.

Finally, an action which is future with us, must be in itself either an entity or a nonentity, in the most perfect sense of the words; if an entity, it has all that existence which I contend for; if a nonentity, it cannot be an object either of infinite discernment or knowledge, for he that beholds or knows a perfect nonenity, must behold and know nothing.

issue in truth or error, is what can excite within it no solicitude; but the final issue of things, is the great point to which reason directs its steps. Rea

son and instinct must, therefore, be essentially dif ferent in their origin, in their natures, in their operations, and in their end. Instinct denominates the animal, and reason the man.

SECT. VIII.

Memory and Reflection-The former visible in animal Powers, the latter depends on an imma. terial Principle-Sensation-It may be annihilated, but the human Soul cannot.

THE abstract ideas of memory and reflection, however they may be allied, must be considerably different in themselves, from one another; the for mer we discover in the animal powers, but the latter only in an immaterial principle. Memory, no doubt, relates to sensation, but can have no relation to any thing but what is past; while reflection, commencing its operations independent either of past or future, forms its conclusions on the agrecment or disagreement of those ideas which we associate together, which to memory and instinct must be forever unknown. Instinct can never operate, abstracted from the impulses of sensation; but reflection begins its operations where sensation ends-where the impulses of sensation cannot excite, and moves in a region of which instinct can form no conception.

Sensation itself must necessarily be diffused through every department of animal being; and must of itself be as extensive in its diffusion, as the Being which possesses it. To be assured that it is a something which depends upon the modification of body, we need only to advert to the amputation of any bodily part. In proportion as these

parts undergo a separation from each other, the ca pacity of sensation must be reduced in its extension, and the power of feeling must be confined within a narrower sphere. The acuteness, however, can have but little or no relation to its diffusion; for although the amputation of the parts of body, may contract it in the extent of its operations, those parts which remain will preserve their acuteness uninjured and entire. And though we consider sensation as one great whole, yet the reduction of its diffusion, must necessarily be injurious to that whole, while the acuteness remaining plainly demonstrates, that sensation cannot arise from an independent principle.

A capacity which is thus capable of being reduced, must, through the progress of the means of that reduction, be finally annihilated; for it is a contradiction to suppose any thing, which is not infinite, to be capable of reduction, without arriving at last to a point when it shall cease to be. And from the effects of amputation, it undeniably follows, that the animal powers must depend for their existence on the modification of that body, of which they are powers, and on the continuance of which they stand or fall.

As no two parts of any animal, can both survive their separation from each other, there must be some immoveable seat of personality; but wherein this personality consists, or how far amputation may extend without approaching its recess, is a point which I confess myself unable to determine. It may be, and most probably is, very different in different species of animal beings; and what would terminate the existence of one, would permit another to survive its loss. But what is reduced by amputation, must be totally annihilated by the final separation of all its parts, beyond which nothing" purely animal can survive.*

* How far an injury may be sustained without dis