as those of fluids, and the deficiency of the quantity of water, demonstrate to be impossible: not that any thing here is meant, in the least, to affect the great truth of the universal deluge, as related in the Pentateuch; on the contrary, this is a miracle, and therefore to be believed; it is a miracle, therefore could not be effected by physical causes.

The whole history of the deluge is miraculous. It is a miracle, that forty days' rain should have submerged the four parts of the world, so that the waters should rise fifteen cubits above the highest mountains; it is a miracle, that there should have been cataracts, doors, and apertures in heaven; it is a miracle, that all animals should have repaired to the ark, from the several parts of the world; it is a miracle, that Noah should have found fodder for them during ten months; it is a miracle, that all the creatures, with their provisions, could be contained in the ark; it is a miracle, that most of them did not die there; it is a miracle, that, at going out of the ark, sustenance could be found for man and beast; it is likewise a miracle, that one Pelletier should have conceited, that he had explained, how all the several kinds of creatures might very naturally be contained and fed in the ark.

Now, the history of the deluge, being the most miraculous thing ever heard of, it is idle to go about elucidating it. There are mysteries which we believe through faith; and faith consists in believing, what reason does not believe; which is another miracle.

Thus, the story of the universal deluge, is like that of the tower of Babel; of Balaam's ass; of the fall of Jericho, at the blowing of the trumpets; of the waters turned into blood; of the passage of the Red Sea; and of all the miracles which God was pleased to perform in behalf of his chosen people. These are depths unfathomable by the line of human reason.

DESTINY.

Of all the books which have reached our time, the most ancient is Homer. Here we become acquainted with the manners of profane antiquity, with heroes and gods, as rude and unpolished as if made in the likeness of man; but there, on the other hand, we meet with the elements of philosophy, and especially the notion of destiny, no less lord of the gods, than the gods are lords of the world.

Jupiter would fain save Hector: he consults the destinies ; he weighs the fates of Hector and Achilles in scales, and,

finding that the Trojan must absolutely be slain by the Greek, he is sensible all opposition to it would be fruitless; and, from that moment, Apollo, Hector's guardian genius, is obliged to forsake him (Iliad, lib. xxii. ;) and though Homer, according to the privilege of antiquity, often interlards his poem with quite opposite ideas, yet is he the first in whom the notion of destiny occurs; so that, it must be supposed to have been current in his time.

This notion of destiny was not received by the Jewish Pharisees till several ages after; for the Pharisees themselves, who, among that insignificant people, were the principal literati, were but of a modern date. At Alexandria, they adulterated the ancient Jewish opinions, with many Stoic tenets. St. Jerome even says, that their sect is but little prior to our vulgar era.

Philosophers never stood in need of Homer, or the Pharisees, to be convinced, that every thing is done by immutable laws; that every thing is settled; and that every thing is a necessary effect.

Either the world subsists by its own nature, by its physical laws, or a Supreme Being has formed it by his primitive laws; in either case, these laws are immutable; in either case, every thing is necessary; heavy bodies gravitate towards the centre of the earth, and cannot tend to remain in the air; pear-trees can never bear pine-apples; the instinct of a spaniel can never be the instinct of an ostrich; every thing is arranged, set in motion, and limited.

Man can have but a certain number of teeth, hairs, and ideas; and a time comes when he necessarily loses them. It is a contradiction, that what was yesterday, has not been; and what is to-day, should not be: no less a contradiction is it, that a thing, which is to be, should not come to pass.

If thou couldst give a turn to the destiny of a fly, I see no reason why thou mightest not as well determine the destiny of all other flies, of all animals, of all men, and of all nature; so that, at last, thou wouldst be more powerful than God himself.

It is common for weak people to say, such a physician has cured my aunt of a most dangerous illness: he has made her live ten years longer than she would. Others as weak, but, in their own opinion, very wise, say, the prudent man owes his fortune to himself,

'No God we want, while we have prudence nigh:
Thou art our goddess, Fortune, placed on high."

But the prudent man is sometimes crushed by his destiny, instead of making it; it is their destiny that renders men prudent.

Some profound politicians affirm, that, had Cromwell, Ludlow, Ireton, and about a dozen more Parliamentarians, been made away with a week before the cutting off Charles the First's head, that king might have lived longer, and have died in his bed. They are all in the right; and may further add, that, had all England been swallowed up by the sea, that monarch would not have ended his days on a scaffold at Whitehall, near the Banqueting-house; but, by the arrangement of occurrences, Charles was to have his head cut off.

Cardinal d'Ossat was unqestionably a man of more prudence than the lunatic in Bedlam; but is it not manifest, that the wise d'Ossat's organs were of another texture than that madman's? So a fox's organs differ from those of a crane, or a lark.

The physician has saved thy aunt: allowed; but herein he certainly did not reverse the order of nature; he conformed to it. It is evident, that thy aunt could not hinder herself being born in such a town, and having a certain illness, at such a time; that the physician could be no where, but in the town where he was; that thine aunt was to send for him; and that he was to prescribe for her those medicaments, which have effected her cure.

A peasant imagines that the hail which has fallen in his ground is purely matter of chance; but the philosopher knows that there is no such thing as chance; and that, by the constitution of the world, it must necessarily have hailed that day, in that very place.

Some, alarmed at this truth, are for having it, as straitened debtors, who offer half to their creditors, desiring some forbearance for the remainder. There are, say they, necessary events,* and others which are not so; but it would be odd, indeed, that one part of the world were fixed, and not the other; that some things which happen, were to happen, and that others, which happen, were not necessarily to happen. On a close examination, the doctrine which opposes that of destiny must appear loaded with absurdities, and contrary to the idea of an eternal providence: but many are destined to reason

The physical world is subject to invariable laws; man, therefore, as a physical being, is, like other bodies, governed by those invariable laws: but, as an intelligent being, his nature requires him to be a free agent.

wrongly, others not to reason at all, and others to persecute those who do reason.

You ask me, what then becomes of liberty? I understand you not. I know nothing of that liberty you speak of, nor yourself, indeed; else you would not be so long controverting about its nature. If you will, or rather, if you can, calmly examine with me what it is, turn to the letter [L]

DREAMS.

"Those airy dreams our senses entertain,
While fleeting shadows populate the brain,
Which nor the temples, in the lofty sky,
Nor from the gods are sent, who reign on high.
Each soul creative, but with mortal flame,

Stamps airy nothing with a place and name."

BUT how, when all the senses are deadened in sleep, is there one within still alive and active? What! when your eyes have lost their sight, and your ears their hearing, do you still see and hear in your dreams ? The dog hunts in his

dreams; barks, chases his prey, and feasts on his reward. That the poet versifies, the mathematician views figures, the metaphysician reasons lightly or wrongly, in his sleep, we have many striking instances.

Is this the action only of the body's organs, or is it the soul which, now freed from the power of the senses, acts in full enjoyment of its properties?

If the organs alone produce our dreams by night, why not our ideas by day? If it be merely the soul, acting of itself, and quiet by the suspension of the senses, which is the cause and subject of your sleeping ideas, whence is it that they are almost ever irrational, irregular, and incoherent? Can it be, that in the time of the soul's most abstract quietude, its imagination should be the most confused? Is it fantastical when free? Were it born with metaphysical ideas, as some writers who were troubled with waking dreams, have affirmed, its pure and luminous ideas of being, of infinitude, and of all primary principles, naturally should awake in it with the greatest energy when the body is sleeping, and men should philosophize best in their dreams!

Whatever system you espouse, however you may labour to prove that memory stirs the brain, and the brain the soul, you must allow that, in all your ideas in sleep, you are entirely passive; your will has no share in those images. Thus it is

clear that you can think seven or eight hours on a stretch, without having the least inclination to think, and even without being certain that you do think. Consider this, and tell me what is man's compound?

Superstition has always dealt much in dreams; nothing, indeed, was more natural. A man, deeply concerned about his mistress who lies ill, dreams that he sees her dying: and the next day she actually dies; then, to be sure, God has given him previous knowledge of his beloved's death!

A commander of an army dreams of gaining a battle; gains it then the gods had intimated to him that he should be conqueror !

It is only such dreams as meet with some accomplishment that are taken notice of; the others we think not worth remembrance. Dreams make full as great a part of ancient history as oracles.

The end of ver. 26, chap. xix. of Leviticus, the Vulgate renders thus: "Thou shalt not observe dreams." But the word dream is not in the Hebrew! and it would be somewhat odd, that the observance of dreams should be forbidden in the same book which tells us, that Joseph saved Egypt, and brought his family to great prosperity, by interpreting three dreams.

The interpretation of dreams and visions was so common, that something beyond this knowledge was required: the magician was sometimes even to guess what another had dreamed. Nebuchadnezzar forgetting a dream, ordered the magicians on pain of death, to find it out; but Daniel, the Jew, who was of the same school, saved their lives, both finding out and interpreting the king's dream. This, and many other accounts, prove that oneiromancy was not prohibited by the Jewish institutes.

END-FINAL CAUSES.

A MAN, it seems, must be stark mad to deny that the stomach is made for digestion, the eye to see, and the ear to hear.

On the other hand, he must be strangely attached to final causes, to affirm that stone was made to build houses, and that China breeds silk worms to furnish Europe with satin.

But it is said, if God has manifestly made one thing with design, he had design in every thing. To allow a providence in one case, and deny it in another, is ridiculous. Whatever