At the same time that men have thus learnt to look upon God as their Governor and Judge, the source of their support and reward, they have also been led, not only to ascribe to him power and skill, knowledge and goodness, but also attribute to him these qualities in a mode and degree excluding all limit:--to consider him as almighty, all-wise, of infinite knowledge and inexhaustible goodness; every where present and active, but incomprehensible by our minds, both in the manner of his agency, and the degree of his perfections. And this impression concerning the Deity appears to be that which the mind receives from all objects of contemplation and all modes of advance towards truth. To this conception it leaps with alacrity and joy, and in this it acquiesces with tranquil satisfaction and growing confidence; while any other view of the nature of the Divine Power which formed and sustained the world, is incoherent and untenable, exposed to insurmountable objections and intolerable incongruities. We shall endeavour to show that the modes of employment of the thoughts to which the well conducted study of nature gives rise, do tend, in all their forms, to produce or strengthen this impression on the mind; and that such an impression, and no other, is consistent with the widest views and most comprehensive aspects of nature and of philosophy, which our Natural Philosophy opens to us. This will be the purpose of the latter part of the present book. In the first place we shall proceed with the object first mentioned, the connexion which may be perceived between the evidences of creative power, and of moral government, in the world. CHAPTER I. _The Creator of the Physical World is the Governor of the Moral World._ With our views of the moral government of the world and the religious interests of man, the study of material nature is not and cannot be directly and closely connected. But it may be of some service to trace in these two lines of reasoning, seemingly so remote, a manifest convergence to the same point, a demonstrable unity of result. It may be useful to show that we are thus led, not to two rulers of the universe, but to one God;--to make it appear that the Creator and Preserver of the world is also the Governor and Judge of men;--that the Author of the Laws of Nature is also the Author of the Law of Duty;--that He who regulates corporeal things by properties of attraction and affinity and assimilating power, is the same Being who regulates the actions and conditions of men, by the influence of the feeling of responsibility, the perception of right and wrong, the hope of happiness, the love of good.