4. The above statements are vast in amount, and almost oppressive to our faculties. They belong to the measurement of the powers which are exerted in the universe, and of the spaces through which their efficacy reaches (for the most distant bodies are probably connected both by gravity and light.) But these estimates cannot be said so much to give us any notion of the powers of the Deity, as to correct the errors we should fall into by supposing his powers at all to resemble ours:--by supposing that numbers, and spaces, and forces, and combinations, which would overwhelm us, are any obstacle to the arrangements which his plan requires. We can easily understand that to an intelligence surpassing ours in degree only, that may be easy which is impossible to us. The child who cannot count beyond four, the savage who has no name for any number above five, cannot comprehend the possibility of dealing with thousands and millions: yet a little additional developement of the intellect makes such numbers manageable and conceivable. The difficulty which appears to reside in numbers and magnitudes and stages of subordination, is one produced by judging from ourselves--by measuring with our own sounding line; when that reaches no bottom, the ocean appears unfathomable. Yet in fact, how is a hundred millions of miles a _great_ distance? how is a hundred millions of times a _great_ ratio? Not in itself: this _greatness_ is no quality of the numbers which can be proved like their mathematical properties; on the contrary, all that absolutely belongs to number, space, and ratio, must, we know demonstrably, be equally true of the largest and the smallest. It is clear that the _greatness_ of these expressions of measure has reference to _our_ faculties only. Our astonishment and embarrassment take for granted the limits of our own nature. We have a tendency to treat a difference of degree and of addition, as if it were a difference of kind and of transformation. The existence of the attributes, design, power, goodness, is a matter depending on obvious grounds: about these qualities there can be no mistake: if we can know any thing, we can know these attributes when we see them. But the extent, the limits of such attributes must be determined by their effects; our knowledge of their limits by what we see of the effects. Nor is any extent, any amount of power and goodness improbable beforehand: we know that these must be great, we cannot tell how great. We should not expect beforehand to find them bounded; and therefore when the boundless prospect opens before us, we may be bewildered, but we have no reason to be shaken in our conviction of the reality of the cause from which their effects proceed: we may feel ourselves incapable of following the train of thought, and may stop, but we have no rational motive for quitting the point which we have thus attained in tracing the Divine Perfections.