Such impressions appear thus to rise irresistibly in the breasts of men, when they obtain a sight, for the first time, of the varied play and comprehensive connexions of the laws by which the business of the material world is carried on and its occurrences brought to pass. To dwell upon or develope such reflections is not here our business. Their general prevalence in the minds of those to whom these first views of new truths are granted, has been, we trust, sufficiently illustrated. Nor are the names adduced above, distinguished as they are, brought forwards as _authorities_ merely. We do not claim for the greatest discoverers in the realms of science any immunity from error. In their general opinions they may, as others may, judge or reason ill. The articles of their religious belief may be as easily and as widely as of other men’s, imperfect, perverted, unprofitable. But on this one point, the tendency of our advances in scientific knowledge of the universe to lead us up to a belief in a most wise maker and master of the universe, we conceive that they who make these advances, and who feel, as an original impression, that which others feel only by receiving their teaching, must be looked to with a peculiar attention and respect. And what their impressions have commonly been, we have thus endeavoured to show. CHAPTER VI. _On Deductive Habits; or, on the Impression produced on Men’s Minds by tracing the consequences of ascertained Laws._ The opinion illustrated in the last chapter, that the advances which men make in science tend to impress upon them the reality of the Divine government of the world, has often been controverted. Complaints have been made, and especially of late years, that the growth of piety has not always been commensurate with the growth of knowledge, in the minds of those who make nature their study. Views of an irreligious character have been entertained, it is sometimes said, by persons eminently well instructed in all the discoveries of modern times, no less than by the superficial and ignorant. Those who have been supposed to deny or to doubt the existence, the providence, the attributes of God, have in many cases been men of considerable eminence and celebrity for their attainments in science. The opinion that this is the case, appears to be extensively diffused, and this persuasion has probably often produced inquietude and grief in the breasts of pious and benevolent men.