This has been the view of the relation of the Deity to the universe entertained by the most sagacious and comprehensive minds ever since the true object of natural philosophy has been clearly and steadily apprehended. The great writer who was the first to give philosophers a distinct and commanding view of this object, thus expresses himself in his “Confession of Faith:” “I believe--that notwithstanding God hath rested and ceased from creating since the first Sabbath, yet, nevertheless, he doth accomplish and fulfil his divine will in all things, great and small, singular and general, as fully and exactly by providence, as he could by miracle and new creation, though his working be not immediate and direct, but by compass; not violating nature, which is his own law upon the creature.” And one of our own time, whom we can no longer hesitate to place among the worthiest disciples of the school of Bacon, conveys the same thought in the following passage: “The Divine Author of the universe cannot be supposed to have laid down particular laws, enumerating all individual contingencies, which his materials have understood and obey--this would be to attribute to him the imperfections of human legislation;--but rather, by creating them endued with certain fixed qualities and powers, he has impressed them in their origin with the _spirit_, not the letter of his law, and made all their subsequent combinations and relations inevitable consequences of this first impression.”[43] 2. This, which thus appears to be the mode of the Deity’s operation in the material world, requires some attention on our part in order to understand it with proper clearness. One reason of this is, that it is a mode of operation altogether different from that in which we are able to make matter fulfil our designs. Man can construct exquisite machines, can call in vast powers, can form extensive combinations, in order to bring about results which he has in view. But in all this he is only taking advantage of laws of nature which already exist; he is applying to his use qualities which matter already possesses. Nor can he by any effort do more. He can establish no new law of nature which is not a result of the existing ones. He can invest matter with no new properties which are not modifications of its present attributes. His greatest advances in skill and power are made when he calls to his aid forces which before existed unemployed, or when he discovers so much of the habits of some of the elements as to be able to bend them to his purpose. He navigates the ocean by the assistance of the winds which he cannot raise or still: and even if we suppose him able to control the course of these, his yet unsubjugated ministers, this could only be done by studying their characters, by learning more thoroughly the laws of air and heat and moisture. He cannot give the minutest portion of the atmosphere new relations, a new course of expansion, new laws of motion. But the Divine