But, in order that he may be enabled to know himself, it is indispensably necessary for him to acquire such a knowledge of other created beings that surround him, as the limited nature of his faculties will allow. He must attentively observe the operations of nature in the material universe, survey with a reflecting mind its stupendous fabric, and study its laws. Hence, he will be made acquainted, and although in a partial, yet not an inconsiderable degree, with the powers and extent of that intellectual principle which he finds in the government of the moral, as well as the natural world. And being thus enabled to know his own proper standing in creation, and his appropriate relation to all its parts, he will by these means be qualified to ascend to those enquiries, which will open to his mind a just sense of the attributes of the Deity, of whose existence he will feel a perfect conviction. In this way, will man obtain a due knowledge of his own “being, end and aim;” and become fully sensible of his entire dependence on his Creator: while he will thereby learn, that he incessantly owes him the highest adoration and the most devoted service.[35] In this way it is, that the philosopher, more especially the astronomer,— “Looks, through Nature, up to Nature’s God.”[36] _Pope’s Ess. on Man._ ----- Footnote 35: Man will, unquestionably, by taking an extensive range in the contemplation of nature, proportionably enlarge his intuitive conceptions of the attributes of her Almighty First Cause; of whose transcendently exalted existence, the study of his own being, one of nature’s greatest works, will have taught him the reality: and a due knowledge of himself, alone, will also instruct him in the dependent nature of his condition, and the duties resulting from that state of dependence, in his humble relation to the Supreme being. Mr. Smart, in the poem before quoted, has prettily expressed this idea, in the following lines:— “Vain were th’ attempt, and impious, to trace Thro’ _all_ his works th’ Artificer Divine— And tho’ no shining sun, nor twinkling star, Bedeck’d the crimson curtains of the sky; Tho’ neither vegetable, beast, nor bird, Were extant on the surface of this ball, Nor lurking gem beneath; tho’ the great sea Slept in profound stagnation, and the air Had left no thunder to pronounce its Maker; Yet Man at home, _within himself_, might find The Deity immense; and, in that frame So fearfully, so wonderfully made, See and adore his Providence and Pow’r.” Footnote 36: The same sentiment is beautifully expressed by Thomson, in the following apostrophe: