It is then united with the idea of a God, that the spiritual faculties of man attract my homage and captivate my imagination; in reflecting on these sublime faculties, studying their admirable essence, I am confirmed in the opinion that there exists a sovereign intelligence, soul of nature, and that nature itself is subject to its laws: yes, we find in the mind of man the first evidence, a faint shadow of the perfection which we must attribute to the Creator of the Universe. What a wonder indeed is our thinking faculty, capable of so many things yet ignorant of its own nature! I am equally astonished, by the extent and limits of thinking; an immense space is open to its researches, and at the same time it cannot comprehend the secrets which appear most proximate with it; as the grand motive of action, the principle of intellectual force, ever remains concealed. Man is then informed, every instant, of his grandeur and dependence; and these thoughts must naturally lead to the idea of Omnipotence. There are, in those limits of our knowledge and ignorance, in that confused and conditional light, all the evidence of design; and it seems to me, sometimes, that I hear this command given to the human soul by the God of the universe: go to admire a portion of my universe, to search for happiness and to learn to love me; but do not try to raise the veil, with which I have covered the secret of thy existence; I have composed thy nature of some of the attributes which constitute my own essence, thou wouldst be too near me, if I should permit thee to penetrate the mysteries of it; wait for the moment destined by my wisdom; till then, thou canst only reach me by reverence and gratitude. Not only the wonderful faculty of thinking connects us with the universal intelligence; but all those inconceivable properties, known by the name of liberty, judgment, will, memory, and foresight; it is, in short, the august and sublime assemblage of all our intellectual faculties. Are we, in fact, after the contemplation of such a grand phœnomenon, far from conceiving a God? No, undoubtedly, we have within us a feeble image of that infinite power we seek to discover; man is himself a universe, governed by a sovereign; and we are much nearer the Supreme Intelligence, by our nature, than by any notion of the primitive properties of matter; properties, from which some wish to make the system of the world and its admirable harmony flow. It seems to me, that our thinking faculty is too slightly treated in the greater number of philosophic systems; and some have been so afraid of honouring it, that they will not admit it to be a simple and particular principle, when the subject of the question is the immortality of the soul; nor will they consider it as a universal principle, when they discuss the opinion of the existence of a God.