Now I do not mean to say, that this is a purely factitious and ill-grounded employment of the metaphysical sciences. I fully admit that the later defences of theology, as well as the attacks, have been furnished from psychology, logic, ethics, and ontology. The earliest beliefs in religion, the greatest and strongest convictions, had little to do with any of these departments of speculation. But when simple traditionary faith gave place to the questionings of the reason, the basis of religion was transferred to the reason-built sciences; and metaphysics came in for a large share in the decision. [METAPHYSICS AND THEOLOGY.] What I maintain is, that there is something factitious in the degree of prominence given to metaphysics in this great enterprise; that its pretentions are excessive, its importance over-stated; and when most employed for such a purpose, it is least to be trusted. Theological polemic is only in part conducted through science; and physical science shares equally with moral. The most serious shocks to the traditional orthodoxy have come from the physical sciences. The argument from Design has no doubt a metaphysical or logical element--the estimate of the degree of analogy between the universe and a piece of human workmanship; but the argument itself needs a scientific survey of the entire phenomena of nature, both matter and mind. Our Bridgewater Treatises proceeded upon this view; they embraced the consideration of the whole circle of the sciences, as bearing on the theological argument. The scheme was so far just and to the purpose; the obvious drawback to the value of the Treatises lay in their being special pleadings, backed by a fee of a thousand pounds to each writer for maintaining one side. If a similar fee had been given to nine equally able writers to represent the other side, the argument from design would have been far more satisfactorily sifted than by the exclusively metaphysical criticism of Kant.