I am firmly persuaded that no doctrine was ever widely diffused among various nations through successive ages and under different religions, (such as is the doctrine of original sin, and redemption, those fundamental articles of every known religion professing to be revealed,) which is not founded either in the nature of things or in the necessities of our nature. In the language of the schools, it carries with it presumptive evidence that it is either objectively or subjectively true. And the more strange and contradictory such a doctrine may appear to the understanding, or discursive faculty, the stronger is the presumption in its favour. For whatever satirists may say, and sciolists imagine, the human mind has no predilection for absurdity. I do not, however, mean that such a doctrine shall be always the best possible representation of the truth on which it is founded; for the same body casts strangely different shadows in different places, and different degrees of light, but that it always does shadow out some such truth, and derive its influence over our faith from our obscure perception of that truth. Yea, even where the person himself attributes his belief of it to the miracles, with which it was announced by the founder of his religion. THE SOUL AND ITS ORGANS OF SENSE. It is a strong presumptive proof against materialism, that there does not exist a language on earth, from the rudest to the most refined, in which a materialist can talk for five minutes together, without involving some contradiction in terms to his own system. 'Objection'. Will not this apply equally to the astronomer? Newton, no doubt, talked of the sun's rising and setting, just like other men. What should we think of the coxcomb who should have objected to him, that he contradicted his own system? 'Answer'--No! it does not apply equally; say rather, it is utterly inapplicable to the astronomer and natural philosopher. For his philosophic, and his ordinary language speak of two quite different things, both of which are equally true. In his ordinary language he refers to a fact of appearance, to a phenomenon common and necessary to all persons in a given situation; in his scientific language he determines that one position or figure, which being supposed, the appearance in question would be the necessary result, and all appearances in all situations maybe demonstrably foretold. Let a body be suspended in the air, and strongly illuminated. What figure is here? A triangle. But what here? A trapezium;--and so on. The same question put to twenty men, in twenty different positions and distances, would receive twenty different answers: each would be a true answer. But what is that one figure which, being so placed, all these facts of appearance must result according to the law of perspective?--Ay! this is a different question, this is a new subject. The words which answer this would be absurd if used in reply to the former. [1]