The controversy was taken up by other pens. In 1840, Theodore Parker, speaking as a plain man under the name of Levi Blodgett, "moved and handled the Previous Question" after a fashion that betrayed the practised thinker and scribe. Mr. Parker occupied substantially the same ground that was taken by James Walker in 1834. "The germs of religion, both the germs of religious principle and religious sentiment, must be born in man, or innate, as our preacher says. I reckon that man is by nature a religious being, _i. e._ that he was made to be religious, as much as an ox was made to eat grass. The existence of God is a fact given in our nature: it is not something discovered by a process of reasoning, by a long series of deductions from facts; nor yet is it the last generalization from phenomena observed in the universe of mind or matter. But it is a truth fundamental in our nature; given outright by God; a truth which comes to light as soon as self-consciousness begins. Still further, I take a sense of dependence on God to be a natural and essential sentiment of the soul, as much as feeling, seeing and hearing are natural sensations of the body. Here, then, are the religious instincts which lead man to God and religion, just as naturally as the intellectual instincts lead him to truth, and animal instincts to his food. As there is light for the eye, sound for the ear, food for the palate, friends for the affections, beauty for the imagination, truth for the reason, duty for conscience--so there is God for the religious sentiment or sense of dependence on Him. Now all these presuppose one another, as a want essential to the structure of man's mind or body presupposes something to satisfy it. And as the sensation of hunger presupposes food to satisfy it, so the sense of dependence on God presupposes his existence and character." From these premises Mr. Parker proceeds to discuss the questions about miracles, inspiration, revelation, the character and functions of Jesus, the Christ, and kindred matters belonging to the general controversy. The year following, he preached the sermon on the "Transient and Permanent in Christianity," which brought out the issues between the "Sensationalists" and the "Transcendentalists," and was the occasion of detaching the latter from the original body. The first series of Emerson's "Essays" containing "Self Reliance," "Compensation," "Spiritual Laws," "The Over Soul," "Circles," "Intellect," was published during that year, and was followed almost immediately by "The Transcendentalist," a lecture read in Masonic Temple, Boston. In this lecture occurs the following allusion to Kant: