cloud of witnesses can have little weight in invalidating the conclusion.

We find Pythagorean, Stoic, Peripatetic, and those of the Academic school admitting the same truth. We find also Greek and Roman poets coinciding in opinion; and even their historians confirming the doctrine by facts deduced from particular races of

men.

It is fair, indeed, to admit, that Pythagoras confused his notion of a "derived intelligence" and "divine principle" in the soul, with many absurd speculations; and Plato obscured his doctrine of a "spiritual emanation" with some romantic and visionary conceptions. But though this was the case, the point in which they agreed with many enlightened philosophers, ancient and modern, is not to be confounded with the mystical allusions that were superadded. Whilst they admitted some divine intelligence in the human mind, they erred in the expression, making the mind itself a divinity. But it was the opinion of the Platonic philosophers, that the same God, who made all things, is himself the light of our minds, by which we are enabled to learn true wisdom.

It is to be observed, too, that the ancients, as well as many moderns, have used the word Reason to comprehend all the rational nature of man, by which he is elevated above the brute. Hence, a little confusion may be observed in their mode of expression; as, when they speak of Divine reason in the soul.

The distinction between that power of the mind which takes a discursive range and draws inferences by its own strength, from the comparisons, relations, congruities, and incongruities of things already ascertained, and an instinctive principle which teaches as it were by intuition, without the medium of formal or specific propositions, must be obvious to every one. The first only is properly entitled to the name of Reason.

Epictetus says, that "God has assigned to each man a director, his own good genius-a guardian whose vigilance no slumbers interrupt, and whom no false reasonings can deceive. So that, when you have shut your door and darkened your room, say not, that you are alone; for your God is within, and your Guardian is with you.'

Marcus Antoninus observes, "That seeing we ought to live to God; he who is well disposed will do every thing dictated by the divinity—a particle or portion of himself, which God has given to each as a guide and leader.”+

Aristotle says, that "the mind of man hath a near affinity to God, and that there is a divine ruler in him. νας θεοις συγγενεστατος, τὸ θειον εν αὐτῷ αρχον. He also declares, according to Cudworth, that there is in the mind Love T xpITTO which is Aoys ap" Something better than reason and knowledge, which is the principle and original of it." For, says he, λoye apyn & hoyos, a2208

Epictet. Lib. 1. Ch. 14.

+ M. Antonin. Lib. 5. Sect. 27.

४

τι κρείττον.

"The principle of reason is not reason, but something better. "We have all of us," Cudworth adds, "by nature, μva т (as both Plato and Aristotle call it,) a certain divination, presage and vaticination, in our minds, of some higher good and perfection than either power or knowledge." Intellectual System, p. 203,* Aristotle further observes, that "knowledge is acquired by diligence, but wisdom and discretion come from God."

Plutarch says, "the light of truth is a law, not written in tables or books, but dwelling in the mind; always as a living rule, which never permits the soul to be destitute of an interior guide."

"The light and spirit of God (says Plato), are as wings to the soul, or as that which raiseth up the soul into a sensible communion with God, above the world."—" Wisdom is a tree that springeth from the heart."

Plotinus, one of the Platonic school, observes, that "as the Sun cannot be known but by his own light; so God cannot be known but with his own light And as the eye cannot see the Sun but by receiving its image; so man cannot know God, but by receiving his image."

According to Seneca, "There is a holy spirit in us, that deals with us, as he is dealt with by us."— "God is near thee, and he is in thee; the holy spirit sits or resides within us, the observer of our good and

See Dawson's Origin of Laws, and Stewart's Elements, vol. 2. p. 21,

evil actions. Every man has a judgment and a witness within himself of all the good and ill that he does."" A good man is influenced by God himself, and has a kind of divinity within him.”

"The conscience of man," says Antisthenes, "is (in himself) a secret knowledge, a private opener, testimony, or witness-a tormentor or a joyful quieter of the mind of man in all his doings."*

In accordance with the views which have been given, it was generally agreed that the human intellect, embracing all its capacities, was of divine extraction.

The saying of Pythagoras, Θέων γένος εστι βροτοισι, and that of the Poets Aratus and Cleanthes, quoted by the Apostle, το γαρ και γένος εσμέν,t accord with the testimony of the inspired Law-giver, that man was created after the image and likeness of his Maker.

Antoninus calls the mind or rational principle of man Θεια απομοίρα, αποσασμα”—a portion or particle of the Divinity.

Epictetus designates it "Tou Aros pos," a part of the Deity.

Euripides and Menander" O your yap min 10TH Ο νους γὰρ ημίν εστιν • Oros," the mind or understanding in us is a divine, principle.

Horace dignifies it as "divinæ particulam auræ, a particle of divine life or essence.

* See Bockett's Gentile Divinity, p. 21. See also the Sayings of Pythagoras, Timæus, Socrates, &c. in Clarkson's Portraiture, vol. 2. ch. 6. to the same effect.

Acts xvii. 28.

Seneca calls it "Scintilla divinæ lucis,"" a spark of divine light," corresponding to Cicero's expression, Radiatio Dei,—“ a ray of the divinity." And in another place Cicero thus speaks of the human understanding: "Humanus animus, decerptus ex mente divina, cum alio nullo, nisi cum ipso deo, si hoc fas est dictu, comparari potest." "The human soul being extracted from the divine Intelligence, can be compared with no other Being, if it be lawful so to speak, save with God himself."*

SECT. III.

On the enlarged use of the word Reason.

Having now seen the human mind-as far as these extracts will enable us to view it-tracing its affinity through the mists and obscurity of its natural powers, to the Supreme Fountain of Light; and, though groping, as it were, in darkness, claiming for itself the distinction of possessing an internal guide of the same illustrious descent; it should be our next business to inquire respecting the operation of this power, and to consider by what process the partially enlightened heathen supposed that Divine truth was received, that maxims of religious duty were made known,

* Ciceronis Tusc. Quæst. 1. 5. s. 13.