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or passive. A prick of conscience coming when one is one is on the point of acting, let us say, indiscretely or in neglect of a question of loyalty, is of that description. Doubtless, such suggestions ought, at most, to delay action until they can be subjected to honest criticism. They show, nevertheless, on the whole, that, in some practical directions, and in some measure, the mind of man is adapted to interpret what may loosely be called the ideas of the Governor of the three worlds, (supposing such Governor there is,) and that it would be folly to deny this, or to forget it in particular cases.
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Herein is my hope of exciting effective curiosity to read this article, wherein shall be outlined (and sufficiently defended,) an account both of the general course and of the rationale of all successful scientific inquiry,—an account naturally not fully provable in a few pages (as I am fully prepared and propose, God disposing, eventually to prove it in a book,) the least dubitable points of which account suffice not only to show the Neglected Argument to be the most promising beginning of an inquiry, capable [of] receiving the complement required to convert it into an unusually strong scientific proof, but further from certain unregarded concomitants of the Neglected Argument,—crumbs from its table, so to say,—to enable us to build up a strong confirmation of the conclusion.
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If God Really be; and He be Benign; then (the advantage of religion, were it proved, for the conduct of life being generally conceded,) we should expect that some argument, within the comprehension of every mind endowed with controlling reason, would afford assurance of His Reality.
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I know the Neglected Argument best fulfills this condition; and perhaps the majority of those whose own reflexions have ha[r]vested a belief in God must bless the radiance of this Argument for that wealth. Its persuasiveness is no less than extraordinary; while it is unknown to nobody. Nevertheless of all those theologians (within my small range of reading,) who, with commendable assiduity, scrape together all the sound reasons they can find or concoct for
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believing in God, few mention this one, and they most briefly. They probably share those current notions of logic, according to which the Neglected Argument, not being an argumentation, is no argument at all. And the men of science could teach them better, but will not so far transgress the bounds of the specialties. For in these days every man is a cobbler, in effect; and I confess, myself, to deep reluctance to a public utterance on theology.