An inquiry concerning religion Author:George Long Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: characters, ideas and sentiments fitted alike for the delight and the improvement of his species; or to the wise and patriotic statesman whose sage measures have... more » advanced the prosperity of his country, improved her resources, and raised her to a higher place among the nations ; and let us then call to mind, taking the case of any one of these individuals, that he was once a poor weak and apparently insignificant infant, quite helpless, dependent for his nourishment and for the continuance of his existence on those around him, and exhibiting nothing of an intellectual character beyond the bare perception of external objects. Now, how is it that the infant has grown to be a philosopher, a man of inventive mechanical genius, a poet, or a statesman, but by the development of those intellectual powers of which we discover such slight indications in the infant; and does not the wonderful development of those powers indicate beyond the possibility of doubt the existence of a pre-existing cause ? That cause must have been intelligent or unintelligent, and we have already shown it to be inadmissible that intelligence results from matter and motion. The cause then for which we are seeking is an original self-existent cause; in other words, it is God. Having proceeded thus far we will now inquire whether we are to conclude that there is only one self-existent intelligent being, or whether we find reason to believe in the existence of a plurality of gods. Now all that we know of what is commonly called the works of nature combines to establish one point, that the whole is contrived and designed by one or more intelligent beings, and that if more than one exist, they concur in the same uniform design. The notionof the affairs of the universe being carried on by conflicting powers, the one i...« less