But this great philosopher is never without his reasons. It is to insinuate, that what the world calls religion, of which he undertakes to give the history, is not founded in the JUDGMENT, but in the PASSIONS only. However, the expression labours miserably, as it does through all his profound lucubrations. And where is the wonder that he, who disdains to think in the mode of common sense, should be unable to express himself in the proprieties of common language?

As every inquiry which regards religion (says that respectable personage) is of the utmost importance, there are two questions in particular which challenge our principal attention, to wit, that concerning its foundation in reason, and that concerning its ORIGIN page 1.

IN HUMAN NATURE.

Here, we see, he aims at a distinction. And what he aims at is not hard to find. The question is, whether he has hit the mark. I am afraid not. And then the discovery of his aim is only the detection of his ignorance, In a word, it is a distinction without a difference.

If man be rightly defined a rational animal, then his nature, or what our philosopher calls human nature, must be a rational nature. But if so, a FOUNDATION IN REASON and an ORIGIN IN HUMAN NATURE are not two different predicates, but one and the same, only in different expressions. Do I say, therefore, that our philosopher had no meaning, because he was unable to express any? Far be that from the reverence due to this rectifier of prejudices. My objection at present is not to his theology but his logic. By origin in human nature he meant, origin in the fancy or the passions.For that religion, which has the origin, here designed, is what the world calls RELIGION; and this he resolves into fanaticism or superstition: as that religion which has its foundation in reason is what the world calls NATURALISM, the religion of philosophers like himself, and which he endeavours in this Essay to establish.

In his third section, at the 16th page, he makes uxKNOWN CAUSES the origin of what men call religion, that religion which his History pretends to investigate. "These UNKNOWN CAUSES, "become the "constant object of our hope and fear; and while the "passions

he says,

66

passions are kept in perpetual alarm by an anxious expectation of the events, the imagination is equally employed in forming ideas of those powers, on which we have so entire a dependence." He then goes on to acquaint us with the original of these UNKNOWN CAUSES, "Could men anatomize nature, according to the most "probable, at least the most intelligible, philosophy, they "would find, that these causes are nothing but the par"ticular fabric and structure of the MINUTE PARTS OF 46 THEIR OWN BODIES AND OF EXTERNAL OBJECTS; " and that, by a regular and constant machinery, all the events are produced, about which they are so much concerned. But this philosophy exceeds the compre"hension of the ignorant multitude." p. 17.

66

Here we see the original of these unknown causes is nothing but the result of MATTER and MOTION. And again, The vulgar, that is, indeed, ALL MANKIND, a "few excepted, being ignorant and uninstructed, never "elevate their contemplation to the heavens, or penetrate by their disquisitions into the SECRET STRUCTURE OF VEGETABLE OR ANIMAL BODIES; so as to discover a supreme mind or original providence, which bestow"ed order on every part of nature. They consider these "admirable works in a inore confined and selfish view; "and finding their own happiness and misery to depend

66

66

on the secret influence and unforeseen concurrence of "external objects, they regard with perpetual attention "the UNKNOWN CAUSES, which govern all these natural " events, and distribute pleasure and pain, good and ill, by their powerful, but silent operation. The UNKNOWN CAUSES are still appealed to, at every emergence; and in this general appearance or confused image, are the perpetual objects of human hopes and fears, wishes "and apprehensions. By degrees, the active imagina“tion of men, uneasy in this abstract conception of objects, about which it is incessantly employed, begins to "render them more particular, and to clothe them in shapes more suitable to its natural comprehension. It represents them to be sensible, intelligent beings, like "mankind; actuated by love and hatred, and flexible by "gifts and entreaties, by prayers and sacrifices. HENCE

Z 4

THE

THE ORIGIN OF RELIGION and hence the origin of idolatry or polytheism." pp. 54, 55

The few excepted out of the whole race of mankind are, we see, our philosopher and his gang, with their! pedlar's ware of matter and motion, who penetrate by their disquisitions into the secret structure of vegetable and animal bodies, to extract, like the naturalist in Gulliver, sunbeams out of cucumbers; just as wise a project as this of raising religion out of the intrigues of matter and motion.

All this shews how desirous our Essayist was of not. being misunderstood: as meaning any thing else than naturalism (or the belief of a Creator and Physical Preserver, but not Moral Governor) by the religion he would recommend in the place of that phantom, whose physical, For rather metaphysical, history, he is writing. For this phantom of a religion, which acknowledges a moral governor, arises, he tells us, from our ignorance of the result of matter and motion, caballing in the minute parts of vegetable and animal bodies.

The sum then of all he teaches is this; that that religion, of which he professes himself a follower, and which has its foundation in reason, is NATURALISM; and, that that religion which all mankind follow, a few excepted, and of which he undertakes to give a natural history, is nothing but superstition and fanaticism, having its origin in human nature; that is, in the imagination and the passions only.

REMARK II.-This fully justifies the censure, which has been passed upon him for his History of Great Britain; namely, that he owned no RELIGION but what might be resolved into SUPERSTITION OF FANATICISM; having represented the established episcopal church, andthe tolerated presbyterian form, under the names and the ideas of superstition and fanaticism. Indeed (to do him justice) though with much offence, yet without much. malignity and contrary to his intention. For he ingenuously enough confessed, that he gave his History that attic seasoning for no other end than to fit it to the palate of a very polite people; whose virtues, having only reached him at a distance, had, as is usual, been much ex aggerated

aggerated. To make amends, however, for this false step, he thought proper to give an ample apology for his conduct towards the close of the second volume of his History. And this containing something more than an insinuation that he believed, what his Natural History of Religion shews he does not believe, namely, the truth of Christianity, I shall take leave, without any suspicion of being thought to go out of my way, to consider it paragraph by paragraph.

This sophism, says he, of arguing from the abuse of any thing, against the use of it, is one of the grossest, and at the same time the most common to which men are subject. The history of all ages, and none more than that of the period which is our subject, offers us examples of the abuse of religion: and we have not been sparing in this volume, more than in the former, to remark them. But whoever would from thence draw an inference to the disadvantage of religion in general, would argue very rashly and erroneously*.

Thus he begins his apology: and would not every reader of him naturally believe that he was quoting the ་ words of an animadverter upon him, in reproof of this very sophistry; which he was going to answer? For who was it, that had been drawing this inference to the disadvantage of religion, but our wise historian 'himself; who had acknowledged no religion but one or other of these specieses, superstition or fanaticism; and had done his best to shew of what infinite mischief both of them were to society? The reader may believe what he pleases (and if he be a reader of Mr. Hume, he will find exercise enough for his faith); but, this sage observation is our historian's own. And the pleasantry of it is, you are obliquely requested to consider it as a reproof, not of his own malice, but of the folly of his readers, who understood their historian to be in earnest when he gave this picture of the religion of his country; whereas they had read him to little purpose, if they did not see him to be in the number of those who throw about them firebrands and death, and then say, am I not in jest? However, to be fair, I am ready to excuse his readers in this (perhaps they can be excused in little else), for it is not to be Hist, of Great Britain, vol. ii. pp. 449, 450.

disguised

disguised that their master does indeed make the abuses of religion and religion itself to be one and the same thing. All things considered, therefore, I cannot but take this introduction to his apology to be the pleading guilty with the insolent air of an accuser, and, under the circumstances of a convict, talking the language of his judge.

However, though in his first volume of History he neither spoke of, nor supposed any other religion than what might be comprised either under superstition or fanaticism, yet here, in the second, he does indeed bring us acquainted with another, and defines it thus: The proper office of religion is to reform men's lives, to purify their hearts, to inforce all moral duties, and to secure obedience to the laws of the civil magistrate. Now, was Mr. David Hume only playing the philosopher, I should take this to be no more than the definition of a mere moral mode, known by the name of a divine philosophy in the mind; something fluctuating in the brain of these virtuosi, and cnnobled with the title of natural religion: but as he is writing history, and the History of Great Britain, where the religion of Jesus, as he has since learnt, is yet professed, I can hardly persuade myself that he can mean any other, than a religion whose abode is in the heart, and which expatiates into virtuous practice; and is therefore indeed capable of performing all these good things he speaks of. But why, then, when he had heard so much of those bugbear counterfeits, superstition and fanaticism, was there not one word slipt in, in recommendation of this reforming religion? One word, in mere charity, for the honour of his dear country? That strangers at least (for he writes at large, and for all mankind) might not suspect, if ever indeed there was a true religion amongst us, that these impostors and counterfeits had driven her quite away. Well; be not too hasty. To this he has an admirable answer; and you shall have it in his own words-While it (ie. the true species of religion which he had just defined] pursues these salutary purposes, its operations, though infinitely valuable, are secret and silent, and seldom come under the cognizance of history. The adulterate species of it alone, which inflames fac

tion,