don't find the universe large enough for him to expatiate in, and whirls
his brains into a belief that there is a necessarily existing something
beyond the limits of a world _unlimited_, is in a mental condition no
reasonable man need envy.

Of the universe, or at least so much of it as our senses have been
operated upon by, we have conceptions clear, vivid, and distinct; but
when Dr. Clarke tells us of an intelligent Being, not _part_ but
_creator_ of that universe, we can form no clear, vivid, distinct, or,
in point of fact, _any_ conception of such a Being. When he explains
that it is infinite and omnipresent, like poor Paddy's famed ale, the
explanation 'thickens as it clears;' for being ourselves _finite_, and
necessarily present on one small spot of our very small planet, the
words _infinite_ and _omnipresent_ do not suggest to us either positive
or practical ideas--of course, therefore, we have neither positive nor
practical ideas of an infinite and omnipresent Being.

We can as easily understand that the universe ever did exist, as we now
understand that it does exist--but we cannot conceive its absence for
the millionth part of an instant--and really it puzzles one to conceive
what those people can be dreaming about who talk as familiarly about the
extinction of a universe as the chemist does of extinguishing the flame
of his spirit-lamp.

The unsatisfactory character of all speculations having for their object
'nonentities with formidable names,' should long ere this have opened
men's eyes to the folly of _multiplying causes without necessity_--
another rule of philosophising, for which we are indebted to
Newton, but to which no religious philosophiser pays due attention.
Newton himself, in his Theistical character, wrote and talked as though