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    vain to say , page 250 , that the improvement of the earth requires strong passions in the improver , for we see it always most irnproven , in the state which is most social , and it is in society that our passions are most curbed and brought under the dominion of reason , and , conversely , where the passions of men are strongest , there the cultivation of the earth is most neglected , such are they , in the savage , hunter and pastoral states . Thus those arguments , which the Inquirer has urged with so much force , are applicable equally against his own as against that theory which he combats . He proceeds to consider the

    irnprovability of Deity , in which he contradicts what he had asserted , pp . 218 and 219 . In page 26 : i he says , « ff Ifthe mind be immortal it must be eternally improving , and if the Deity alone be stationary , we must in the endless succession of ages advance to a much nearer equality with him . " Now he here stumbles

    upon a stone , which I think has caused much confusion in metaphysics , by confounding two things which are perfectly different in kind , fora little recollection will shew us that time is no part of eternity . Is not a part of any thing , that which is contained in that thing a certain number of times ? But no

    part of time however great , how often soever multiplied , cvtv can commensurate eternity , therefore time forms no part of eteTnity . A being therefore , who is . self-existent , never can be approached by a being who has begun to exist , and a being whose

    knowledge is infinite never can be approached by a being whose knowledge is from time to time receiving new increments . Moreover , in this comparison between Deity and the mind of man , the Inquirer seems to have forgotten something which is absolutely necessary in every just comparison , viz * that the

    comparer have an accurate and definite idea of each of the things compared , at least in those points that are compared ; but what juan can have a definite idea of the knowledge of an infinite self-existent being : our very language proclaim the absurdity of such a supposition . Again , is not an immutable being one who must always remain the same in all respects , but can it be $ aid . that the being who acquires new ideas , is the same with re *

    spect to knowledge that he was before he acquired them ? It cannot . If therefore , the Deity acquire new ideas he is not immutable , therefore not self-existent . The argument , page 8675 which the Inquirer offers , to refute this conclusion , seems to me , as I mentioned in my last , to be an unanswerable objection to the opinion of the self-existence of matter , instead oi supporting that of the iruprovability of Deity , Thus , Sir , I have gone *>? er a great part of " Physical and Metaphysical

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    468 Strictures an S Physical and Metaphysical Inquiries . "

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1807, page 468, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2384/page/16/