ENSOR ON NATURAL THEOLOGY.

THE leading subjects of this privately-printed tract of Mr. ENSOR'S iffe two. The tint cleats with the abstruse topic of "Final Causes ;" aid, by showing that le reality weknow nothing about the origin or ultimate cause of any thing, logically infers that the speculations of the natural theologians upon what they call the

" designs " of the Deity, are premature and presumptuous. The second takes up the nature of the mind ; and, by clearly proving that all our ideas are derived through our senses, and could neither be formed nor exist independently of them, the author, as regards the arguments yet advanced on the other side, deduces the mate-

riality- of mind. The occasion which gave rise to the tract, was the republication of PALEY'S Aratural Theology by BROUGHAM, and the appearance of the Bridgewater Treatises. The aim of the

author is to expose the lax reasoning of all these writers upon the subjects they handle, and the loose language as well as the illogical arguments which characterize the lucubrations of Lord BROUGHAM.

Having, in our notice of the eccentric Lord's production, en- deavoured to expose his fallacies upon the subject of mind, and also taken occasion to express'our opinion that works on Natural

Theology are useless as regards proof of the existence of the Author of Nature, and are merely valuable for the exposition of

his works, it is sufficient that in the main we agree with the con-

clusions of Mr. ENSOR. At the same time, it should be observed, that lie is much more powerful to overthrow than to establish;

and that, by showing clearly enough the inutility of reason to de-

monstrate a Creator, he only proves the utility and necessity of revelation. In a literary point of view, the tract has far higher

merit tle,n many books which make a claim both upon the purse

and attention of the public. Mr. ENSOR has deeply considered the subjects on which he treats ; he has read much and exten-

sively in relation to them, both amongst ancient and modern

writers ; and he has not only mastered the points of the questions, but he pours forth his ideas in language nervous, pithy, and quaintly humorous in a high degree. The recondite nature of the pamphlet forbids any extensive quotation ; but the following pas- sage on the immensity or creation and the blindness of man—that "atom on the jidgets"—inay be taken as a proof of the justice of our praise.

The final-catiaers also say that Nature always acts by the simplest means. Why, the Crotalus horridus just mentioned has two hundred vertebrre. The common earthworm has more than half that number of holes on its back for vital purposes. Lyonnet counted in one species of caterpillar four thousand muscular bands; arid Roget speaks of the eye of the cod-fish in the following words : " This little spherical holly, scarcely larger than a pea, is

composed of five millions of fibres, which lock into one another by more than sixty-two thousand five hundred millions of teeth." I repeat, I am not so

monstrously absurd as to object to Naarre in the arrangement of the world and of its inhabitants, but I object to the self-sufficiency, of the animal man, that atom on the fidgets, assuming that his capacity embraces the principles, pro- gresa, and destination of all beings animate and inanimate. This outdoes Pro- tagoras, who said, " Man is the measure of all things." Again, the deseanters on flush causes recapitulate the ingenuity and efforts of Nature in the production and maintenance of children. Those who press overbearingly these points, challenge persons otherwise unobseriant,to recollect that many children are still- born, and that one half of those born alive rho in the first years of infancy ; and they make this remark not to depreciate Nature, as their opponents might insinuate, but to check their verbose and tyrannous presumption. It is also stated by them that Nature is most anxious to perpetuate the races of animals and to extend life over the surface of the globe. Yet, not to speak of lands once populous, now deserted, the earth ha.s been repeatedly overwhelmed, millions of beings having been swept about the globe, and sunk and drowned; huddled to- gether, or separated incongruously, in respect to climates, zones, and earth, and ocean ; while long before these elemental excesses, still greater revolutions smote the globe, arid worlds of animals have been so entirely extinguished that their existence is only known by their occasionally disinterred fossil remains. Daily and hourly men mistake the motives and objects of men, their fellows of their own profession; they mistake flagrantly and notoriously their own motives for their own actions; yet they pronounce authoritatively on the cause and purposes of vegetable and animal life, and the causes of all things on the earth and in the heavens—neither, most certainly, made by man, he himself being earth-born and earth-buried. Yet how contrary, doubly so, if possible,

is their presumption, even taking Roget as our director: he says," The more an organ of sense differs in its structure from those which we ourselves possess,

the more uncertain must be our knowledge of its functions." This observation regards animals corresponding with us in various ways, and it applies to organs of sense common to us and them. But has the Deity, embracing the universe in his mightiness, organs and senses like mares; or have we rationally any grounds for drawing any conclusion respecting the mode of his energy and ap• prehension ? Affirmatively none, though negatively we might, perhaps, assume that the Deity must be very dissimilar from man. Yet weak man pronouces on the objects, purposes, and designs of God, as if God and man were homogenial and grew up together, and served the same apprenticeship, and were confiden- tial associates in preparing the infinite arrangements in the great laboratory of space; though to reproduce one of the simplest organic products by an artificial combination of its elements, has baffled all the efforts of modern philosophers. The doctrine of final causes implies transcendental egotism and impertinence. Hence surely Bacon was justified in referring arguments from such sources to impotent in mentis.