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ent conjectures concerning their meaning, not only possible, but all of them very nearly equally probable. The criterion recommended by Quinctilian to writers, as the only infallible test of perfect perspicuity, is strongly marked with the good sense of that excellent critic. "Quare non ut intelligere possit, sed ne omnino possit non intelligere curandum." If a rhetorician wished to exemplify to what an extent Quinctilian's precept might be reversed, he would not easily find a better example than the foregoing Enigma. Among all the meanings of which it appears to a common understanding to admit, there is not one which we can, in Christian charity, ascribe to its authors. Its real meaning alone, that according to which its authors are yet to explain it, remains inscrutable. Whatever this meaning may be, I pledge myself to acquiesce in the interpretation which they may be pleased to give to their own expressions; taking the liberty, at the same time, to assure them, that if their paraphrase on this very knotty text shall be as completely satisfactory to the public mind, as the explanations contained in Mr. Leslie's letter have been pronounced to be by the most unexceptionable judges in this part of the island, they may rest contented with the issue of a controversy, which I suspect they already wish that they had not provoked.

In what I have hitherto said, my object has been to show, in the first place, That the opinion of Mr. Hume, concerning the relation of cause and effect in physics, (the only causes and effects to which Mr. Leslie's note can by any intelligent reader be supposed to apply,) coincides with that of a great majority of our soundest divines and philosophers; and secondly, That the Metaphysical Test proposed to Mr. Leslie by his accusers was of such a nature as to render it equally impracticable for him to admit or to deny it; the only meanings which it was possible for a man of common ingenuity to extract from it seeming to be all equally dangerous in their tendency, and its real meaning still continuing an impenetrable secret. I shall suppose, however, for a moment, that the case had been otherwise; that Mr. Leslie's note had been as unguardedly expressed as the

censure of his opponents; and that it had seemed to lead, by a logical process, to consequences as alarming as those which their language has to me the appearance of involving, I should still (after having perused his solemn disavowal of these consequences) have conceived myself to be bound to give credit to his explanations, rather than to my own doubtful comments on his words. Even in such a case, (and a stronger one it will not be easy for the boldest imagination to figure,) it may be reasonably proposed as a subject of doubt, whether, in the present circumstances of this country, and after the times we have witnessed of late years, a wise and good man, a friend to the religion, to the peace, and to the national character of his countrymen, would have judged it expedient, or even excusable, to bring forth abstract subtilties, such as these, from the darkness of that retreat, where the chemical and mathematical disquisitions with which they were surrounded, had, for more than ten months, concealed them from the most vigilant eyes in the United Kingdoms, and to hold them up to public view as a fit subject of discussion to all ranks and degrees of society in Scotland. The fact is, that they have already been repeatedly discussed (and discussed with open doors) in our inferior ecclesiastical courts; and that there is now every probability, that in the ensuing general assembly, (at the commencement of the nineteenth century,) our National Church, which so long has proudly contrasted the piety, the learning, and the exemplary lives of her pastors, with the dignities and the opulence of other ecclesiastical establishments in Europe, will, from the intemperate heat of a few individuals, be forced to exhibit the melancholy spectacle of a scholastic dispute among christian divines, about the metaphysical argument for the existence of God. For my own part, whatever the consequences may be, I enjoy the comfort of reflecting, that I did all in my power to avert them; and that, in the very commencement of the business, I entreated some of those persons whose advice appeared to me most likely to be effectual, to warn Mr. Leslie's accusers, before their passions had hurried them too far to

allow their pride an apology for retreating, of the extent to which that flame was likely to spread, which they were so blindly and wantonly kindling. After, indeed, the discussions which took place in the Presbytery of Edinburgh, in the presence of an indiscriminate multitude, in the presence of numbers of our own students, I acknowledge that I felt otherwise. Interests of a higher nature than those of any individual were now at stake. Insult after insult had been offered to the university; and the opinions of our academical youth, concerning the foundations of those essential principles which it is my professional duty to illustrate, and which it has been the great object of my life to defend, were in no small danger of being unsettled by the crude and contradictory notions which were every where afloat. On the one hand, I saw a doctrine, which had been sanctioned by the highest names in theology and in philosophy, and which I myself, for more than twenty years, had labored to establish, from the firmest conviction of its importance, not merely to the progress of physical science, but to the best and highest interests of mankind ;-this doctrine I saw menaced with the anathemas of a powerful party in the church; while, on the other hand, persecution was preparing, as of old, to display her banners, in defence of an inconsistent jargon of metaphysical words, which waged war with the human understanding. In such circumstances, no alternative was left, but, by meeting the enemy openly in the field, to fall or to conquer. I trembled to think, that there was still a possibility that an escape might have been attempted in the Synod. Happily that danger is now over, and the whole merits of the case must, before the end of the ensuing week, be exposed to the light of day in the general assembly. It is impossible to doubt, that the subject will there meet with all the attention which its importance demands. An injury of no common magnitude has been offered to the interests of our religion, to the credit of the Church of Scotland, and to the literary honors which have long adorned it; and it is in the wisdom and firmness of its Supreme Court alone that a prompt and effectual remedy can be found.

But a tribunal more awful and decisive than that Venerable House, is yet awaiting the authors of this complicated mischief. They are now dragged to the bar of the public. At that bar I stand as their accuser; nor will I quit it, till they receive their doom. "Illic, et judex tacet, et adversarius obstrepit, et nihil temere dictum perit: et si quid tibi ipse sumas probandum est: et omisso magna semper flandi tumore, in quibusdam causis loquendum est.” *

I am not conscious that in any thing contained in the foregoing pages I have expressed myself with a warmth or an asperity which the subject did not merely justify, but imperiously demand. I have confined myself, as far as I was able, to facts and to reasonings, and have often struggled hard to suppress the indignant emotions which I felt rising within me. But if, in any instance, I have unconsciously stepped beyond those limits which it was my earnest wish not to transgress, let Mr. Leslie's accusers reflect on the circumstances of their own conduct on the morning of his election. Let them remember, that it was at the critical moment when this gentleman, a person who had never offended them, or at least whose only conceivable offence was his competition with one of their colleagues,-when he was flattering himself with the confident hope of obtaining, at length, the reward of a virtuous and laborious life, devoted from his earliest years to the pursuits of science, and not many days after the suffrages of the Royal Society of London had entitled him to lift up his head in this metropolis, as a man who had done honor to his native land; -it was at this moment, that all his future prospects were to be blasted for ever; the well-earned prize which he was about to receive, snatched from his grasp; and he himself-stigmatized as a disgrace to his parent church, proclaimed to be unworthy of belonging to any other, and pointed out to the scorn and execration of the wise and good in every quarter of the globe. Let me remind them, in the last place, that this charge of

* Quinct. Lib. 12. Cap. 6.

Atheism was deliberately and publicly preferred, with all the imposing solemnity of legal forms, within a few hours of the time when Mr. Leslie's explanatory letter had been read in their hearing; and that, in the act of presenting their written remonstrance to the patrons of the university, the letter was not only suppressed, but no intimation was given that such a letter existed.

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