Chap. 9. PHILOSOPHICAL DISCOVERIES. 383

have made them move from east to west. In these and otherinstances, we plainly perceive the vestiges os a wise agent, butacting freely and with perfect liberty.

As caution was a distinguishing part os Sir Isaac Newtoti*character, but no way derogatory from his penetration and theacutenefs and sublimity os his genius ; so we have particularreason on this occasion to applaud it, and to own that his phi-losophy has proved always subservient to the most valuable pur-poses, without ever tending to hurt them.

8. As in treating of this unfathomable subject we are at aloss for ideas and words, in any tolerable degree, adequate toit, and, in order to convey our notions with any strength, areobliged to have recourse to figurative expressions, as was ob-served already ; so it is hardly possible for the most cautious tomake use of such as may not be liable to exceptions, from angryand captious men. Sir Isaac NewtotJ , to express his idea ofthe divine Omnipresence , had said that the Deity perceived what-ever pasted in space sully and intimately, as it were in his Sen-sorium . A clamour was raised by his adversaries, as if he meantthat space was to the deity what the Sensorium is to our minds.But whoever considers this expression without prejudice, willallow that it conveys a very strong idea of the intimate pre-sence of the Deity every where, and of his perceiving what-ever happens in the completest manner, without the use of anyintermediate agents or instruments, and that Sir Isaac madeuse of it with this view only ; for he very carefully guardsg a inst our imagining that external objects act upon the Deity,r that he suffers any passion or reaction from them. It iscommonly supposed that the mind is intimately conscious ofthe impressions upon the sensorium, and that it is immediatelypresent there, and there only j and as we must derive our ideas

©f