Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Excerpt from The Works of the Late Right Honourable Henry St. John, Lord Viscount Bolingbroke, Vol. 5 of 8: With the Life of Lord Bolingbroke, Now Enlarged by More Recent Information Relative to His Publick and Personal Character, Selected From Various Authorities
Divines reason, sometimes, on this subject with more precaution. They slide.over the doctrine of innate ideas, . Without maintaining, or renounc ing it directly; and think it sufficient tosay, that the belief.of a God is founded on a certain natural proportion, which there is, ' between this great truth, and the conceptions of the human mind. I inclined, as you know, to thinkin the same manner, and 'to believe, that the first men, at least, who knew that they weissach, and who saw the material world begin, wouldbe led, -by 1the natural conceptions of tl1eir..minds, to ac knowledge a first Cause, of infinite wisdom and power, and far above all these conceptions. Thus it seemed to me, that the tradition of a fact, and Of an Opinion grounded on. It, which are apt to be confounded, though they should be always dis tinguished, might come down together. But I confess myself obliged, on further reflection, to abandon this hypothesis. I abandon it with the less regret, because; whatever the. First men might think, nay, whether the world had a beginning in time, as' I am firmly persuaded. It had, or not.
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