The Religion of Nature Delineated by William Wollaston (mystery books to read .txt) 📕

as are the natural effects of the actions of other men, and being blended with them, the result may be something not intended or foreseen.

There possibly may be, and most probably are, beings invisible and superior in nature to us, who may by other means be in many respects ministers of God’s providence, and authors under Him of many events to particular men, without altering the laws of nature. For it implies no contradiction or absurdity to say there are such beings⁠—on the contrary, we have the greatest reason to think what has been intimated already: that such imperfect beings as we are, are far below the top of the scale. The pictures of spiritual beings cannot be drawn in our imagination, as of corporeal, yet to the upper and reasoning part of the mind the idea of spiritual substance may perhaps be as clear as that of corporeity.274 For what penetrability is must be known just as well as what impenetrability is, and so on.

And since it has been proved (see this part of proposition XIII), that all corporeal motions proceed originally from something incorporeal, it must be as certain that there are incorporeal substances as that there is motion. Besides, how can we tell but that there may be above us beings of greater powers, and more perfect intellects, and capable of mighty things, which yet may have corporeal vehicles as we have, but finer and invisible? Nay, who knows but that there may be even of these many orders, rising in dignity of nature and amplitude of power, one above another? It is no way below the philosophy of these times, which seems to delight in enlarging the capacities of matter, to assert the possibility of this. But, however, my own defects sufficiently convince me that I have no pretension to be one of the first rank, or that which is next under the All-perfect.

Now then, as we ourselves, by the use of our powers, do many times interpose and alter the course of things within our sphere from what it would be if they were left entirely to the laws of motion and gravitation, without being said to alter those laws; so may these superior beings likewise, in respect of things within their spheres (much larger be sure, the least of them all, than ours is), only with this difference: that as their knowledge is more extensive, their intellects purer, their reason better, they may be much properer instruments of Divine providence with respect to us, than we can be with respect one to another, or to the animals below us. I cannot think indeed that the power of these beings is so large as to alter or suspend the general laws of the world, or that the world is like a bungling piece of clockwork which requires to be oft set backward or forward by them, or that they can at pleasure change their condition to ape us or inferior beings, and consequently am not apt hastily to credit stories of portents, etc., such as cannot be true unless the natures of things and their manner of being be quite reversed; yet (I will repeat it again) as men may be so placed as to become, even by the free exercise of their own powers, instruments of God’s particular providence to other men (or animals), so may we well suppose that these higher beings may be so distributed through the universe, and subject to such an economy (though I pretend not to tell what that is), as may render them also instruments of the same providence, and that they may, in proportion to their greater abilities, be capable, consistently with the laws of nature, some way or other, though not in our way, of influencing human affairs in proper places.

Lastly, what I have ventured to lay before you I would not have to be so understood, as if I peremptorily asserted things to be just in this manner, or pretended to impose my thoughts upon anybody else; my design is only to show how I endeavor to help my own narrow conceptions. There must be other ways, above my understanding,275 by which such a Being as God is may take care of private cases without interrupting the order of the universe or putting any of the parts of it out of their channels. We may be sure He regards everything as being what it is, and that therefore His laws must be accommodated to the true genius and capacities of those things which are affected by them. The purely material part of the world is governed by such as are suited to the state of a being which is insensible, passive only, and everywhere and always the same; and these seem to be simple and few, and to carry natural agents into one constant road. But intelligent, active, free beings must be under a government of another form. They must, truth requiring it, be considered as beings who may behave themselves as they ought, or not; as beings susceptive of pleasure and pain; as beings who not only owe to God all that they are or have, but are (or may be) sensible of this, and to whom therefore it must be natural upon many occasions to supplicate Him for mercy, defense, direction, assistance; lastly, as beings whose cases admit great variety: and therefore that influence, by which He is present to them, must be different from that by which gravitation and common phenomena are produced in matter. This seems to be, as it were, a public influence, the other private, answering private cases, and prayers; this to operate directly upon the body, the other more especially upon the mind, and upon the body by it, etc. But I forbear, lest I should go too far out of my depth, only adding in general that God cannot put things so far out of His own power,