Page:Collected Works of Dugald Stewart Volume 7.djvu/18

 BOOK THIRD. OF THE DUTIES WHICH RESPECT THE DEITY. As our duties to God (so far as they are discoverable by the light of nature) must be inferred from the relation in which we stand to him as the Author and the Governor of the uni- verse, an examination of the principles of natural religion forms a necessary introduction to this section. Such an exami- nation, besides, being the reasonable consequence of those impressions which his works produce on every attentive and well-disposed mind, may be itself regarded both as one of the duties we owe to Him, and as the expression of a moral temper sincerely devoted to truth, and alive to the sublimest emotions of gratitude and of benevolence.

PRELIMINARY INQUIRY INTO THE PRINCIPLES OF NATURAL RELIGION. OF THE EXISTENCE OF THE DEITY.

CHAPTER I. [OF THE PROOFS OF THE EXISTENCE OF THE DEITY; AND FIRST, IN GENERAL, THE PROOF A PRIORI. — Ed.] It is scarcely possible to conceive a man capable of reflection, who has not, at times, proposed to himself the following ques- tions: — Whence am I ? and whence the innumerable tribes of plants and of animals which I see, in constant succession.