Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/97

Rh And truly this fact is well worthy of our regard, and one which will worthily reward our pains. It is a fact of most surpassing wonder; a fact prolific in sublime results. Standing aloof as much as possible from our acquired and inveterate habits of thought; divesting ourselves as much as possible of our natural prepossessions, and of that familiarity which has blunted the edge of astonishment, let us consider what we know to be the fact; namely, that existence, combined with intelligence and passion in many instances, but unaccompanied by any other fact, is the general rule of creation. Knowing this, would it not be but an easy step for us to conclude that it is also the universal rule of creation? and would not such a conclusion be a step naturally taken? Finding this, and nothing more than this, to be the great fact "in heaven and on earth, and in the waters under the earth," would it not be rational to conclude that it admitted of no exception? Such, certainly, would be the natural inference, and in it there would be nothing at all surprising. But suppose that when it was on the point of being drawn, there suddenly, and for the first time, started up in a single Being, a fact at variance with this whole analogy of creation, and contradicting this otherwise universal rule; we ask, would not this be a fact attractive and wonderful indeed? Would not every attempt to bring this Being under the great general rule of the universe be at once, and most properly, abandoned? Would not this new fact be held exclusively worthy of scientific