HKB
the cessation of the eye on the removal or diffraction of the eye-glass, and the dissolution or incapacity of the musician on the fracture of his instrument or its strings.
But though I agree with Taylor so far, as not to doubt that the misallotment of worldly goods and fortunes was one principal occasion, exciting well-disposed and spiritually-awakened natures by reflections and reasonings, such as I have here supposed, to mature the presentiment of immortality into full consciousness, into a principle of action and a well-spring of strength and consolation; I cannot concede to this circumstance any thing like the importance and extent of efficacy which he in this passage attributes to it. I am persuaded, that as the belief of all mankind, of all[144] tribes, and nations, and languages, in all ages, and in all states of social union, it must be referred to far deeper grounds, common to man as man; and that its fibres are to be traced to the tap-root of humanity. I have long entertained, and do not hesitate to avow, the conviction, that the argument, from Universality of belief, urged by Barrow and others in proof of the first article of the Creed, is neither in point of fact--for two very different objects may be intended, and two, or more, diverse and even contradictory conceptions may be expressed, by the same name--nor in legitimacy of conclusion as strong and unexceptionable, as the argument from the same ground for the continuance of our personal being after death. The bull-calf butts with smooth and unarmed brow. Throughout animated nature, of each characteristic organ and faculty there exists a pre-assurance, an instinctive and practical anticipation; and no pre-assurance common to a whole species does in any instance prove delusive.[145] All other prophecies of nature have their exact fulfilment--in every other ingrafted word of promise, nature is found true to her word; and is it in her noblest creature, that she tells her first lie?--(The reader will, of course, understand, that I am here speaking in the assumed character of a mere naturalist, to whom no light of revelation had been vouchsafed; one, who
---- with gentle heart Had worshipp'd Nature in the hill and valley, Not knowing what he loved, but loved it all!)
Whether, however, the introductory part of the Bishop's argument is to be received with more or less qualification, the fact itself, as stated in the concluding sentence of the Aphorism, remains unaffected, and is beyond exception true.