"6. Virtue, or a life according to (this true and ideal) nature or reason, does not consist solely of benevolence, but respects also our duties to ourselves; also the duties to others of truth and gratitude and justice. "7. As there is a natural sentiment of interest in or compassion for others, so there is a natural tendency to resentment against those who injure us, called by Butler sudden resentment, which is provided to defend us against injury; when this is excessive or misdirected, it is called deliberate resentment. "8. Man is capable of love to God-that is, of the several affections of reverence, gratitude, etc., which a good man would naturally exercise towards a moral person of infinite moral excellence.' The same acute critic thus describes the Analogy: "The Analogy of Religion to the Constitution and Course of Nature was directed against the Free-thinkers of Butler's time, whose positions he briefly describes in the advertisement and introduction. Its leading doctrine is that we find the same difficulties in the Scriptures which we find in the operations of nature, and this should lead us not only to reject all arguments against the Scriptures which are founded on these difficulties, but to infer that probably both proceed from the same Author. It is divided The first treats of Natural into two parts. first the following topics are treated: "1. A Future Life. In the "2. The Government of God by Rewards and Punishments, and particularly the last. "3. The Moral Government of God. 66 4. A State of Probation as implying Trial, Difficulties, and Danger; also as intended for Moral Discipline and Improvement. "5. The Doctrine of Necessity considered as influencing Practice. "6. The Incomprehensibleness of the Government of God considered as a Scheme or Constitution. "In the second part the following are the divisions : "I. The Importance of Christianity. "2. The Supposed Presumption against a Revelation considered as miraculous. 66 3. Our incapacity to judge of what is to be expected in a Revelation, and the Credi bility from Analogy that it must contain things appearing liable to objections. "4. Christianity as a Scheme is imperfectly comprehended. "5. The Appointment of a Mediator. "6. The Want of Universality and supposed Deficiency in the Proof of Revelation. "7. The particular Evidence for Christianity. "8. The Objections against arguing from the Analogy of Nature to Religion, being the conclusion of both parts, and the application of the argument in both. "A Dissertation on Personal Identity, and another on the Nature of Virtue, are appended to the Analogy, and are both succinct statements of arguments and considerations of the highest importance." "The influence of Butler upon Ethical and Religious philosophy," says Professor Ueberweg, "has been powerful wherever the English language is spoken and read, and probably surpasses that of any other single writer. This is not owing to the originality of his doctrines, so much as to the compact form in which he has presented the reflections which had been suggested to many minds, and to the cautious and reverent spirit in which he mediates between the claims of independent thought and a revealed communication of truth. His Analogy has been extensively studied and read as a text-book in all seminaries of higher learning, and has largely served to shape and strengthen the religious convictions of the English people. The Sermons, though less generally read or studied, have exerted a pervading influence upon ethical philosophy. The Analogy and Sermons have also been efficient in introducing into Christian theology the ethical element, which sometimes it has greatly needed." The scope and effect of the Analogy have also been sketched by Henry Reeve, the Edinburgh Reviewer and author of the Eclipse of Faith': "The immortable Analogy has probably done more to silence the objections of infidelity than any other ever written from the earliest apologies' downwards. It not only most critically met the spirit of unbelief in the author's own day, but it is equally adapted to meet that which chiefly prevails in all time. In every age some of the principal, perhaps the principal, objections to the Christian Revelation have been those which men's pre 1 Encyclopædia Britannica, 1860. hands, if he be a Theist at all. He conceptions of the Divine character and administration-of what God must be, and what God must do-have suggested against certain facts in the sacred history, or certain doctrines it reveals. To show the objector, then (supposing him to be a Theist, as nine-tenths of all such objectors have been), that the very same or similar difficulties are found in the structure of the universe and the Divine administration of it, is to wrest every such weapon completely from his fair reasoner, and remain a is bound by strict logical obligation either to show that the parallel difficulties do not exist, or to show how he can solve them, while he cannot solve those of the Bible. In default of doing either of these things, he ought either to renounce all such objections to Christianity, or abandon Theism altogether. It is true, therefore, that therefore, that though though Butler leaves the alternative of Atheism open, he hardly leaves any other alternative to ninetenths of the Theists who have objected to Christianity." As to Atheism: "He has, also, with his accustomed acuteness and judgment, shown that, even on the principles of Atheism itself, its |