Excerpt from On Natural Theology, Vol. 1 Now such an arrangement, proceeding as it does in the chronological order of the divine administration, and which quadrates too with the great successions that take place in the collective history of the species, has peculiar advantages of its own. But there is another arrangement, having a distinct principle, attended too with its own distinct benefits, but of another sort. Instead of treating Theology in the order of the procedure of the divine government, and with general respect there fore to the whole Universe of created Intelligences or at least to the whole of the human family, it may be treated in the order of those inquiries which are natural to the exercised Spirit of an individual man, from the outset of his religio earnestness when the felt supremacy of conscience within tells him of a Law and tells him of a Lawgiver - when his own sense of innumerable deficiencies from a higher and a holier standard of rectitude than he has ever reached, first visits him with the conviction of guilt and the dread anticipa tion of a coming vengeance. This would give rise to an arrangement differing from the former, having a different starting-post or point of de parture, and, though coinciding in some places, yet reversing the order of certain of the topics. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.