It must
have appeared vastly more probable that there should be one indefinitely
foreseeing Intelligence and immovable Will, than hundreds and thousands
of such. The philosophers had not at that time the arguments which might
have been grounded on universal laws not yet suspected, such as the law
of gravitation and the laws of heat; but there was a multitude, obvious
even to them, of analogies and homologies in natural phaenomena, which
suggested unity of plan; and a still greater number were raised up by
their active fancy, aided by their premature scientific theories, all of
which aimed at interpreting some phaenomenon by the analogy of others
supposed to be better known; assuming, indeed, a much greater similarity
among the various processes of Nature, than ampler experience has since
shown to exist. The theological mode of thought thus advanced from
Polytheism to Monotheism through the direct influence of the Positive
mode of thought, not yet aspiring to complete speculative ascendancy.
But, inasmuch as the belief in the invariability of natural laws was
still imperfect even in highly cultivated minds, and in the merest
infancy in the uncultivated, it gave rise to the belief in one God, but
not in an immovable one.
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