nity, not partners in the Divine power, but the creatures of its hands. Infinity is a term as incomprehensible as that of Deity. We cannot conceive what infinity is. Our senses sink in the contemplation of such matters, and our reason cannot help us. We can rationally have no conception of a time when there was no time—yet everything according to our reason must have had a beginning, and an original cause. We can readily conceive how the phenomena of the world can proceed to eternity. They are in motion; and the same cause may as easily be credited to produce the same effect a million of years forward, as at the present period. But it is not so easy with respect to the past. We want a new sense to comprehend the means by which existence began. One grain of wheat may produce another, because we perceive it has been produced from a former grain. But how came the first grain of wheat into existence? It is no answer to say that it has existed from infinity;—or rather this is saying we know nothing about it, which is the truth. But why deny creation because it cannot be comprehended? and substitute another name equally incomprehensible. Does not Mr. Shelley here fall under his own censure, as one of those followers of "human pride," which
