n attribute such a weakness to God, fancying him altogether such a
one as ourselves. Again, it is to this day doubtful whether the
microscope does not display the divine perfections as illustriously as
the telescope; there is therefore no reason to deny a providence over
animalcula which we admit over the constellated heavens. What is it that
we dare call insignificant? The least of all things may be as a seed
cast in to the seed-field of time, to grow there and bear fruit, which
shall be multiplying when time shall be no more. We cannot always trace
the connections of things. We do not ponder those we can trace: or we
should tremble to call anything beneath the notice of God. It has been
eloquently said that where we see a trifle hovering unconnected in
space, higher spirit can discern its fibres stretching through the whole
expanse of the system of the world, and hanging on the remotest limits
of the future and the past. In reference to the third and fourth
objections before mentioned, namely, that an all-embracing providence is
incompatible with divine justice and human freedom, it should be
considered that, in contemplating God's Providence, the question will
often arise, why was mortal evil allowed to exist? But as these
questions meet us at every turn, and, under different forms, may be
termed the one and the only difficulty in theology, it is already
considered in the previous chapter of this work, and may therefore
require the less notice in the present article. We should in all
humility preface whatever we say on the permission of evil (such as,
mysticism, in religious bodies) with a confession that it is an
inscrutable mystery, which our faith receives, but which our reason
could not prove either to be or not to be demanded by the perfection of
God. But, in addition to the vindication of God's ways which may be
found in the over-ruling of evil for good, the following theories
deserve notice:--

1. Occasionalism, or the doctrine that God is the immediate cause of all
men's actions. It is so called, because it maintains that men only
furnish God an occasion for what he does. It degrades all second causes
to mere occasions, and turns men into passive instruments.

2. Mechanism. Many, alarmed at the consequences which occasionalism
would seem to involve, have embraced an opposite scheme. They criticise
the definition of the laws of nature, and contend that occasionalism
derives all its plausibility from adroitly