the conclusion that
imprudent acts will be punished hereafter. So, too, with the attempt to
show that from the analogy of the present life we may not unreasonably
infer that virtue and vice will receive their respective rewards and
punishments hereafter; it may be admitted that virtuous and vicious acts
are naturally looked upon as objects of reward or punishment, and treated
accordingly, but we may refuse to allow the argument to go further, and to
infer a perfect distribution of justice dependent upon our conduct here.
Butler could strengthen his argument only by bringing forward prominently
the absolute requirements of the ethical consciousness, in which case he
would have approximated to Kant's position with regard to this very
problem. That he did not do so is, perhaps, due to his strong desire to use
only such premises as his adversaries the deists were willing to allow.

As against the deists, however, he may be allowed to have made out his
point, that the substantial doctrines of natural religion are not opposed
to reason and experience, and may be looked upon as credible. The positive
proof of them is to be found in revealed religion, which has disclosed to
us not only these truths, but also a further scheme not discoverable by the
natural light. Here, again, Butler joins issue with his opponents. Revealed
religion had been declared to be nothing but a republication of the truths
of natural religion (Matthew Tindal, _Christianity as Old as the
Creation_), and all revelation had been objected to as impossible. To show
that such objections are invalid, and that a revelation is at least not
impossible, Butler makes use mainly of his doctrine of human ignorance.
Revelation had been rejected because it lay altogether beyond the sphere of
reason and could not therefore be grasped by human intelligence. But the
same is true of nature; there are in the ordinary course of things
inexplicabilities; indeed we may be said with truth to know nothing, for
there is no medium between perfect and completed comprehension of the whole
system of things, which we manifestly have not, and mere faith grounded on
probability. Is it unreasonable to suppose that in a revealed system there
should be the same superiority to our intelligence? If we cannot explain or
foretell by reason what the exact course of events in nature will be, is it
to be expected that we can do so with regard to the wider scheme of God's
revealed providence? Is it n