midnight
But it is open to him also to protest against the common critical folly of making an offender for a word : of driving analogies on all four feet , and straining thoughts beyond their due proportions . Above all , never let a reader stir one inch beyond , far less against , his own judgment : if there seem to be sufficient reasons , well : if otherwise , let me walk uncompanied . The first step especially is felt to be a very difficult one ; perhaps very debatable : for aught I know , it may be merely a vain insect caught in the cobweb of metaphysics , soon to be destroyed , and easily to be discussed at leisure by some Aranean logician . However , it seemed to my midnight musings a probable mode of arriving at truth , though somewhat unsatisfactorily told from poverty of thought and language . Moreover , it would have been , in such _ à priori _ argument , ridiculous to have commenced by announcing a posterior conclusion : for this cause did I do my humble best to work it out anew : and however supererogatory it may seem at first sight to the majority of readers , those keener minds whom I mainly address , and whose interests I wish to serve , will recognise the attempt as at least consistent : and will be ready to admit that if the arduous effort prove anteriorly a First Great Cause , and His attributes , be futile -LRB- which , however , I do not admit -RRB- , it was an attempt unneeded on the score of its own merits ; albeit , with an obvious somewhat of justice , pure reason may desire to begin at the beginning . No one , who thinks at all upon religion , however misbelieving , can entertain any mental prejudice against the existence of a Deity , or against the received character of His attributes . Such a man would be merely in a savage state , irrational : whilst his own mind , so speculating , would stand itself proof positive of an Intellectual Father ; either immediately , as in the first man 's case , or mediately , as in our own , it must have sprung out of that Being , who is emphatically the Good One -- God .