watch for example, that when the watchman has withdrawn his hands, shall go and strike by the fit contrivance of the parts; or else requires that whenever the hand by pointing to the hour, minds him of it, he should strike twelve upon the bell? No machine of God's making can go of itself. Why? Because the creatures have no power, can neither move themselves nor any thing else. How, then, comes about all that we see? Do they do nothing? Yes-they are occasional causes to God, why he should produce certain thoughts and motions in them. The creatures cannot produce any idea or thought in man. How, then, comes he to perceive or to think? God, upon the occasion of some motion in the optic nerve, exhibits the colour of a marygold or a rose to his mind. How came that motion in his optic nerve? On occasion of the motion of some particles of light striking on the retina, God producing it, and so on. And so, whatever a man thinks, God produces the thought, let it be infidelity, murmuring or blasphemy. The mind doth nothing-his mind is only the mirror that receives the ideas that God exhibits to it, and just as God exhibits them. The man is altogether passive in the whole business of thinking. A man cannot move his arm or his tongue; he has no power; only upon occasion the man willing it, God moves it. The man wills, he doth something; or else God upon the occasion of something he did before, produced the will and this action in him. This is the hypothesis that clears all doubts, and brings us at last to the religion of Hobbes and Spinoza, by resolving all, even the thoughts and will of men, into an irresistible fatal necessity. For whether the original of it be from the continued motion of eternal, alldoing matter, or from an omnipotent immaterial Being, who having begun matter and motion, continues it by the direction of occasions which he himself has also made; as to religion and morality, it is just the same thing. But we must know how every thing is brought to pass, and thus we have it resolved without leaving any difficulty to perplex us. But,

perhaps, it would better become us to acknowledge our ignorance, than to talk such things boldly of the Holy One of Israel, and condemn others for not daring to be as unmannerly as ourselves."

END OF BOOK FIRST,

BOOK II.-CHAPTER I.

What is meant by solving a Phenomenon in Nature.

In treating so fully of the subject of cause and effect, we have already communicated our views of what is meant by solving a phenomenon in nature. Any appearance may be regarded as completely explained, as far as the human mind is competent to explain it, when it is referred to the operation of some cause adequate to its production, and when the law or laws under which that cause acted have been ascertained. Thus we say the sun is the cause of light and fire of heat, the sun and moon of the tides and the electric fluid of lightning. A phenomenon may be considered as partially explained, although it may be sufficiently for all practical purposes, when the law or laws are ascertained by which some unknown cause acts, although the cause itself remains in impenetrable obscurity. Thus the laws of that principle which causes attraction have been ascertained, and all the appearances of the heavenly bodies explained, although the cause itself, as yet, remains hidden. The phenomena and the laws relative to the Gulf-stream upon our Atlantic coast, are all understood, although the cause of that singular marine flood has never been assigned, at least a cause that can be considered as competent to the effect; and thus the laws or func

P

tions of animal life may all be developed to medical science, while the cause of life is a secret, and perhaps will always remain a secret, except to him who communicates and preserves it.

CHAPTER II.

Of Metaphysical Science.

THE way is now prepared for entering upon the great subject of our investigation, the Science of the Human Mind. The first labourer whose name has been conveyed to us as having toiled in this field with any success, was Aristotle. The Schoolmen appear to have misinterpreted and abused his doctrines; and literally translating his words, without rightly comprehending his meaning, substituted learned terms for things; and instead of devoting their attention to the interpretation of nature, contented themselves with exercising their intellectual strength and adroitness, by carrying on an idle and useless war of words with each other. Des Cartes and Mallebranche afterwards, throwing off the shackles of the schoolphilosophy, and deeply sensible of its utter incompetency to the search and discovery of truth, improved upon the labours of Aristotle, and greatly contributed to the advancement of this branch of science. The philosopher, however, to whom this branch of human knowledge is more indebted than all others united, who may emphatically be regarded as its father, and the great metaphysician of human nature, is the inimitable Mr. Locke. Most deservedly is he consi dered as holding the same rank in metaphysical science, or science of mind, as Newton does in natural philosophy. By the votaries of these sciences, and those who have taken the pains to study and comprehend them, neither of these names can be remembered but with enthusiasm. What undiscovered countries have they laid open to us, where the richest