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The next step after this is to enquire, how these facts may be accounted for; in other words, to consider, what more general fact can be discovered, in which the particular ones shall be contained. In natural science we hear frequent mention made of ascending from particular to general truths,of different stages of generalization which occur in this process, and of the highest step to which all the others are preparatory, and in which they are included. To illustrate the meaning of these expressions, let us take the case of Astronomy. Any careless observer can perceive the ordinary facts upon which that science is founded. The labourer at his daily toil knows that the moon, the sun, and the planets, rise and set at particular periods. The slightest attention, again, would be sufficient to tell us, that the moon goes through a certain course of changes within a month, and the sun within a year. All these facts, however, are included in, and explained by the more general fact, that the earth moves in an orbit round the sun, and the moon round the earth. This fact, again, is included in the dynamical law, by which the movements of all the heavenly bodies are regulated, and this again in the universal law of gravitation. The difference, therefore, between the knowledge which a careless spectator possesses of any one of the simple facts of Astronomy and that possessed by the man of science, lies here-that the one observes the phenomenon simply as a pheno

menon, while the other investigates it, places it in connexion with other facts, ascends from the particular to the general, and gets so much nearer to the universal law or principle from which it proceeds. The man who only observes the simple phenomena, we say, possesses the least knowledge; he who ascends to the more general propositions enlarges his knowledge proportionably, and lastly, his knowledge is the greatest who attains the highest point of generalization and educes the fact which includes in it all the rest. If we were to adduce any other branch of human knowledge, we should find that the same principle would hold good, that the ignorant observer might know as much of the bare facts as any one else, and that the philosopher in every case owes his superiority to the process of generalization. In asserting this principle, of course we suppose that the generalization is not hasty and inaccurate, since in that case it could only give rise to false theories; we take for granted, that it is a synthesis drawn from a sufficiently wide and accurate analysis. When this is the case, it becomes evident that accurate generalization, implying, as it does, both the most complete observation of the individual phenomena, and a reference of them to their proper conceptions and laws, is always the index of our real knowledge; and just as far as we can legitimately extend it, so far may our knowledge be said to reach. Viewing this first principle, then, as valid,

we shall go on to illustrate, and substantiate the second, namely, that every branch of human knowledge, if generalized to its full extent, brings us into the region of metaphysical research; that there is no subject of investigation but tends incessantly to this point; that even those subjects which are most unlike in themselves and which lead us through entirely different fields of mental labour, yet all, if you trace them far enough, meet together in their first principles, and all enter the peculiar region of the metaphysician before you have reached their ultimate basis.

To illustrate this truth almost any subject will answer equally well. The chemist, for example, investigates matter: tracing it by means of observation and experiment through all its different combinations and changes. But who does not know, that the last question at which he arrives, that which weighs the relative claims of ultimate atoms and of infinite divisibility, is one of a purely metaphysical nature? The mechanician studies the laws of forces as exhibited in the material universe, but the explication of the very conception, upon which the whole science rests, that of power or causation, again, brings us into the province of speculative philosophy. The fundamental axioms and definitions of pure mathematics are just of the same nature; they, too, can only be investigated and explained upon metaphysical grounds. If from these branches of science we turn to that

allotted to the physiologist, we find ourselves in another region of thought, at the basis of which lies the mysterious idea of life;-an idea which is most closely connected with some of the most interesting problems in the whole range of speculative philosophy.

It is not only those subjects, however, which come under the notion of science, that lead us up through the several stages of generalization to the ethereal regions of metaphysical speculation; every branch of human knowledge, if investigated to a similar extent, leads exactly to the same point. Take, for example, the province of the historian, a province which appears at first sight to confine itself entirely to an investigation and a description of external facts. The primary object of the historian, it is true, may be considered simply this; to discover events as they occurred, and to describe them in the best possible manner; but the true philosophical historian is far from being content with this. He looks upon the phenomena of human life and activity as the direct result of human nature, as it exists in the world, and seeks to trace them to their proper source in the constitution of the human mind. The subject of government, as it has appeared in the different states and countries of our earth, leads directly to the deeper question concerning the foundation of man's natural rights; for all government is constructed upon the primary conception of right or

justice, and must be adjudged as fundamentally good or bad according to its agreement or disagreement with it. If we search again into the history of civilization and learning, or of the arts and sciences as they have sprung up and made greater or lesser advancement amongst different nations, here, too, we are insensibly led to the study of the human mind. All civilization is an effect which must spring from certain causes, and the object of the philosophical historian in tracing it, is to point out the influence, which various forms of government, various features of natural scenery, various modes of religion, and various circumstances in general, have had in stimulating man to exertion in different directions, and towards dif ferent objects. History is, in fact, a detail of the various manifestations of mind, as they have been impressed upon the surface of human life; and the philosophical historian will attempt to deduce from the past those laws of human action, which have heretofore moulded the features of society, and which we may predict will, under similar circumstances, operate in a similar manner for the future. This whole branch of human knowledge, therefore, leads us inevitably to the study of man, to the investigation of the primary laws of the human mind, and only when it has pursued its enquiries to that point does it attain a high degree of generalization, and give us a full satisfaction in its results.