constant regular volition, acting according to conditionally established laws. 5. Of the first course, the distinguished author of " Kosmos” may be regarded as a representative. In his hands, "physical science limits itself to the explanation of the phenomena of the material world by the properties of matter". that is, by forces inherent in matter according to an occult primordial necessity. The moral, as well as the material systems, according to this view, compose one piece of iron mechanism, wound up from time to time, to go for a longer or shorter period, but all moral freedom is denied to the subjects of it; nor is any recognized even in the occult Necessity which puts it into motion. What the author would think of the moral honesty of a number of reviewers who should analyze his work, and should descant on its vivid pictures of nature, command of language, and richness of illustration, without a single distinct recognition of its authorship, we know not. But here is a method of philosophizing which virtually and complacently ignores the Author of the universe. Effects are resolved into the forces of nature; and the mind, thus put off with a word, in the stead of a thing, is to suppose that it has received an adequate explanation, and trains itself to rest satisfied with it. Mind alone, the mind of a Humboldt, can trace the laws of these forces, but no reference whatever is to be made to any Mind as creating and superintending them; in other words, merely to perceive them is a proof of mind sufficient to make the world resound with its fame, but to make them has so little to do with Mind that the world is to preserve a death-like silence respecting it. The mind of the observer, too, is conscious of moral freedom, conscious that he is the regulating power of his own actions, but the system assures him that this is false, that he is a compelled portion of a vast machine without choice or option: that is to say, he is to confide in his senses, but not in his consciousness; or, he is to rely on the truth of what consciousness attests respecting the external world, but to disbelieve its testimony respecting the world within its affirmations respecting that which is not itself, inatter, are to be accepted; but those which relate to itself, and on which the truth of the others depend, are to be discredited. 6. Of the second method, M. Comte is, at present, the great advocate. According to him, philosophy, dismissing all theological and metaphysical ideas, all thought of supernatural powers and of natural forces, must confine itself simply to the outward. observation of facts and their laws. All notion of causation is to be repudiated not merely as hopeless, but absurd, and the only kind of explanation to be thought of is that which resolves phenomena into laws more and more general, till the whole shall attain the unity of a single fact. Such is the materialism of the so-called positive philosophy. Now this method is open to all the objections just stated (for the idea of some mechanical cause or power, is, in reality, concealed under the word law), and to additional objections of its own. According to this view, it is hopeless to ascertain causes, and therefore they are to be treated as non-existent; as if the human mind were the measure of truth and existence; or as if the existence of causation depended on our ability to explain it. Let it be supposed, however, that the positive philosophy should go on enlarging its domain of law, until it has reduced all the phenomena of the universe, by one vast generalization, to the operation of a single fact. What then? When a second Newton shall have succeeded in elaborating and including all the results of experimental philosophy in a single proposition, what is to follow? Will the mind have lost its occupation? Will it henceforth be doomed to inactivity as a reward? It will have reached "its pride of place" simply by persevering inquiry. Each new generalization in succession will have appeared in answer to the question, What law is the antecedent to this? and what to this? and so on till the last emerges. And what is to stop the inquirer from then looking over the boundary-line of the physical into the region of the spiritual, and asking for the next antecedent there? A law of his nature, a necessity of his being, has impelled him to repeat the question hitherto, and, unless his constitution be unmade, he will continue to repeat the question for it is not an affair subject to his will-until an intelligent First Cause be recognized, or nature demonstrates that it is self-made. And most worthy of remembrance it is, as an "assured truth, and a conclusion of experience (says Bacon) that, in the entrance of philosophy, when the second causes, which are next unto the senses, do offer themselves to the mind of man, if it dwell and stay there, it may induce some oblivion of the Highest cause; but when a man passeth on further, and seeth the dependence of causes, and the works of Providence; then, according to the allegory of the poets, he will easily believe that the highest link of Nature's chain must needs be tied to the foot of Jupiter's chair."* * Advancement of Learning, B. I. This sagacious truth is admirably developed and illustrated in Dr. Whewell's Bridgewater Treatise, B. III. c. vi. The positive philosophy, occupying itself in the observation of facts, and in the verification of laws already known, resembles a person so completely engrossed in deciphering the letters of an ancient inscription, as to be quite oblivious of the agency which originally produced it; but he who succeeds in interpreting word after word till the meaning of the entire sentence flashes on his mind, feels at that moment as if brought into close communion with the mind which first conceived it. We 7. In harmony with the third method which we have indicated, we have elsewhere shown* (beginning with matter), that, in answer to the question, "What is its nature?" we may exhibit it chemically resolved into elements beyond which we cannot decompose it. But not even in the last analysis can we discover in it anything which accounts for its own origination. By a law of our nature, we feel as deeply convinced that we are examining a thing which has been caused, as if we had been permitted to look on it in the first moment of its existence. have spoken of it not merely as being, but as continuing: not merely as related to space, or co-existent, but also as related to time, or successively existent. All its parts are in motion. Attraction, repulsion, transformation, change of physical relations, are constant and universal. But when we have traced back these changes in any particular class of natural phenomena, in the order in which they occur, to the highest and earliest in the series, we find that it includes nothing to account for its own existence. A primary conviction assures us that the continuance of the world, no less than its origination, has its ground in a cause external to itself. 8. Ascending from the chemistry and mechanics of inorganic nature to the vegetable kingdom, we next inquired, What is life? or, What is the principle which unites all the functions of an organized body in the single result called life? The physiologist may be able to describe the organization in which life is developed, may trace the organization to the seed, and search the very elements of the seed itself, but he can find nothing there to account for the origination of a living organific power. Even if he could artificially imitate the cells or globules of organic life, still they themselves would be inorganic globules. The very absence of the vital power shows that it is something distinct from form, as well as from mere elementary composition, though it may employ and subordinate both. He sees the Pre-Adamite Earth, pp. 77, 168, 246. phenomena of life only after it has begun to work. Life it. self is presupposed and ultimate. But besides existing as an object, in relation to space, life is manifested in an orderly series of processes, or in relation to time. In tracing these sequences, we find a series of laws, each of which is related to all the rest, and all of which refer us to a cause of which they are only the results, and the means of manifestation. One of the first discoveries made by those who vainly attempt to resolve the phenomena of life into the operation of physical agents is, that they must be allowed to indulge in the inconsistency of supposing a principle not physical, in order even to begin to work out their theory. For a time, the vital principle was the popular hypothesis; but this was a principle which, as it did not belong to the domain of physiology, was the very phenomenon which required explanation. The only conclusion warranted is, that the origination of life, and its continuance, alike point to a Life-giving Cause. The regularity of the organic functions, so far from denoting the absence of the Great Agent, is the very circumstance which indicates his presence. Order is natural to Him. We cannot conceive of His agency apart from it. Nor do the organic processes grow less dependent by continuance, as if they could acquire self-sufficiency by the lapse of time. They can never become other than the mere means of the manifestation of an independent and anterior power. But, it may be asked, do not the structural malformations which we occasionally witness seem to intimate that the organic laws are left to themselves? The sufficient answer is, that, in such instances, we only behold the arrest or displacement of one law by another; or, according to Divine appointment. Not this departure from a type, therefore, but the non-departure from it, would, under the circumstances, be a sign that the organic laws were abandoned to themselves. And then, also, the theory which assumes the office of relieving the Divine Being from the seeming discredit of a partial failure of his laws in his own presence, and from the supposed indignity of having to perform certain creating and sustaining acts of an inferior description, only disguises or adjourns the imaginary difficulty. For, by saying that the universe is evolved and upheld by general laws appointed at first, and never afterwards interfered with, the supposed difficulty is left to press against the original appointment. Unless it be supposed that, in originating the law, the Deity was putting a power into operation of which He knew not the effects, all the results actually flowing from it must have been originally contemplated by Him; so that the hypothesis which presumes to save the dignity of the God of Providence, does it at the expense of the honor of the God of Creation. 9. Crossing the gulf between organic life and sentient existence, we have also inquired into the mystery of sensation. What is the principle of a sense? How is it that, by the aid of its nervous system, the animal can become acquainted apparently not only with impressions, but with things; with the forms, and qualities, and motions of objects? "We know exactly the mechanism of the eye (remarks Liebig), but neither anatomy nor chemistry will ever explain how the rays of light act on consciousness, so as to produce vision." Nor will physiology or acoustics ever explain why the vibration of the air, acting on the drum of the ear, should produce the sensation of hearing. And the same is true of every class of sensations. The organ of sense contains nothing to explain the sensation. They are two things essentially distinct. In every attempt at explanation, we have to presuppose a principle, to introduce the idea of some antecedent capable of sensation. 10. Our examination of instinct introduces us to another ultimate fact. However the various classes of animal actions may be distributed, there is one class—including, for example, the beautiful nest-building of birds, and the mathematical cell-building of bees-which is allowed on almost all hands, to be strictly instinctive. Now their organization does not determine their instincts; for, with the same organs, we see very different, and even opposite, instincts in different species of animals. Neither do their instincts nor propensities determine their organization, for their structure is prospective: the bird has wings while yet in the egg. Instinct, then, as far as the animal structure is concerned, is an ultimate fact. The bee itself, while working geometrically, has no knowledge of geometry; "somewhat like a child, who, by turning the handle of an organ, makes good music without any knowledge of music. The art is not in the child, but in him who made the organ. In like manner, the geometry is not in the bee, but in that great Geometrician who made the bee, and who maketh all things in number, weight, and measure.' 11. What is mind? We have seen that organized matter is only the condition or means of its manifestation.* The phe *Chap. VI., supra. |