action and re-action between the solids and fluids are then performed with the greatest facility and regularity, and as the parts farthest from the centre of life then possess exactly that degree of energy which suits their destination.

Anatomists consider the osseous system, especially in the skull, as sometimes acting upon the softer parts, at others as being acted upon by them, and in short as alternately influencing and influenced.

In education every thing ought to be alternate and progressive. It is necessary to vary, to alternate, to graduate the habits and exercises of every kind relating to each of the three branches of education, which have a reciprocal action and re-action upon one another.

In metaphysics, every action of things upon the senses seems to be invariably followed by a reaction of the feeling experienced; and vice versa.

In morals, the action and re-action of adverse propensities and passions produce, if nicely balanced, what we term virtue, which always preserves the medium between two extremes-Stat medio virtus.

·In political bodies also, the equilibrium depends on the action and re-action of their different parts, which, to form a solid edifice, must mutually

counterpoise and support one another. Here the three laws of the point of support, equilibrium, and action and re-action, are combined.

The action and re-action of the particles of different substances occur in all chemical operations and phænomena; and are likewise observable in astronomy, in the courses and the reciprocal dependence of the luminous spheres which revolve in the heavens.

All nature exhibits innumerable evidences of universal action and re-action in her constant and diversified phænomena, and in the endless chain of vicissitudes, and the continual succession of beings.

In consequence of the same general law, applications of which are incessantly presenting themselves, all causes become in their turn effects, and effects on the other hand become causes. Thus the division of labour, justly considered as the primary and necessary cause of improvement and civilisation, afterwards becomes an effect of that very civilisation, as it is more and more developed or rather, the improved state of society becomes in its turn a cause of the better application of that division of labour, of which it is the result. Exchanges, or mutual services, which give rise to the social organisation, and which

receive from it a wider extension by the gradual 'encrease of the means of communication, are in like manner, first a cause, and afterwards an effect of civilisation. We may therefore lay it down as a principle, that every thing is both cause and effect, inasmuch as every thing is action and reaction; which comes under the law of the chain.

Action and re-action, or the alternate passage from facts thoroughly studied, verified, and ascertained, to the reflections and consequences that arise out of them, and from these to new facts, which the two-fold power of well-employed observation and meditation is capable of bringing forth-such is the course to be pursued in general philosophy and in the sciences, in which we ought, according to the direction of Bacon, to traverse by turns the two parts of the ascending and descending ladder.

NINTH GENERAL LAW.

LAW OF THE UNIVERSAL MIXTURE OF GOOD AND

EVIL.

Every Thing here below is made up of Good and Evil.

THIS principle, of general application and prolific in consequences, is connected with the law of

action and re-action, and springs more particularly from the law of the chain, expressed in these words: All things are connected together.

There are two ways, perhaps equally right, of viewing all human things. They are made up of contrasts. To begin with man himself—what a contrast of wealth and poverty, of meanness and grandeur ! *

A medal, the obverse of which exhibits a scene or object that charms the imagination, while the reverse displays a hideous spectacle which excites terror, or some unpleasant sensation, is a faithful emblem of human things, all of which, like man himself, have two totally different points of view,

* How poor, how rich, how abject, how august,
How complicate, how wonderful is man!

How passing wonder He who made him such,
Who centred in our make such strange extremes !
From different natures marvellously mix'd,
Connexion exquisite of distant worlds!
Distinguish'd link in being's endless chain,
Midway from nothing to the Deity!
A beam ethereal, sullied, and absorpt,
Though sullied and dishonour'd, still divine:
Dim miniature of greatness absolute,

An heir of glory, a frail child of dust,
Helpless immortal, insect infinite,

:

A worm-a God!

YOUNG's Night Thoughts.

under which they may be considered. Life, the passions, have likewise their good and their bad side. Marriage has its sweets and its bitters: it is a daily source of pleasure and delight, and an almost inevitable cause of sorrow and vexation.

We ought to study in all things to distinguish and select what is good and useful, for the purpose of employing it for our benefit; and in the next place to extract and separate from them all that is noxious, nay, even sometimes to lay hold of the evil, in order to turn it to our advantage; and this leads us to another principle, which we shall presently have to consider, namely: All inconveniences, all obstacles, ought to be converted into means and elements of success. (See the

tenth law.)

If every thing is compounded of good and evil, the application of this principle, the observation of this mixture, for the purpose of discerning the shades of each object, furnish in the longrun an extensive practical knowledge of men and things. From this salutary habit of observation and this practical knowledge result prudence and true wisdom, the art of conducting ourselves with propriety in the world, and a natural and continual disposition to toleration and indulgence; since vices themselves may often originate in a