stances of cotemporary sequences, he is sometimes a little at a loss to ascertain to which cause each effect is to be attributed; but in most of those cases, even when the power itself cannot be observed, there is an aptness and congruity between the real cause and effect which usually secures him from mistake. Previous to all experience, a piece of coal, timber, or any combustible matter might be considered as likely to produce a certain chemical action on gunpowder as a spark of fire; but on throwing a lighted match among a quantity of it, and beholding the smoke and flame produced by the deflagration, the most inexperienced inquirer into the nature of causation would never doubt that the fire, and not the matter of which the match was composed, was the cause of the explosion. It is generally so in all ordinary instances of cause and effect. Though the powers in the particular cases are unknown, there are certain congruities and indications of the power, which, with little difficulty, enable the observer to ascribe each effect to its proper cause. Thus the inquirer gradually and correctly extends his induction, and it is not long till he draws the universal conclusion, that wherever there is uniform sequence, there is a power in the antecedent to produce the consequent and to render irregularity impossible.

This, then, being, as we conceive, the manner in which mankind obtain their idea of causation, it appears that Mr. Hume's account of the origin

of the belief of invariable sequence is not so far from the truth as Dr. Brown seemed to imagine. Though there is an instinctive and intuitive principle on which the conception ultimately rests, the belief of constant and uniform sequence, as a whole, is got from experience; and association, at first, exerts a powerful influence in its acquirements. On the intuitive principle above noticed, we refer an effect to something as its cause; by experience and association we primarily learn the uniformity of the sequence; and, as the powers of the understanding are developed, we discover the adaptation or power on which the uniformity of sequence depends. Mr. Hume was misled by his desire to support his favourite doctrine of the sole existence of impressions and ideas, but here as in many other places, he proves himself the original thinker and acute observer; and even in maintaining monstrous absurdity and falsehood, exhibits much sound philosophy, and makes important additions to true science.

As soon, then, as a human being has got the true idea of power and causation, he is prepared to act his part in life, as the philosopher, the agriculturist, the merchant, or the statesman; and to attain an end or produce an effect, by the use of a series of proper means. Certain causes, he knows, must produce such and such effects, and if he employ the proper means, he cannot fail of obtaining his object. This belief

of the future uniform sequence of things, rests upon the same foundation as his belief of their existence; for both are obtained by the perception of properties, and so long therefore as things are perceived to exist, they must also be perceived to possess the powers on which causation depends. The sequence has been constant and uniform since the creation of the world, unless when interrupted by the power of the Creator; and must necessarily remain constant and invariable till the present order of things be changed, when the mighty angel shall stand upon the earth and upon the sea, and lifting up his hand to heaven, shall swear by Him that liveth for ever and ever, that time shall be no longer.

OF AGENCY.

THE most general division of substances, on the principle of cause and effect, is into Creator and creature the eternal and almighty Creator on the one hand being the sole universal cause, and on the other, all other substances besides being the effects of his power.

Created substances themselves, again, by the appointment of the Creator, stand related to each other as cause and effect. From the lowest link in the chain of created being to the highest, all substances are known to us as causes; and the

higher we ascend, their causation assumes a more important character, till, among the higher classes of beings which inhabit this earth, it may be considered as a sort of creation in some respects analogous to that of the Deity. Inert and inanimate matter produces changes on substances which already exist; vegetables have the power of producing fruits and seeds, from which spring other organised bodies possessed of vegetable life; animals give birth to living and sentient beings like themselves, among whom man, in a higher degree, resembles the Creator, in bringing into existence a race of beings whose future life shall be commensurate with eternity, and who, therefore, in some sense, may be considered new substances. In this process of generation, there is something analogous to creation; in all other instances of causation, there is nothing effected but changes in substances which have already existence.

All the causes which compose the world in which we live may be divided into four great classes :-inauimate matter, vegetables, irrational animals, and moral beings. Among these a most regular and beautiful gradation subsists, and all the higher or more specific classes possess the natures of the lower or more general, with the addition of the specific nature by which they are distinguished. Vegetables, in addition to their vegetable life, have all the essential attributes of

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matter. Animals, besides the sentient and voluntary powers by which they are distinguished, retain all the attributes of inert and vegetable substances; for animal life, as it is called, apart from sensation, is nothing essentially different from mere vegetation. And man, at the head of the scale, to the essential powers of the merely material and vegetative substances and of the sentient and voluntary animal, adds an intelligent mind, capable of perceiving moral distinctions; and, hence, is constituted a rational and moral being.

Of these four great species of causes, the two last, namely, the voluntary and the moral, are usually distinguished by the name of agents, and their effects called actions. The same name is occasionally applied to other causes, when we talk, for instance, of the agencies of nature, chemical agents, chemical actions, &c. ; but in these cases the terms are employed in a figurative and technical sense; and in the present Essay we restrain them to their common and proper acceptation. Cause and effect are thus the genus of which agents and actions are the species-agents being voluntary and moral causes and actions their effects.

In every division of this sort, if correct, the species, as logicians inform us, must possess all the essential attributes of the genus, together with the properties peculiar to itself; and all,