PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE, OR THE BOOK OF GOOD SENSE: IN WHICH ARE REVEALED THE LAWS OF THE INTELLECTUAL WORLD, FOUNDED ON THE LAWS OF THE PHYSICAL WORLD. BEING THE SOURCE OF MORAL TRUTH OR SENSITIVE GOOD, AS THE SUN IS THE SOURCE OF LIGHT, HEAT AND MOTION TO THE EARTH. It would only require a man of an original genius, to give perhaps an entirely new direction to the human sciences; he would search a profound depth, where our vision does not penetrate, and thence deduce a parent idea absolutely new, which would discover to us an unknown world. Let us await-hope for this Philosopher of Nature-to foresee this possibility, is a species of prediction, that seems an earnest of his coming.-M. MERCIER. Mere Science knows not Moral's noble plan, BY JOHN STEWART, THE CITIZEN OF NATURE. AT ITS OWN EPOCH, YEAR OF THE WORLD, ACCORDING TO THE CHINESE ASTRONOMICAL TABLES, 7,000. THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE, OR BOOK OF GOOD SENSE A theorem of the utmost importance to the human family, in relation to their actual happiness, and to the accomplishment of universal good, is, whether intellectual power extends beyond experience? It is certain that all the speculations upon practical and theoretic good, ought finally to be tested by experiment; for whatever may be the systems of politics, morals, or philosophy that the mind pleases to form, they ought all to be handed over to experiment, by practical institutions, that their utility may be determined; the essays of the imagination that overstep the limits of experiment can only serve as impulses or motives of action. The man who sees in existence, no other relations than the predicaments of mode or of person, of family or of country, will experience no impulse of perfectibility, his moral energies will all be bounded by the society in which he lives, whether civilized or savage; and during life and after death, his atoms will be dispersed in the universe, without augmenting the moral energies of the person or of the race, and without advancing human perfectibility, the grand characteristic of man and the distinctive aim of his existence. Metaphysics and supernatural mysteries, have so grossly abused the mind of man, that he has renounced the energies of speculation and of perfectibility, and sought at last an asylum in the narrow circle of experimentalism, which forbids the mind of man to yield to the influences of analogical speculations, however intelligible they may be, if they exceed the bounds of experience. The doctrine of experimentalism, which prevails on the continent of Europe, can only exist as a transient form among unreflecting minds, and weak men of science. It is directly opposed to the laws of intellectual power; for how can the march of thought be prevented from following the laws of its own action, by means of ideas, opinions, analogical conjectures and fantasies, The first law of intellect teaches us when a word is pronounced, to examine whether there exists a sensible object which corresponds to it; if there is one, we may consider the word as well used. If afterwards this object is unfolded in all the relations which are susceptible of being brought to experiment, there result from it scientific sentiments, or sentiments of experience. When, finally, we extend these sentiments beyond experiment, we come to form reasonable and intelligible analogies, which do not make a certainty, but which have, nevertheless, sufficient probability to influence the actions of men, as much as certainty itself. For example, by the analogy drawn from the fact of frost in past winters, we expect frost in coming winters, for although what is future cannot be subjected to experiment, yet analogy should serve as a motive to make provision for the event, as much as if it was an object of absolute certainty. The rising of the sun, and the permanence of all the laws of Nature, are analogical notions, and yet they produce motives to acțion, as powerful as experience; and the dogmas of French expe rimentalism cannot hinder it, since it is a law of intellec tual power, which neither irony nor imbecile logic can annul. I will examine by the proof of mental discipline, my grand parent idea, which discovers the whole constitution of Nature, moral and physical; I mean the idea of the transmutation of matter. This idea comes from a sensible object, and may be proved by the organ of smelling; the perspiration is perceived by the nose throughout a great apartment, that of a dog, a horse, or other animal, is perceived in the atmos phere, and the particles sent out from a body by this perspiration must be reabsorbed by the pores of surrounding bodies. By other experiments, we may prove, that the particles of matter are sent out, even to several hundred miles over the surface of the earth, for in the Indies the perfume of spices is perceived at this distance. The influenza is borne from the north to the south of Europe, and the cold particles from the poles, reach to the equator in the continent of America. It is thus that the particles of a single mode are dispersed, afterwards to enter in whole systems; that the particles of a human body emit. ted by perspiration during life and after death, are scattered over the surface of the whole earth; and although we cannot bring these notions of analogy to experiment, they will not fail to inspire in all sensible men, the desire to provide for the well being of his own atoms, when they shall be scattered in all the nations of the earth. "I know," the experimentalist will reply, "these laws of chemistry, the facts, the sentiments, and the intelligible notions of analogy which result from them; but I give no credence to the moral consequences that you pretend to deduce from them; that is, to the reciprocal interests of all particles of matter; for," says he, "the intimate knowledge of iden tity, that each mode ought to have, does not exist in the particles which are dispersed by transmutation; for exam. ple, the matter which composes the bodies of men, does not retain the knowledge of its past state, when after having been transmuted, it becomes part of the bodies of millions of other men or of horses." To this frivolous objection, I answer, that if the same imperishable matter is dispersed into different organic bodies, the existing pleasing or painful sensations of these bodies, have nothing to do with the forgetting or remembering of their past state; and if the matter comprised in a single human existence, or form, causes the evil which may be transmitted to all sensitive life, spread over the surface of the earth, and which there meets the same matter that has been the cause of evil in its scattered state; the loss of memory, or of the knowledge of its identity in passing from one body into others, would not have the least effect, to augment or diminish the good or bad sensations of the same matter which depends not at all upon the memory. I know how much the human mind is prone to be deceived by reasonings, founded upon false analogies, and by a mental idolatry established on the opinion of intellectual design throughout all Nature; whose laws can. never produce the harmony of means and ends, because of the mutability of moral circumstances which render analogy nearly useless, and which destroy the resemblance of cause and effect in the moral world. In the history of the world, for example, facts have not sufficient parallel |