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without experience, what has been the cause of a certain effect; yet we know most certainly, that, wherever there is a change, it must have been effected by a cause of some kind.

No new instinct need be invented to account for our belief in the future uniformity of the sequences of cause and effect: for, having once drawn the inference, that there is something in the very nature of a substance, which adapts it for giving rise to certain changes in certain circumstances, we necessarily believe that while the substance exists, or while its nature is unaltered, the same changes will be produced by it in the same circumstances. But it is not our present object to account for the origin of the idea of power that we reserve to its proper place. Enough for the present chapter if the views of Mr. Hume, and Dr. Brown, have been exhibited in their true colours, and this most important idea re-instated in its place among our other

notions.

DEDUCED FROM CHAPTERS II. AND III.

COROLLARY I.

THE candid enquirer after truth in the philosophy of mind, while he avoids assuming as fixed truths, those ideas of things, which, from our common circumstances naturally arise in the minds of all or most men, must nevertheless assume that these ideas really are entertained in our minds: and must proceed on this assumption as the basis of all his reasonings. The apparent diurnal motion of the heavenly bodies round the earth, the apparent annual motion of the sun in the ecliptic, and the alternately advancing stationary and retrograde states of the planets, are assumed by the natural philosopher as real appearances, and must be so assumed before he can advance one step towards a knowledge of their true motions. What should we think of that natural philosopher, who set out with questioning whether there were really any such appearances in the heavens, or with dictating to all mankind that they are different from what all men suppose. Even so in the philosophy of mind, we must set out with the appearances in the intellectual horizon, such as they are universally perceived to be by men of unsophisticated minds,-we must assume those ideas

which all men are conscious of, to be such as all men naturally conceive them, without altering them, or explaining them away, or denying that they exist. These are the data we have to go upon, and, if there be apparent anomalies in them, those very anomalies may assist us in ascertaining truth. For a philosopher to set out with asserting that we have no idea of substance or of power, or that these ideas are different from what all men suppose, or, setting out with any principles, to arrive at this conclusion, is the first and the greatest of absurdities.

This corollary, being deduced from the analogy of moral and natural philosophy, might with propriety have formed part of the second chapter; but an instance of the violation of the principle here laid down, having been considered at large in the third chapter, it appeared to me more proper to defer it, that it might stand on the united evidence of these two chapters.

COROLLARY II.

As some collateral light to guide the student through the obscure subjects of mental philosophy is derived from the clear and determinate principles of natural philosophy, it is manifest that the study of mathematical and physical

science should always precede that of mind and morals. The ancients saw and approved this method; although natural philosophy was then but in its infancy, and consequently an error would have been more excusable in them. But in this, as in some other instances, they made a better use of a feebler light. And in consequence of the order in which they very judiciously arranged the course of study, they gave to our department of philosophy the name of тa μɛta тa pνoika, —The sequel of physical science. τα μετα τα φυσικα,

It would appear, however, in some instances to have been the ambition of modern wisdom, to learn how the ancients did, and, after applauding their institutions, to do exactly the reverse. The present is one of those cases. Our students of philosophy are taught how the sages of old insisted on the necessity of cultivating mathematical and physical science prior to an entrance upon metaphysics: and yet in our curriculum of education, the directors of our Universities have placed the study of mind and morals, prior to mathematical science and natural philosophy. It may not be easy to induce those respectable seminaries to alter their arrangement. But here, at least, I am at liberty to follow my own judgment, and to place again over the threshold of the philosophy of mind that long-neglected motto

ΟΥΔΕΙΣ ΑΓΕΩΜΕΤΡΗΤΟΣ ΕΙΣΙΤΩ.

Let none enter uninstructed in mathematical science.

CHAPTER IV.

OF MATTER AND SPIRIT.

POSTULATE. The being which thinks is one and not many.

Every man will easily concede that the conscious thinking being which he calls himself is one and indivisible. He may lose a limb, yet he still continues as much himself as he was before. That ONE CONSCIOUS BEING remains, which he calls himself.

Unity cannot, in the same sense, be predicted of the body. It consists of many particles, which are all separate and distinct existences, though possessing certain affinities for one another. Every mass of matter, is, in reality, many particles assembled; it is our thought or conception of it that gives it unity. We observe that its particles, by their relative positions, conspire in the constitution of a certain form, or in the production of a certain effect. We, therefore, ascribe unity to it, though,

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