but not for that belief of future realities, which is a very different state of mind, and which, perhaps, does not follow every such suggestion, however frequent and habitual. The phenomenon A, a stone has a thousand times fallen to the earth; the phenomenon B, a stone will always, in the same circumstances, fall to the earth; are propositions that differ as much as the propositions, A, a stone has once fallen to the earth; B, a stone will always fall to the earth. At whatever link of the chain we begin, we must still meet with the same difficulty-the conversion of the past into the future. If it be absurd to make this conversion at one stage of inquiry, it is just as absurd to make it at any other stage, and as far as our memory extends, there never was a time at which we did not make the instantaneous conversion, -no period, however early, at which we were capable of knowing that a stone had fallen, and yet believed, that in exactly the same circumstances, there was no reason to suppose that it would fall again."

It is pleasant to find Dr. Brown thus employed in confuting Mr. Hume, and inventing a special instinct,* to account for our belief that the course

* Dr. Reid, indeed, uses the word "instinctive," as applied to the belief which infant children have, that an event which they have observed in certain circumstances, will happen again in like circumstances. Active Powers, Essay III. Ch. ii. And Mr. Stewart has extended the use of the word to the same belief in men, being seduced in this by the example of his master, who

This is a

of nature will continue unvaried. curious phenomenon. Here is a sequence, the observation of a stone's fall, followed by the belief that in similar circumstances it will always fall :— Does this satisfy Dr. Brown? No, he introduces a hypothetical instinct, to form an intermediate link. And he also accounts for that instinct by referring it to the appointment of God. In so doing he departs from his own principles, and thereby may be said to confute himself as well as Mr. Hume. But he proceeds:

Is

"It is more immediately our present purpose to consider-What it truly is, which is the object of inquiry, when we examine the physical successions of events, in whatever manner the belief of their similarity of sequence may have arisen? it the mere series of regular antecedents and consequents themselves? Or is it any thing more mysterious, which must be supposed to intervene and connect them by some invisible bondage?"

Ask Dr. Reid this question;- you will find an explicit answer in the passage which has been selected from his works. There he expressly

sometimes calls a thing instinctive, when he means only that it is unaccountable. Dr. Reid seems to have disbelieved the activity of the thinking powers in children. Mr. Stewart is more blameable, however, in this case than he. But, whether Dr. Brown is entitled to be sheltered under the authority of Reid is questionable. The matter assumes a new character from him, and may be called his own invention.

says, that the proper object of physical inquiry, is merely to ascertain the order of the successive phenomena, or, in other words, to discover the laws of nature. We have nothing to do with any thing more mysterious. Yet one would imagine from what Dr. Brown has written, that Dr. Reid had declared himself adverse to this principle. But Dr. Brown is not content that this principle should be received in all our physical inquiries--he asserts it as a universal truth, that

"Power is significant not of any thing different from the invariable antecedent itself, but of the mere invariableness of the order of its appearance in reference to some invariable consequent :-the invariable antecedent being denominated a cause, the invariable consequent an effect!" And again he says, "To express, shortly, what appears to me to be the only intelligible meaning of the three most important words in physics, immediate invariable antecedence is power,—the immediate invariable antecedent, in any sequence, is a cause,—the immediate invariable consequent is the correlative effect."

"It would, indeed," says he,† "be a very different theory of causation, if without taking into account the important circumstance of invariableness, or the uniform certainty of being at all times followed by a particular event, we were to say

that power is mere antecedence; for there can be no question that phenomena precede other phenomena, which we never consider as having any permanent relation to them. They are regarded as antecedents, but not as invariable antecedents. Yet it is only by losing all sight of a distinction so very obvious, that Dr. Reid and other eminent philosophers have been led into much laborious argumentation in the confidence of confuting one of the simplest and justest of metaphysical opinions."

I cannot help feeling displeased with the arrogance and dogmatism of the last sentence, especially when I reflect that this writer has himself found it necessary partially to confute Mr. Hume, and that consequently this statement is made in the confidence of his own solitary opinion. But passing that over, let Dr. Brown proceed.

"That one event should invariably be followed by another event is, indeed, it will be allowed, as every thing in nature is, most wonderful, and can be ascribed only to the infinite Source of every thing wonderful and sublime, the will of that Divine Being, who gave the universe its laws, and who formed these with a most beneficent arrangement for the happiness of his creatures, who, without a belief in the uniformity of these laws, to direct their conduct, could not have known how to preserve even their animal existence."

This long sentence is worthy of our particular

attention for by this the author makes it manifest that he thought there must be some reason for the invariableness with which an effect follows its cause. This very invariableness is the most wonderful circumstance of all; and he so far respects

the understandings of his readers, as to think it worthy of an explanation. The reason too which he here assigns is quite satisfactory and would have been so to his opponent Dr. Reid. But mark what he says soon after.* "Our notion of power even in the Almighty is nothing different in nature from what he has defined,-namely, immediate and invariable antecedence! He wills and it is done, this is the sequence: his will is the invariable antecedent, its accomplishment the invariable consequent: we have no idea beyond this mere uniform succession of events." But if Dr. Brown thought it due to the understandings of his readers to assign a reason for the invariableness of other sequences, are we not entitled to demand a reason for the invariableness of this sequencea sequence of so much more importance than any other? In order to account for the uniformity of the order of antecedents and consequents he places another uniform antecedent at the head of all. Does this make the case any better? Not a whit, the order of antecedents and consequents was just as well accounted for without it. It is