be instituted without any exercise of knowledge and intelligence? can material objects apply geometry and calculation to themselves? can the lenses of the eye, for instance, be formed and adjusted with an exact suitableness to their refractive powers, while there is in the agency which has framed them no consciousness of the laws of light, of the course of rays, of the visible properties of things? This appears to be altogether inconceivable.

Every particle of matter possesses an almost endless train of properties, each acting according to its peculiar and fixed laws. For every atom of the same kind of matter, these laws are invariably and perpetually the same; while for different kinds of matter, the difference of these properties is equally constant. This constant and precise resemblance, this variation equally constant and equally regular, suggest irresistibly the conception of some cause, independent of the atoms themselves, by which their similarity and dissimilarity, the agreement and difference of their deportment under the same circumstances, have been determined. Such a view of the constitution of matter, as is observed by an eminent writer of our own time, effectually destroys the idea of its eternal and self-existent nature, "by giving to each of its atoms the essential characters, at once, of a manufactured article, and a subordinate agent." *

That such an impression, and the consequent belief in a divine Author of the universe, by whom its laws were ordained and established, does result from the philosophical contemplation of nature, will, we trust,

* Herschel on the Study of Nat. Phil., Art. 28.

become still more evident by tracing the effect produced upon men's minds by the discovery of such laws and properties as those of which we have been speaking; and we shall therefore make a few observations on this subject.

CHAP. V.-On Inductive Habits; or, on the Impression produced on Men's minds by discovering Laws of Nature.

THE object of physical science is to discover such laws and properties as those of which we have spoken in the last chapter. In this task, undoubtedly a progress has been made on which we may well look with pleasure and admiration; yet we cannot hesitate to confess that the extent of our knowledge on such subjects bears no proportion to that of our ignorance. Of the great and comprehensive laws which rule over the widest provinces of natural phenomena, few have yet been disclosed to us. And the names of the philosophers, whose high office it has been to detect such laws, are even yet far from numerous. In looking back at the path by which science has advanced to its present position, we see the names of the great discoverers shine out like luminaries, few and scattered along the line by far the largest portion of the space is occupied by those whose comparatively humble office it was to verify, to develope, to apply the general truths which the discoverers brought to light.

It will readily be conceived that it is no easy matter, if it be possible, to analyse the process of thought by which laws of nature have thus been discovered; a process which, as we have said, has been in so few

*

instances successfully performed. We shall not here make any attempt at such an analysis. But without this, we conceive it may be shown that the constitution and employment of the mind on which such discoveries depend, are friendly to that belief in a wise and good Creator and Governor of the world, which it has been our object to illustrate and confirm. And if it should appear that those who see further than their fellows into the bearings and dependencies of the material things and elements by which they are surrounded, have also been, in almost every case, earnest and forward in acknowledging the relation of all things to a supreme intelligence and will, we shall be fortified in our persuasion that the true scientific perception of the general constitution of the universe, and of the mode in which events are produced and connected, is fitted to lead us to the conception and belief of God.

Let us consider for a moment what takes place in the mind of a student of nature when he attains to the perception of a law previously unknown, connecting the appearances which he has studied. A mass of facts which before seemed incoherent and unmeaning, assume, on a sudden, the aspect of connexion and intelligible order. Thus, when Kepler discovered the law which connects the periodic times with the diameters of the planetary orbits; or, when Newton showed how this and all other known mathematical properties of the solar system were included in the law of universal gravitation according to the inverse square of the distance; particular circumstances which, before, were merely matter of independent record, became,

from that time, indissolubly conjoined by the laws so discovered. The separate occurrences and facts, which might hitherto have seemed casual and without reason, were now seen to be all exemplifications of the same truth. The change is like that which takes place when we attempt to read a sentence written in difficult or imperfect characters. For a time the separate parts appear to be disjoined and arbitrary marks; the suggestions of possible meanings, which succeed each other in the mind, fail, as fast as they are tried, in combining, or accounting for, these symbols: but at last the true supposition occurs; some words are found to coincide with the meaning thus assumed; the whole line of letters appear to take definite shapes and to leap into their proper places; and the truth of the happy conjecture seems to flash upon us from every part of the inscription.

The discovery of laws of nature, truly and satisfactorily connecting and explaining phenomena, of which, before, the connexion and causes had been unknown, displays much of a similar process, of obscurity succeeded by evidence, of effort and perplexity followed by conviction and repose. The innumerable conjectures and failures, the glimpses of light perpetually opening and as often clouded over, by which Kepler was tantalised, the unwearied perseverance and inexhaustible ingenuity which he exercised, while seeking for the laws which he finally discovered, are, thanks to his communicative disposition, curiously exhibited in his works, and have been narrated by his biographers; and such efforts and alternations, modified

by character and circumstances, must generally precede the detection of any of the wider laws and dependencies by which the events of the universe are regulated. We may readily conceive the satisfaction and delight with which, after this perplexity and struggle, the discoverer finds himself in light and tranquillity; able to look at the province of nature which has been the subject of his study, and to read there an intelligible connexion, a sufficing reason, which no one before him had understood or apprehended.

This step so much resembles the mode in which one intelligent being understands and apprehends the conceptions of another, that we cannot be surprised if those persons in whose minds such a process has taken place, have been most ready to acknowledge the existence and operation of a superintending intelligence, whose ordinances it was their employment to study. When they had just read a sentence of the table of the laws of the universe, they could not doubt whether it had had a legislator. When they had decyphered there a comprehensive and substantial truth, they could not believe that the letters had been thrown together by chance. They could not but readily acknowledge that what their faculties had enabled them to read, must have been written by some higher and profounder mind. And accordingly, we conceive it will be found, on examining the works of those to whom we owe our knowledge of the laws of nature, and especially of the wider and more comprehensive laws, that such persons have been strongly and habitually impressed with the persuasion of a Divine Purpose