discriminating and unqualified approbation. On the other hand, with one exception, those English journals which have noticed it unfavourably, have appeared to us not sufficiently critical, thorough, and impartial, besides indulging too much in flippant personalities and irrelevant sarcasm. Avoiding these, we shall endeavour fairly to exhibit the train and substance of reasoning, and to justify the judgment we have expressed respecting his discourse. If our plan shall make the article less spirited and agreeable, we hope that, for the attentive reader, it will better promote the cause of truth. But we will not pass sentence before the evidence is adduced.

In the first section, after a few preliminary remarks, the writer attacks the common division of Science into the two great branches of Human and Divine. This he thinks necessary to the main design of his work, inasmuch as he supposes the division in question has arisen from the prejudice that Human Science and Divine are founded upon different kinds of evidence, and that it tends to perpetuate this prejudice. After having shown, as he supposes, that such a prejudice or principle could not be applied to classify the objects of ordinary scientific research, he concludes that it were equally erroneous to employ it, in order to make the general separation of all science into the two branches above mentioned.

This classification, according to the section before us, is not only inaccurate," as proceeding from an unsound principle of arrangement, but it also "materially impairs the force of the proofs upon which Natural Theology rests." We have no doubt but that the most of our readers will allow Lord Brougham at least the equivocal praise of originality in this part of his discourse; for few persons, we presume, have ever imagined that the division in question has arisen from such a source, or that it is attended with such a consequence.

But the attempt to do away the distinction between Human Science and Divine, is not more novel than the method pursued is curious. This is undertaken by showing that the principle of classification from which the author has supposed it to spring, cannot be applied to subdivide the general department of Human Science; and if it fail here, he asks, is it not equally fallacious when employed to make the more general division of all science into the two great branches under consideration? To use his own language:

"The careless inquirer into physical truth would certainly think he had seized on a sound principle of classification if he should divide the objects with which philosophy, natural and mental, is conversant, into two classes-those objects of which we know the VOL. L.-NO. II. 39

ness.

***

existence by our senses or our consciousness; that is, external ob. jects which we see, taste, touch, smell, internal ideas which we remember, or emotions which we feel-and those objects of which we only know the existence by a process of reasoning, founded upon something originally presented by the senses or by consciousBut a moment's reflection will show both how very short a way this classification would carry our inaccurate logician, and how entirely his principle fails to support him even during that little part of his journey. Thus, the examination of certain visible objects and appearances enables us to ascertain the laws of light and vision. Our senses teach us that colours differ, and that their mixture forms other hues; that their absence is black, their combination in certain preparations, white. We are in the same way enabled to understand that the organ of vision performs its functions by a natural apparatus resembling, though far surpassing, certain instruments of our own constructing, and that therefore it works on the same principles. But that light, which can be perceived directly by none of our senses, exists, as a separate body, we only infer by a process of reasoning from things which our senses do perceive. So we are acquainted with the effects of heat; we know that it extends the dimensions of whatever matter it penetrates; we feel its effects upon our own nerves when subjected to its operation; and we see its effects in augmenting, liquefying, and decomposing other bodies; but its existence as a separate substance we do not know, except by reasoning and by analogy. Again, to which of the two classes must we refer the air? Its existence is not made known by the sight, the smell, the taste; but is it by the touch? Assuredly a stream of it blown upon the nerves of touch produces a certain effect; but to infer from thence the existence of a rare, light, invisible, and impalpable fluid, is clearly an operation of reasoning, as much as that which enables us to infer the existence of light or heat from their perceptible effects."

The author continues thus to exclude the objects of Natural Philosophy, as he calls them, from the first class, by the application of this principle of his superficial logician, until he thinks himself justified in saying "Thus, then, there is at once excluded from the first class almost the whole range of Natural Philosophy." And he goes on to show that nothing remains, which, when severely examined, will stand the test. Thus, his argument is, that the principle of classification is unsound; for when applied to the objects of ordinary research it reduces them all to one class-the existence of all being made known by one and the same process of reasoning; and that class which the superficial inquirer supposes to fall under the cognizance of the senses or of consciousness, is, upon a severe examination, absolutely annihilated.

This passage, like several others in the work before us, is replete with error. In the first place, it is asserted that the effects of heat in expanding and decomposing bodies, are made known by the sense of sight, while its existence as a separate body is ascertained by a process of reasoning. But the truth is, both are made known by one and the same process. Heat produces a certain effect upon our senses, upon our minds; and we are so constituted that we cannot help conceiving of its separate existence. It affects us also through the medium of the changes it produces in other substances, as well as by its more immediate action upon the senses; and the same principle of suggestion which operated in the former case, forces the conviction upon the mind that an external change must have been the cause of this internal affection. Again, it is supposed that light, heat, and so forth, considered as separate substances or agents, are the proper objects of Natural Philosophy. But it is well known that in this respect Natural Philosophy has nothing at all to do with them. The effects, the changes, the phenomena, produced by these substances upon our minds, constitute the whole range of those objects about which Natural Philosophy is conversant.

But the error of his supposed inquirer, is not what Lord Brougham thought it to be: it does not eonsist in having adopted a principle of classification which would reduce all the objects of Natural Philosophy to the second class, but which would indeed leave them all in the first class, or those observed by the eye of consciousness :-It consists in having adopted a principle which would arrange all the objects of Natural Philosophy in one class, and those only in the second class that have been wholly excluded from the province of Natural Philosophy by our best philosophers.

We shall now proceed to notice a still more serious defect in this part of our author's work,-a defect, indeed, which runs through the whole discourse, and is the source of great confusion and perplexity. We allude to the substitution of a process of reasoning for the operation of a fundamental law of belief. Thus, the existence of an external substance is said to be ascertained by a process of reasoning; whereas it only makes an impression upon our senses and minds, and we cannot help believing in its separate existence as the cause of the impression. This principle of our constitution, which has been called a fundamental law of belief, and which is very distinct from the faculty of reason, is not recognized by our author. A process of reasoning is uniformly made to usurp its place and office. In every process of reasoning, there is, ac

cording to Lord Brougham's own admission, a comparison of ideas; but in the process by which we become acquainted with the existence of matter and of mind, there is no comparison of ideas whatever, and consequently no process of reasoning. One idea is suggested by another, but there is no comparison between them. The latter process is voluntary; the former is spontaneous and irresistible.

If his Lordship had seized upon this principle of our mental constitution, about which so much has been said, under different names, by modern writers, his argument might have been far more clear and satisfactory. But he has taken no notice of it whatever, and without it, every system of Natural Theology must be radically defective in its evidence. By excluding it from his treatise, he has rendered an essential disservice to the very cause which he has so zealously espoused. For it is well known by those who are acquainted with the speculations of Hume, and the discussions to which they gave rise, that experience and reasoning alone cannot constitute a sound basis of evidence for the truths of Natural Theology. On this point let us quote the following from Dugald Stewart :

"Among those who have denied the possibility of tracing design from its effects, Mr. Hume is the most eminent, and he seems to have considered his reasonings on this subject as forming one of the most splendid parts of his philosophy; according to him all such inferences are inconclusive, being neither demonstrable by reasoning nor deducible from experience.

"In examining Mr. Hume's argument on this subject, Dr. Reid admits that the inferences we make of design from its effects are not the result of reasoning or experience; but still he contends such inferences may be made with a degree of certainty equal to what the human mind is able to attain in any instance whatever. The opinions we form of the talents of other men, nay, our belief that other men are intelligent beings, are founded on the very inference of design from its effects. Intelligence and design are not objects of our senses; and yet we judge of them every moment from external conduct and behaviour, with as little hesitation as we pronounce on the existence of what we immediately perceive.

"While Dr. Reid contends in this manner for the authority of this important principle of our constitution, he bestows due praise on Mr. Hume for the acuteness with which he has exposed the inconclusiveness of the common demonstrations of the existence of a designing cause, to be found among the

writers on natural religion; and he acknowledges the service that, without intending it, he has thereby rendered to the cause of truth; inasmuch as, by the alarming consequences he deduces from his doctrine, he has invited philosophers to an accurate examination of a subject which had formerly been considered in a very superficial manner, and has pointed out to them indirectly the true foundation on which this important article of our belief ought to be placed."

There is only one way in which the truths of Natural Theology can be shown to rest upon a sound and immutable basis. This way has been pointed out indirectly by Hume, and intentionally by Reid. Yet this way has been overlooked by Lord Brougham, although to make it known to others is the proposed object of his Discourse! Is it not surprising, that in an attempt to place Natural Theology upon a sure footing, he should have carried her back to that position from which she had already been dislodged; and that, too, after the discussions of others had so clearly shown the only grounds upon which her claims to certainty can be vindicated? "It is good," says Chalmers, "to know what be the strong positions of an argument, and to keep by them-taking up our intrenchment there and willing to relinquish all that is untenable."

Having mentioned Dr. Chalmers, it may be proper to notice his opinion respecting the answer of Reid and Stewart to the atheistical argument of Mr. Hume. As far as his censure goes in regard to the error of Reid, in unnecessarily multiplying first principles, we concur with him; but there is no echo in our heart to the language in which he accuses these philosophers of having "conjured up" certain principles, before unheard of, for the sole purpose of refuting Mr. Hume. We consider the proceeding of Dr. Chalmers as a stronger confirmation of the opinion we have advanced, than if he had borne direct testimony to it; for, after having denounced the attempt of Reid and Stewart to invalidate the argument of the atheist, and proposed to meet Mr. Hume on his own ground, he is, nevertheless, compelled to resort to a first principle, or fundamental law of belief, in order to accomplish his purpose. Indeed, if he had attempted to answer Mr. Hume upon his own ground as he proposed, his argument would have been incomplete and untenable. And if this were the proper place, we might easily show that his argument, though different in words and form, is yet substantially the same with that of Mr.

Stewart.

The second section of Lord Brougham's book contains a comparison between the physical branch of Natural Theolo