stituted on a different principle: and in short, that the implanting of such a sense by the Creator, presupposes that he perceived an intrinsic excellence in what the sense was given to lead us to; without which no such sense would, to the best of our knowledge, have ever been given.

Certainly the existence of such a sense is an object about which our reason or understanding can be employed, as well as about the existence of our memory or imagination; and whether it was right that we should possess it, whether we ought to be guided by that sense or not, are questions which, do what we will, we cannot remove from the cognizance of reason; so that if a moral sense really existed, it could not yet be the ultimate judge of right and wrong, in so far as it may itself be an object about which such judgment is employed.

APPENDIX TO SECT. III.

Of the Nature of our Dependence on the Constancy of the Laws of Nature.

It appears to me that our belief in the constancy and uniformity of the laws of nature, is resolvable into our perception, that every effect (change) must have a cause: which implies, that we suppose every thing to remain the same as it once is, or has been, until there is a cause for change or alteration. The continuance then is the rule, the change, the exception; and we do not inquire

why a thing should have remained as it was, but why it should not have remained, if it has undergone any alteration. If I find a stone lying on the ground where I left it yesterday, I do not ask, how has it happened to remain there? but, if it has been removed, I ask,- how has it been removed? In like manner, if the stone continues of the same figure or colour, I do not imagine that this requires to be accounted for; but should its figure or colour have changed, this does require to be accounted for. All this seems very plain in respect to the figure or appearance of the stone; but suppose that any power has been once found to belong to it, such as that of exercising a particular chemical action on certain other substances, and we straightway ask, as something requiring to be explained, why we should expect this power to operate again, because we have seen it operate once? Just for the same reason, I should answer, that we expect to find the stone lying on the table where we had left it five minutes ago, and whence nobody has had an opportunity of removing it. The power here supposed to belong to the stone, is as much conceived to be permanent (bating the operation of other causes) as its size, figure, or position; and whatever reason exists for expecting it to continue unchanged in any one of these particulars, creates the same expectation in regard to any other.

It is evident, however, that this explanation

presupposes the notion of a power belonging, as a quality, to material substances; and this very notion of a power, has been represented by Dr. Brown as itself depending upon that law of our nature, by which we calculate upon like events succeeding like causes. But I apprehend our notion of power does not at all depend upon our experience of several sequences, but arises inevitably upon the perception of a single change. Although the experience of several sequences may be necessary to enable us to connect particular effects with particular causes, the notion of cause in general, arises on the perception of a single effect or change. Now the very notion of a cause involves that of power: cause is, in its very meaning, power: and, as I have said, a power once perceived to belong to any substance, must be expected to continue in it, until cause appears for the contrary.

There is, in the case under consideration, a sort of double application of the principle referred to; one of a positive, and one of a negative kind. The process may be thus exemplified. When, for the first time, I apply my hand to the conductor of an electrical jar, the shock I experience immediately suggests the notion of a cause, by which such effect has been produced - i. e. of something that has power to produce the effect. This is the positive application of the principle.

Without farther

experience, however, it is very likely I may not be

able to pronounce that the contact of my hand with the conductor, is the cause. Two or more trials, however, make me believe that this contact is the particular cause of the extraordinary sensation I have felt; in other words, that the conductor has a power, on being touched, to produce this sensation. On this ensues the negative application of the principle. To suppose that every change must have a cause, is to suppose that no change takes place without a cause. So long, then, as there is not actual reason for supposing a cause for change, so long there is no positive expectation of change; so long we expect every thing to continue the same. And a power once imagined to belong to any animated or inanimate being, is undoubtedly what enters as intimately into our general conception of that being, as any other component part of that conception; and we as little expect any change or cessation of that power, when no cause of such change is, on positive grounds, apprehended to take place, as we expect a change or cessation of any thing else which makes the being to be what it is. In short, I expect the power of the electrical jar to continue, for the same reason that I expect the figure of the jar to continue, or the jar itself to remain where I left it.

And on careful consideration it will appear, appear, that we cannot so properly be said to expect the continuance of the laws of nature, as not to apprehend

Accordingly,

the discontinuance of these laws. whenever a law appears to be interrupted, we do not satisfy ourselves with saying, why should we have supposed that this law would always continue? but we straightway look for an actual cause for its discontinuance; and according to the degree in which we can suppose such causes to intervene, our dependence on the constancy of a law is lessened.

We conceive of a power as resident either in a material substance, or in a living mind (whether the former can be conceived, but as caused by the latter, is not the question here)—and where we refer the power displayed in any of the operations of nature to the volitions of an agent, the supposition that he acts by design, or, at least, that he does not change his mode of acting without reason, preserves our expectation of uniformity the same as in the case first supposed.

Thus, the continuance of the sun's rising and setting, is either conceived by us as resulting from a power residing in that body, and of which a change is no more to be looked for, than in his size or figure, or as resulting from the power of an in

* A writer in Blackwood's Magazine endeavours to explain the matter entirely on our perception of design. I do not think this a sufficient explanation. But the thought seems, so far, a just one; and I do not remember to have met with it elsewhere. Remarks on Natural and Revealed Religion,

vol. i.