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, that we cannot so properly be said to expect the continuance of the laws of nature, as not to apprehend

the discontinuance of these laws. Accordingly, 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.

telligent agent, who will continue to have the same reasons for this exercise of his power as formerly; or at least will not discontinue the exercise of it, but for a reason. The material inquiry then is, not why we should suppose the sun to continue his revolution, but why we should suppose he would not. And accordingly, our belief is not so properly the positive one, that the sun will rise, as the negative one that nothing will occur to prevent his rising; and at all events our belief is not as of a certainty, but of a high probability.

SECT. IV.

Of positive Arguments against the Supposition that REASON judges of Moral Distinctions.

Looking to the difficulties which press upon the opinion that moral distinctions exist merely as the consequence of a peculiar susceptibility of sensation or emotion belonging to the spectator, -looking also to the insufficiency of this opinion in itself to explain the phenomena of our moral sentiments, it might be supposed that the theory opposed to it, that, namely, which represents such distinctions as the subject of certain truths resulting from the nature of things, and perceived by reason, the judgment, or understanding, must be liable to some objections of extraordinary magnitude, if its pretensions, as has generally been the case, have been passed over in a slight and superficial manner by those who reject it. Yet on the most diligent search for such objections, I can say, with truth, I have been able to find literally none, which do not resolve either into a mere assertion of the matter in dispute, or into the maintenance of some point not at all inconsistent with the conclusions to which it is sought to be placed in contradiction. What may pass for such objections, will be found reducible to one or other of the three following heads.

I. One class of arguments seeks to prove, on positive grounds, the existence of a moral sense as a distinct faculty: the effect of which, if established, might be, to make the use of reason, as a moral faculty, appear either inadequate or superfluous.

But the arguments that are employed for this purpose, prove, not the existence of such a faculty as opposed to reason, but as opposed to an entire insensibility to moral distinctions; or as opposed to self-love, considered as the sole spring of human actions. Of this let the following passage from Dr. Hutcheson serve as an example.

"That this sense is implanted by nature is evident from this, that, in all ages and nations, certain tempers and actions are universally approved and their contraries condemned, even by such as have in view no interest of their own. Many artful accounts of all this, as flowing from views of interest, have been given by ingenious men; but whosoever will examine these accounts, will find that they rather afford arguments to the contrary,