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NOTE III.-Text 140.

CAUSE AND EFFECT.

I. There is through all nature a regular succession of

events.

If a spark be put to gunpowder it will explode. If a stone strike a pane of glass it will break; if ice be exposed to heat it will melt. It is thus we see that certain events regularly succeed each other in the inanimate world, and there is the same succession of events in bodies animate.

Take a frozen snake with some of the snow around it and place it before a small fire; take a lupin or any other seed and place it early in the month of May in the ground, or take some new laid eggs and place them in due warmth, and you may perceive the snake to move, to open its eyes, and soon to quit the snow in which it was shrouded: the lupin will rise above the surface of the earth, and you will see branches and leaves and flowers: the egg will open and a small bird appear. It is thus we see that there is a regular sequence of events by the action of inanimate upon animate bodies.

There is the same sequence of events attendant upon the action of animate bodies on each other: of mind upon mind. Take, for instance, the effect of distress upon the female mind. In some book of Travels, I think it is Mungo Park's in Africa, he says, I never when in distress and misery applied for relief to a female without finding pity, and if she bad the power, assistance." Griffith in his Travels, says,—

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"On the northern side of the plain we had just entered, was a large encampment of these people, composed of brown and white tents, which, though low and small, wore an aspect even of comfort as well as regularity. Being in absolute want of milk, I determined to solicit the assistance of these Turcomans. Approaching the tent therefore with gradual step and apparent indifference, I passed several without observing any probability of succeeding; children only were to be seen near the spot where I was, and men with their flocks at a certain distance. Advancing still further, I saw a woman at the entrance of a small tent, occupied in domestic employment: convinced that an appeal to the feelings of the female sex, offered with decency by a man distressed with hunger, would not be rejected, I held out my wooden bowl, and reversing it, made a salutation according to the forms of the country, urging my suit by gestures. The kind

Turcomaunee covered her face precipitately and retired within the tent, she was alone, I did not advance a step, until that curiosity which it were ungracious in me to disapprove, induced her to peep from behind her coarse retreat. She saw me unassuming: my inverted bowl still explained my wants, and a salutation repeated seemed to be addressed to her hospitality. The timidity of her sex, the usages of her country, and even the fear of danger, gave way to the benevolence of her heart. She went to the tent again, returned speedily with a bowl of milk, and advancing towards me with a glance more than half averted, filled my bowl to the brim and vanished."

II. All the order and happiness in the world depends upon the regular sequence of events.

All things that are, have some operation not violent or casual. Neither doth any thing ever begin to exercise the same, without some fore-conceived end for which it worketh. And the end which it worketh for is not obtained unless the work be also fit to obtain it by. For unto every end every operation will not serve. That which doth assign unto each thing the kind, that which doth moderate the force and power, that which appoints the form and measure of working, the same we term a law. So that no certain end could ever be attained, unless the actions whereby it is attained were regular, that is to say, made suitable, fit, and correspondent unto their end, by some canon rule of law.―HOOKer's eccle

SIASTICAL POLITIE.

The blessings which result from the regular sequence of events will be evident by a moment's consideration of the misery attendant upon an interruption of this regularity;— suppose, for instance, that calculating upon the nutritious effects of food it was to have the effect of poison, or that sugar had the effect of arsenic; or that fire, instead of exhilarating by a genial warmth, had the violent effects of gunpowder; or that, at the moment of attack, gunpowder ceased to be inflammable, is it not obvious what misery must result?

III. Our power depends upon our knowledge of the sequence of events.

Archimedes by his knowledge of optics was enabled to burn the Roman fleet before Syracuse, and baffle the unceasing efforts of Marcellus to take the town.-An Athenian admiral delayed till evening to attack, on the coast of Attica, a Lacedemonian fleet, which was disposed in a circle, be

cause he knew that an evening breeze always sprung up from the land. The breeze arose, the circle was disordered, and at that moment he made his onset. The Athenian captives by repeating the strains of Euripides were enabled to charm their masters into a grant of their liberty.

IV. When two events, both of which are perceptible, follow each other without any connection between them, and the cause of the succeeding event is latent, there is a tendency to ascribe the succeeding event to the improper cause.

The anecdote from Bishop Latimer as to Tenderden steeple is an instance of this species of error, ante 139.

A common instance of this species of error is in the lovenote of the spider, called the death watch. Sitting by the bed of a sick or dying friend, when all is still, the noise of the spider is heard a short time, perhaps, before the death of the sufferer; and the events are, therefore, supposed to be connected. Astrology is, perhaps, founded upon this delusion.

V. When the connection of events is unknown, Ignorance refers the event to what is called " Chance ;" and Superstition, which is ignorance in another form, to the immediate agency of some superior benevolent or malevolent being: but Philosophy endeavours to discover the antecedent in the chain of events.

See the anecdote respecting the Spectre of the Broken, in note, ante 222, as to the different conclusions of ignorance and philosophy.

Dr. Arnot, in his work on Physics, says, "It happened once on board a ship sailing along the coast of Brazil, 100 miles from land, that the persons walking on deck, when passing a particular spot, heard most distinctly the sounds of bells, varying as in human rejoicings. All on board listened and were convinced; but the phenomenon was mysterious and inexplicable." The different ideas which this would excite in the minds of ignorance and intelligence may be easily conceived. "Some months afterwards," continues Dr. Arnot, "it was ascertained that, at the time of observation the bells of the city of St. Salvador, on the Brazilian coast, had been ringing on the occasion of a festival: the sound therefore, favoured by a gentle wind, had travelled over 100 miles of smooth water; and striking the wide-spread sail of the ship, rendered concave by a gentle breeze, had been brought to a focus, and rendered perceptible." Of the consternation occasioned in uninformed minds by lightning we are all aware. How different is the effect upon unin

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formed minds, and upon the mind of the philosopher in his quiet retreat. Dr. Franklin, speaking of conductors, says, "A rod was fixed to the top of my chimney, and extended about nine feet above it. From the foot of this rod, a wire the thickness of a goose-quill came through a covered glass tube in the roof, and down through the well of the staircase; the lower end connected with the iron spear of a lamp. On the staircase opposite to my chamber door the wire was divided; the ends separated about six inches, a little bell on each end, and between the bells a little brass ball suspended by a silk thread, to play between and strike the bells when clouds passed with electricity in them." Instances of the same nature may with a little observation be constantly discovered. Dreams are to the ignorant, often objects of terror; to the intelligent they are evidence of some diseased state of the body, or agitated state of the mind.

VI. Ignorance, by stopping at second causes hus a tendency, forgetting the prime cause to be sceptical; but philosophy looks through to the cause of all things.

"Looks through Nature, up to Nature's God." Lord Bacon says, For certain it is that God worketh nothing in nature but by second causes; and if they would have it otherwise believed it is mere imposture, as it were, in favour towards God and nothing else but to offer to the Author of truth the unclean sacrifice of a lie. But farther, it is an assured truth, and a conclusion of experience, that a little or superficial knowledge of philosophy may incline the mind of man to atheism, but a farther proceeding therein doth bring the mind back again to religion; for in the entrance of philosophy, when the second causes, which are next unto the senses, do offer themselves to the mind of man, if it dwell and stay there, it may induce some oblivion of the highest cause; but when a man passeth on further, and seeth the dependence of causes and the works of Providence then, according to the allegory of the poets, he will easily believe that the highest link of nature's chain must needs be tied to the foot of Jupiter's chair."

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And to the same effect, David Hume in his general corollary at the conclusion of his Essays, says, "Though the stupidity of men, barbarous and uninstructed, be so great, that they may not see a sovereign author in the more obvious works of nature, to which they are so much familiarized, yet it scarce seems possible, that any one of good understanding should reject the idea, when once it is suggested to him. purpose, an intention, a design, is evident in every thing;

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and when our comprehension is so far enlarged as to contemplate the first rise of this visible system, we must adopt, with the strongest conviction, the idea of some intelligent cause or author.

So, too, Browne, in his beautiful work on Cause and Effect, says, "Wherever we turn our eyes, to the earth, to the heavens, to the myriads of beings that live and move around us, or to those more than myriads of worlds, which seem themselves almost like animate inhabitants of the infinity through which they range; above us, beneath us, on every side, we discover with a certainty that admits not of doubt, intelligence and design, that must have preceded the existence of every thing which exists." The power of the Omnipotent is indeed so transcendent in itself, that the loftiest imagery and language which we can borrow from a few passing events in the boundlessness of nature, must be feeble to express its force and universality.

It seems, therefore, that

1. There is through all nature a regular sequence of

events.

2. All the order and happiness in the world depends upon the regular sequence of events.

3. Our power depends upon our knowledge of the sequence

of events.

4. When two events, both of which are perceptible, follow each other without any connection between them, and the cause of the succeeding event is latent, there is a tendency to ascribe the succeeding event to the improper cause.

5. When the connection of events is unknown, Ignorance refers the event to what is called "Chance:" and Superstition, which is ignorance in another form, to the immediate agency of some superior benevolent or malevolent being: but Philosophy endeavours to discover the antecedent in the chain of events.

6. Ignorance, by stopping at second causes, has a tendency, forgetting the prime cause, to be sceptical: but philosophy looks through to the cause of all things.