.cannot be subjected to invariable laws, such as science enacts. This objection is not devoid of plausibility. To the careless it would be insuperable. It is, however, true-not whether human conduct is variable-but so variable, that it cannot be reduced to invariable laws? Is there not a constancy of causation sufficiently discernible for all the purposes of science? Are motives the result of blind impulse, and actions the chances of circumstances? Why, to a scientific mind, even impulse, like the comet, hath its determinate orbit; and there is no action but depends on a certain antecedent.

Here we are brought to the old challenge-Liberty or Necessity? This question has almost ceased to influence zealotry and foster prejudice. It is not our purpose to discuss it. We would only consider it, so far as it bears directly upon the main subject. It matters not, for our purpose, whether human volition and action be inevitable, or determine themselves without antecedents. There is no doubt they result from causes. Now, are these causes sufficiently uniform, and the effects so truly consequent, as that a science of Ethology may be constructed?

Without advocating that iron necessity which seems so repugnant to the eagle-like freedom which every one feels belongs to the immortal soul,-without degrading this nature of ours, instinct with the God, and impeaching the free consciousness which beats in every bosom; still, there is abundant reason to believe, that human actions are the necessary consequences of certain motives, presented to the mind: so that, if the predisposition of an individual be ascertained by careful observation, and if the motives presented be given in connection with the elementary laws of mind, you may infer, with the certainty of science, the conclusion he will draw and the deed he will do. This certainty-this reasonable necessity, does not jar with free will. The objection, if any, will go to the knowledge requisite for your influence. Who doubts but he could tell how his friend would act under certain circumstances, if he knew him thoroughly? The doubt arises solely from the ignorance of facts. Nay, we would resent as an insult, any doubt by a friend who, even partially, knew us, as to how we would act under certain circumstances. We are free to choose; yet another, with a proper knowledge of facts and a subordination of those facts to principles, may be certain of what use we may make of our freedom.

Is there, then, anything humiliating in this view? Does it constrain our volition? Is it not just the very provision which an Omniscience would make, in order that men should hold reasonable interchange with one another? Does it not conform to our idea of a just Providence? There is no magic, by which we are compelled to obey a particular motive. It is just as easy to counterwish as to wish, to produce a new antecedent to our actions. Here is no dim, mystic compulsion, such as is shadowed forth in the myths and embodied in the drama of the ancients.

Mr. Mill thus happily illustrates this idea. "When we say that all human actions take place of necessity, we only mean that they will certainly happen, if nothing prevents: when we say, that dying of want, to those who cannot get food, is a necessity, we mean that it will certainly happen, whatever may be done to prevent it. The application of the same term to the agencies on which human actions depend, as is used to express those agoncies in nature which are really uncontrollable, cannot fail, when habitual, to create a feeling of uncontrollableness in the former also. This, however, is mere illusion. There are physical sequences we call necessary, as death for want of food or air; there are also others which are not said to be necessary, as death from poison, which an andidote or the use of a stomach pump will sometimes avert. It is apt to be forgotten by people's feelings, even if remembered by their understandings, that human actions are in this last predicament."

In human actions, the causes are never uncontrollable. There are countervailing influences; and these, also, as we shall see, are made the subject of science, with as much certainty as the aberrations in Astronomy, or the uneven bottom of the sea, in Tidology.

If we could only banish from our reasoning, the old idea attached to that harsh, rigid term, "necessity," the difficulties would vanish also. It is a lamentable instance of the controlling power of words over ideas.

In the construction of any science, the object to be attained is thorough systematic instruction. Mr. Locke it is, who says, that a man who has a clearly defined idea, may teach more than he who talks learnedly, yet confusedly, whole hours. We believe that the phenomena of human conduct have a harmonious inter-dependency with one another: and that it is not only possible, but practicable to bring them into one intelligent system,

possessing complete philosophical unity. We believe that there is an instrinsic order and beauty in human character, even in its perversion; just as in growth, and even in decay, bodies are said to observe the same uniform and beautiful law.

Facts and laws are the essential constituents of science.— Facts alone, do not constitute science. Men have been collating facts about human nature since the deluge; yet, after all, they are but the unhewn materials for the temple of science. Mere laws, without facts, are not sufficient to constitute a science. That the ancient philosophers thought and reasoned upon an opposite idea, was their capital delinquency, and the secret of their failure. Facts alone are semblance; principles alone but the vagaries of fancy; but facts and principles combine observation with generalization; and the cestus of science, like the fabled zone of Cytheria, encircles them, to give proportion and beauty to what was otherwise misshappen and ungainly.

It is scarcely doubted now, since the wonderful effect of the inductive method of investigation, that the outward objects of nature are susceptible of the strictest scientific study. This is done by a single colligation of facts under their laws. Is there not the same scope for science in the character of man? Let us trace the analogy between natural and ethological facts and principles.

Facts are anything made-factum; including as well those which belong to the elements of air, fire, earth and water, as those of the reason, volition, sensibility or the imagination; including not alone the flowers of the earth, the beasts of the field, the stars of the sky and the birds of the air; but the prejudices, the passions, the impulses and all the phenomena which belong to human nature. Science should enchain all nature by its golden links of consecutive thought. It teaches us,* that in the material world, the slightest alteration in the force of gravity would alter the position of the tiniest flower; that an earth greater or less, by the smallest increase or diminution, would require a change in the structure and strength of the stalks of our flowers; and that, therefore, the whole mass of the earth from pole to pole, and from circumference to the centre, is employed in keeping a snow drop in the position most suited to its vegetable health. This indeed is wonderful and beautiful— surpassing the sublimest ideality. Not less wonderful and beautiful are the results of science applied to human character.

*Whewell.

"How wonderful! that even
The passions, prejudices, interests

That sway the meanest being, the weak touch
That moves the finest nerve,

And in one human brain

Causes the faintest thought, becomes a link
In the great chain of Nature."

These may be the subjects of observation by all-the philosopher as well as the clodpole, the poet as well as the proser; yet how transcendently superior in delight and wonder is the observation of him who ranges his observations under their appropriate laws.

Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas.

The eye of science penetrates the superficies of nature, and "opens out a way for the imprisoned splendors of the soul" to illumine and beautify all outward objects. True illumination and beauty are the daughters of science, not of fiction. Science is the harmony of Truth. Not a bird trills its carol to the hushed air; not a vine curls its ringlets over the glassy lake; not a petal is painted by the sun; not a tear trickles down the face of beauty; not a ripple frisks over the face of the river; not an eddy dimples its placid features; not a leaf rustles like a "noiseless noise;" not a fish cleaves its silvery way through the stream; not a rainbow arches the fountain but has been watched, admired, and embraced by the Genius of science. To each, new beauty and grace have been added, by placing it in its precise point of relationship to all other facts in the domain of nature.

Thus each science hath its own peculiar facts. Every science is governed by comprehensive laws; so that all nature is ensphered in a complete sublime unity. If therefore the scientific colligation of mutual facts be a noble theme for the human intellect, what shall we say of a science which systematizes, so as more fully to instruct man in the mysteries of his own beingin the formation of his own character, upon which depends his woe or weal, for Life and for Eternity? It is no more impossible to construct a science from facts, than from Ethological material facts. No one doubts Meteorology to be a science, yet every one knows, that the most familiar phenomena--rain and sunshine-no more follow each other, with an accustomed order of sequence, than the despondency of hopefulness of a human soul. Who doubts that the phenomena in Meteorology do not depend on laws, and these laws derivative from known ultimate

laws, such as those of heat, vaporization and elastic fluids? These ultimate laws, like those of the elements of mind, are known; and if we could only know the antecedent circumstances, we could predict the state of the weather at any given time. So in Ethology, we could, with a knowledge of the antecedent circumstances, make similar predictions as to character. The inherent difficulty in observing facts, renders both sciences imperfect; but are they less sciences? Who expects a perfect science? Science is for some practical purpose. The true inquiry should be: is it sufficiently certain for practical purposes? Even in so exact a science as Astronomy, the nicest calculations depend on a hair breadth in the position of the glass. Newton did not, at once, account for all the phenomena he observed. When, on that clear, bright evening, in 1666, sitting alone in his garden, gazing with intent awe and sweeping thought, upon "the starry boss of high and vaulted heaven," he grasped the stupendous idea of an all pervading gravitation, there were many facts, or received facts, totally inconsistent with his splendid conception. But time discovered fully their reconcilableness, and perfected his system; and now. Herschell darts his gaze into the furthest bounds of the visible universe, and finds in every new star and system, confirmation strong, of the great law of the universe, propounded at first, with hesitation, by Newton.

Astronomy never could be an exact science, until, not only the general course of the planetary motions, but the perturbations also, were accounted for, and referred to their causes. Now, if Ethology can only, for the present, systematize the more influential causes of human conduct, the aberrations and perturbations may sometimes be brought under their appropriate laws. The effect of each aberration may not be distinctly ascertained; but the relation of each effect to the other may be; so that, it is really no more a reason why Ethology should not be a science, that it cannot be exact immediately, than that Astronomy, in Newton's time, should have been excluded from the fraternity of sciences. The same reason would crush every science in its budding. It would stifle the now infant science of Tidology, as Mr. Whewell designates it; and stop all the efforts of true philosophical inquirers. The remarkable Minerva-birth is no fit comparison for the generation of science. A fitter comparison is found in the little coral of the Indian sea, which adds slowly and silently to its small beginnings, until in