cedents and consequents, (and according to Dr. Brown, it does not,) how can we be sure of the existence of that personal Being, who, we believe, created the world? Our ideas of power ought to be such that an atheist could not receive them as true and remain an atheist. But if we were atheists we would take refuge in the physiology of Dr. Brown as our strong hold. He does not take ground in philosophy so elevated as those who admit that there are forces in nature distinct from the inert masses which they actuate, but that these forces are God. Dr. Abercrombie does not, perhaps, agree fully with Brown respecting the connection of cause and effect. He speaks of a "mysterious agency on which the connection depends." But he coincides with him in regard to the extent of our knowledge and the object of metaphysical inquiry. "Our idea of causation or of power amounts to nothing more," he affirms, "than our knowledge of the fact, that one [of two events] is invariably the antecedent of the other." p. 22. "The object of all science is to ascertain the established relations of things, or the tendency of certain events to be uniformly followed by certain other events." p. 24. By comparing the quotations with each other, it will appear that our author means nothing by the word tendency, but the observed fact of a uniform connection between the events. But does the boasted pre-eminence of philosophers consist in more accurate observation and sounder experience? Is it the whole object of philosophy to tell us that we deceive ourselves, when we imagine that we can know more of the laws of our being and the principles of science, than appears to the eye of the common observer? If this be true, one science which has figured much in the world, and which has occasioned many warm disputes and some bloodshed,—the science of mind will soon die out; unless it should be thought a Christian duty among the learned to tell the world. from time to time, in some treatise entitled "The Elements of Intellectual Philosophy," that we can know nothing of the nature of mind, that the words metaphysics, power, cause, effect, &c., have no distinctive meaning and ought to be discarded from the vocabulary of philosophers. This would be highly conducive to the humility of prying speculative minds, and it would suit well with our republican notions of equality among the learned and the ignorant. But if we do not mistake some "exploded notions," as they are called, on the subject of metaphysics are about to be revived. There are men in the country who believe that the whole of philosophy does not consist in tracing out a lifeless succession of facts. There is some prospect that metaphysics will survive, at least for a time. We think no one will deny that we do instinctively seek after something besides phenomena. It is a law of our being to ask, not what is the fact, but why was it so. This curiosity, which belongs to us as men, and which no discipline of philosophy can destroy, will not be satisfied with the "general facts" of the empiric. If a child should ask its father why an apple falls, and the father should tell him that it falls by gravitation, and should give the child to understand that he meant nothing more by this term than that bodies fall, the child would feel that his father had given him a stone, instead of the bread for which he asked. His curiosity might be checked but could not be satisfied by an echo to his own question. Is it not one principal reason why curiosity becomes torpid in most children after a certain age, and they remain ever after the creatures of sense, that the questions which they put forth respecting the facts that they witness. are returned to them again in the shape of answers ?-the problems which they propose are given back in form of solutions? If it be granted that such an instinct does exist as we have described, it follows that the appropriate object of such an instinct also exists and can be discovered. If it be an attribute of our humanity to ask why phenomena occur as they do, if we demand an explanation of the general facts of abstraction, no less than of the particular facts of our observation; the demand is a reasonable one-it can be answered. He that says it cannot, must meet the objections that the instincts of the lower animals are suited with their proper objects, and that God is not a God of truth if it is not so in man. So carefully is the nature of brutes adapted to their circumstances, that they not only find instinctively what their wants require, but when, by change of circumstances, their wants are supplied without the necessity of an instinctive principle, the useless instinct is suspended. God neither creates nor continues in existence a useless faculty in brutes. And who that has due reverence for the wisdom and truth of God, will dare to say, that he has made us to seek after that knowledge which is beyond the reach of our faculties? Instinctively to seek after an object is to believe that the object of our search may be found. If there be no such object, it is instinctively to believe a lie. Has the God of truth thus constituted us? If he has not, the only alternative with those who deny that we can know why phenomena take place as they do, is to deny that we do instinctively seek after this knowledge. When it comes to a flat denial of what our consciousness and our observation affirm, we must leave off discussion; but we do not cease to hold to the truth of the alleged fact. On entering the study of philosophy, the inquiry cannot fail to present itself to a thinking mind,-What object shall I propose to myself in this study? The inquirer cannot put the question to any instructor so properly as to his own consciousness. Let him ask himself,-What are the demands of my being in relation to the study before me? What is the most deeply interesting question which I should wish to propose to the Spirit that created me and inspired me with thoughts? That is just the question to which the inquirer may and must seek for an answer. He must do it with profound humility indeed but setting out in the inquiry with this spirit, let him not fear that he is asking what God does not design that man shall know. Paradoxical as it may seem, the wants of man are proofs of the beneficence of God. The assertion might be maintained as a general proposition. But we now allude to the wants which man feels in regard to the knowledge of himself, and the subjects of his thoughts. These wants are the clues to guide him in the pursuit of a science that will bless him forever. If he seeks to know that which he does not really want to know, he shall bring leanness into his soul. But if he humbly seeks supplies for his real wants, his soul shall be blessed as with marrow and fatness. We hear it sometimes represented as a sin to ask why this or that event took place as it did. It is said to be the indulgence of a reprehensible curiosity to inquire for any thing but facts. Reasons are the secrets of the Holy One. Facts are for man. And we are referred to the infernal spirits of Milton alleviating the sufferings of their prison-house by metaphysical speculations, as examples to be shunned. But is no distinction to be made between an honest attempt to supply a want of our being, and the perverse speculations of wicked men and evil spirits? We confess that we feel in dignant when we hear instructors of youth cautioning their pupils not to attempt to go "beyond their tether," when they make inquiries after truth with all the earnestness of a soul hungering and thirsting after knowledge. "Observe facts, learn the opinions of others, read your Bible with the spectacles of a party, and keep still." This is the substance of the advice too often given by men in high places. How many ingenuous and promising youth it has benumbed and rendered inefficient for life, we shall know hereafter. What then are the wants which all men feel in regard to the subject under consideration? What do we instinctively seek after in respect to mind and its phenomena? The inquiry cannot be easily answered. To answer it fully requires a degree of self-knowledge which we must confess we do not possess. But if the imperfect answer which we shall give shall make it apparent that statements made by our author respecting the object of metaphysical inquiry are inadequate, and therefore erroneous, our labor will not have been in vain. One of the queries which will arise in the mind of a reflecting person when he turns his thoughts inward, regards the extent of his knowledge. The question may not be suggested in the formal language here used. But the idea denoted by it will certainly be present. For what is the meaning of the inquiry? It is nothing more than the interrogation which a thinking man puts to himself when he witnesses any new and striking fact.-Why is it so? Philosophers tell us of putting interrogatories to nature, and receiving an answer. If this be considered the language of poetry, it is well enough. But it is not philosophical language. For when we desire to account for any thing we do not ask nature why it is so, but we put the question to our minds. Nature has done all that she can when she has given us the fact. She never gives the reason. She tells us it is so, but she does not tell us why. She affirms, but she never explains. Mind and mind alone can give a reason. And as we cannot get an explanation of her operations from nature, in other words, as nature will not tell us why she works as she does, so neither can one mind depend on another for a reason. Our neighbor may endeavor to give us a reason. But if we do not find the reason which he would give us in our own minds, his labor will be vain. To ask why an event takes place as it does, is therefore to demand a reason for it from our own minds. It is to ask our minds what they know about it. It is to inquire concerning the extent of our knowledge. We contend that every man, if he be a proper man and not an animal does ask the reason why. This question has been agitated much in the schools. The learned have debated it from Plato downward to the present day. And they seem to be nearly as much divided. respecting the true answer as when the discussion commenced. If the question is ever settled, it will doubtless be decided by each party retiring within the circle of his own consciousness where truth alone resides, and where the same identical truth, entire, symmetrical, and beautiful beyond expression will be found to dwell, when the whole circle shall have been thoroughly examined. Some answer can be given; on this point there can be no doubt. It is not an unreasonable thing to ask a reason. And every reasonable question may be answered. Otherwise God is not true. What answer will consciousness give to the reasonable inquiry which we propose when our curiosity is excited by striking facts in the natural world? What is a reason? What is the extent of our knowledge? When we read with profit we always require that the book we have in hand should explain itself. We demand to know why this or that is said, why this topic is introduced, or that illustration, and what is the point and purpose of the whole. If we are often baffled in our inquiries, we either infer a deficiency in our power of comprehension, or else we set the author down as a weak writer. We have an idea of a composition when we sit down to the perusal of any particular piece of composition which we require to be realized. If we had no idea of what a composition ought to be, we should be unreasonable to throw aside any composition as bearing the marks of imbecility; our preference of one book above another would be mere caprice. Our object, when we hold such an inquisition as we have described, over any book that we are reading, is to learn whether the thoughts of the author as they are combined in the work before us, are consistent with our idea of a composition. We find the reason for approving or disapproving the author in our own reason. same process of mind occurs when we try any work of man. When, for example, we examine the construction of an arch, we pronounce the architect well or ill acquainted with his The |