enlarging the stock of materials, for the study of the antiquities of the English language. It is to be regretted that so little of the Old Testament has as yet been retrieved.

The eyes of the learned world are on the researches which Mr. Maio is now making in the Vatican; and if their importance be to that of his dicoveries at Milan, in the proportion of the stores in these two libraries, we may almost hope to go behind the Alexandrian canon, and recover works not only now lost, but nearly so in the early centuries of the christian era.

ART. XXII.-Inquiry into the Relation of Cause and Effect. By Thomas Brown, M. D. F. R. S. Edinburgh, &c. Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh. Third edition. Edinburgh, 1818. 8vo, pp. 569.

A WHOLE article of solid metaphysics is a phenomenon, that perhaps requires apology, as well as explanation. We will therefore briefly submit our reasons for its appearance.

The philosophy of the late lamented Dr. Brown is scarcely known in this country. It was presumed that considerable interest would attach among us to the speculations of the successor of Dugald Stewart, whose own work on the Mind has passed, we believe, through as many editions in the United States as in Great Britain, and who is well known, on becoming emeritus, to have warmly recommended Dr. Brown to the chair of moral philosophy in the university of Edinburgh. But farther, there is a vague belief among those who are but partially acquainted with the nature of the late professor's speculations, that they coincided too nearly with the dangerous parts of the philosophy of David Hume. A faithful analysis of the work before us will correct this error, and redeem Dr. Brown's reputation. Still further, an unjust and indiscriminate censure has overwhelmed the whole system of Hume itself with relation to the doctrine of Cause and Effect. When Professor Leslie, in consequence of having expressed his approbation of certain portions of that system, encountered from the ministers of Edinburgh strong opposition to his pretensions as candidate for a chair in the univer sity, the nucleus of the present volume was published in a pamphlet form, and by distinguishing what was sound from New Series, No. 6.

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what was exceptionable in the opinion of Hume, contributed to soften the opposition made to the too honest candidate. The work, in its present very much enlarged state, confirms the points maintained in the pamphlet, and though we profess no love, and but qualified respect for Hume in his metaphysical capacity, we are willing to assist in removing every unfair stigma from every literary reputation. Besides these reasons, the subject itself, we should hope and presume, however abstruse, will not be deemed entirely devoid of interest and importance. Truth is worth looking after, even among the clouds. A bulky octavo is not written in vain, if it gives the world one clear idea, which it would not have otherwise had. The subject of this work, as the author truly remarks, involves the philosophy of every thing that exists in the universe. Hence it must have some practical bearings. Some portions of the treatise before us might be aptly denominated the philosophy of religion. Considerable light is thrown on our relations with the Deity; the idea of our dependence on him is somewhat simplified from that dark and confused mystery which hangs over it; and the clearer the idea, the deeper and better the impression it must make on the mind. The system under review provides also for the admission of the miraculous interference of the Deity, and therefore bespeaks the attention of the lovers of revelation; it admits of the doctrine of a particular providence, and must therefore be not unwelcome to the devout. In addition to these reasons, we considered that the race of lovers of pure old-fashioned metaphysical disquisition is far from being extinct. Edwards on the Will is still the principal rallying point of our orthodoxy, and Locke* is a general classic among our colleges. The influence of their style and speculations will make us sure of some zealous readers. In the next place, this book is a book of great power. Those who read Montorio, Mandeville, Anastasius, Don Juan, for the intellectual energy they display, may here find intellectual energy enough, and not be

* Is not a System of Metaphysics wanted for our colleges? Something like a history of opinions in that science, with or without the theories of the compiler. Would Locke obtain more than a respectable chapter in such a system? Brunck, Stewart in his Dissertations, and Degerando would furnish copious and valuable assistance in compiling it. work of the latter is indeed an admirable specimen of what we recom mend.

The

Jiable to the suspicion of seeking amusement from the narrative, or gratifying their corruption with the sentiments. Lastly, the improbability that the book will be ever published in this country, united with the high price of the English edition, induced us to present the ensuing careful abstract to those who may not have access to the original work; while those who have, may be glad of a thread to lead them through a book, which for the abstruseness of its topics, for refinement in its reasonings, for diffusive amplifications, for winding yet collateral digressions, for long and solemn preambles before the questions discussed are stated, thus creating the suspense of mind which is incident properly to forms of synthetical demonstration, has not many rivals; and yet has no titles to its chapters, no sketch-arguments, no table of contents, no indexes!

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Part First of the Inquiry' treats of the Real Import of Cause and Effect.

A cause, Dr. Brown defines to be, that which immediately precedes any change, and which existing at any time in similar circumstances, has been always, and will be always, immediately followed by a similar change. The object of his Inquiry is to prove, that there is no hidden, mysterious, connecting link between those antecedents and consequents, which we call causes and effects, when we speak of the changes which happen in any part of the material or intellectual universe. The substances that exist in nature are every thing that has a real existence in nature. These substances have no powers, properties, nor qualities, separate from themselves,-words adopted by us only for the sake of convenience, and to express the changes which we observe to happen around us. A follows B, and B follows C. Now by all the effort which our minds can exert, we can form no idea of any thing in these sequences, but the substances A, B, and C, and the sequence itself. We may say, that fire has the power of melting metals, but all we mean, or all we know by it, is, that fire melts metals, which expresses only the two substances, fire and metal, and the change, called melting, which takes place between them. The above abstract terms are indeed of great use in assisting us to avoid circumlocution in our discourse; but we are apt to forget, (and Dr. Brown has pretty well forgotten) that they are mere abstractions, and to regard them as significant of some actual reality. The powers of a substance

have been supposed to be something very different from the changes which it operates on other substances, and most mysterious; at once a part of the antecedent, and yet not a part of it; an intermediate link in a chain of physical sequences, that is yet itself no part of the chain, of which it is notwithstanding said to be a link. The most that can be said of these imaginary powers or causes is, that they are new antecedents and sequents thrust in between the former, and requiring themselves as much explanation as the changes which they were brought to explain.

Such we believe to be the substance of Dr. Brown's first section of twenty pages. His elegant paragraphs, his varied and ample illustrations, his occasionally appropriate and eloquent reflections, and even many of his collateral arguments and inferences, though important, must of course disappear before the rugged wand of analysis. We hope, however, yet to find room for the extraction of a few of his more splendid and elaborate passages.

Before proceeding with our abstract, we think proper to notice an obvious objection which has been frequently urged against the foregoing definition of a cause, and to extract our author's reply to it, though occurring in a distant part of his book. If the definition be true, it is asked, why are not day and night reciprocally the cause of each other? Dr. Reid calculated on a great triumph over Hume by pressing this objection. The Quarterly Review, we observe, has repeated it in an article on Leslie's Geometry, (No. VII) and a late number of Blackwood's Magazine, in attempting to defend the incessant attacks of the editors on Mr. Leslie's reputation, has brought it forward again. We shall subsequently, in some strictures of our own upon the definition in question, attempt to show that this objection, and all of the same class, might with great ease have been obviated, if the notion of contiguity in place, as well as proximity in time, had been introduced into the definition. Here, however, we will let our author speak for himself.

" It should be remembered that day and night are not words which denote two particular phenonena, but are words invented by us to express long series of phenomena. What various appearances of nature, from the freshness of the first morning-beam, to the last soft tint that fades into the twilight of the evening sky,

changing with the progress of the seasons, and dependent on the accidents of temperature, and vapour, and wind, are included in every day! These are not one, because the word which expresses them is one; and it is the believed relation of physical events, not the arbitrary combinations of language, which Mr. Hume professes to explain.

'If, therefore, there be any force in the strange objection of Dr. Reid, it must be shown, that notwithstanding the customary conjunction, we do not believe the relation of cause and effect to exist, between the successive pairs of that multitude of events which we denominate night and day. What then are the great events included in those terms? If we consider them philosophically, they are the series of positions in relation to the sun, at which the earth arrives in the course of its diurnal revolution ; and in this view, there is surely no one who doubts that the motion of the earth immediately before sunrise is the cause of the subsequent position, which renders that glorious luminary visible If we consider the phenomena of night and day in a more vulgar sense, they include various degrees of darkness and light, with some of the chief changes of appearance in the heavenly bodies. Even in this sense, there is no one who doubts, that the rising of the sun is the cause of the light which follows it, and that its setting is the cause of the subsequent darkness.

to us

• How often, during a long and sleepless night, does the sensation of darkness,-if that phrase may be accurately used to express a state of mind that is merely exclusive of visual affections of every sort,-exist, without being followed by the sensation of light! We perceive the gloom, in this negative sense of the term perception; we feel our own position in bed, or some bodily or mental uneasiness, which prevents repose ;-innumerable thoughts arise, at intervals, in our minds, and with these the perception of gloom is occasionally mingled, without being followed by the perception of light. At last light is perceived, and, as mingled with all our occupations and pleasures, is perceived innumerable times during the day, without having, for its immediate consequence, the sensation of darkness. Can we then be said to have an uniform experience of the conjunction of the two sensations; or do they not rather appear to follow each other loosely and variously, like those irregular successions of events, which we denominate accidental? In the vulgar, therefore, as well as in the philosophical sense of the terms, the regular alternate recurrence of day and night furnishes no valid objection to that theory, with the truth of which it is said to be inconsistent.' p. 387.