science leads to the consideration of the means by which we may avail ourselves of this knowledge, by producing, in the one case, actions upon the body which we wish to produce, and in the other, by counteracting or avoiding actions which we wish to prevent.

In all these sciences, and the practical arts which are founded upon them, the general principles are the same; namely, a careful observation of the natural and uniform relations or tendencies of bodies towards each other, and a bringing of those tendencies into operation for the production of results. All art, therefore, must be founded upon science, or a correct knowledge of these relations; and all science must consist of such a careful observation of facts in regard to the relations, as shall enable us confidently to pronounce upon those which are fixed and uniform. He who follows certain arts or practical rules, without a knowledge of the science on which they are founded, is the mere artisan or the empiric; he cannot advance beyond the precise rules which are given him, or provide for new occurrences and unforeseen difficulties. In regard to science, again, when the relations are assumed hastily, or without a sufficiently extensive observation of facts, the process constitutes false science, or false induction; and when practical rules are founded upon such conclusions, they lead to error and disappointment in the result expected.

The views which have now been referred to lead us to principles by which the sciences are distinguished into those which are certain and those which are, in a greater or less degree, uncertain. The certainty of a science depends upon the facility and correctness with which we ascertain the true relations of things, or trace effects to their true causes, and causes to their true effects,— and calculate upon the actions which arise out of these relations taking place with perfect uniformity. This certainty we easily attain in the purely physical sciences, or those in which we have to deal only with inanimate matter. For in our investigation of the relations of material bodies, whether mechanical or chemical, we contrive experiments, in which by placing the bodies in a variety of circumstances towards each other, and excluding all extraneous influence, we come to determine their tendencies with perfect certainty. Having done so, we rely with confidence on these tendencies continuing to be uniform; and should we in any instance be disappointed of the result which we wish to produce, we are able

at once to detect the nature of some incidental cause by which the result has been prevented, and to obviate the effect of its interference. The consequence of this accurate knowledge of their relations is, that we acquire a power over material things; but this power is entirely limited to a certain control and direction of their natural relations; and we cannot change these relations in the smallest particular. Our power is of course also limited to those objects which are within the reach of our immediate influence; but with respect to those which are beyond this influence, as the heavenly bodies, the result of our knowledge appears in a manner not less striking, in the minute accuracy with which we are enabled to foretell their movements, even at very distant periods. I need only mention the correctness with which the astronomer calculates eclipses and the appearance of

comets.

With these characters of certainty in the purely physical sciences, two sources of uncertainty are contrasted in those branches of science in which we have to deal with mental operations, or with the powers of living bodies. The first of these depends upon the circumstance, that, in investigating the relations and tendencies in these cases, we are generally obliged to trust to observation alone, as the phenomena happen to be presented to us, and cannot confirm or correct these observations by direct experiment. And as the actual connections in which the phenomena occur to us are often very different from their true relations, it is in many cases extremely difficult to ascertain the true relations, that is, to refer effects to their true causes and to trace causes to their true effects. Hence just conclusions are arrived at slowly, and after a long course of occasional observations; and we may be obliged to go on for a long time without acquiring any conclusions which we feel to be worthy of confidence. In these sciences, therefore, there is great temptation to grasp at premature inductions; and when such have been brought forward with confidence, there is often difficulty in exposing their fallacy; for in such a case it may happen that as long a course of observation is required for exposing the false conclusion as for ascertaining the true. In physical science, on the other hand, a single experiment may often overturn the most plausible hypothesis, or may establish one which was proposed in conjecture.

The second source of uncertainty in this class of sciences consists in the fact that, even after we have ascertained the

true relations of things, we may be disappointed of the results which we wish to produce, when we bring their tendencies into operation. This arises from the interposition of other causes, by which the true tendencies are modified or counteracted, and the operation of which we are not able either to calculate upon or to control. The new causes, which operate in this manner, are chiefly certain powers in living animal bodies, and the wills, feelings, and propensities of masses of human beings, which we have not the means of reducing to any fixed or uniform laws. As examples of the uncertain sciences, therefore, we may men. tion medicine and political economy; and their uncertainty is referable to the same sources, namely, the difficulty of ascertaining the true relations of things, or of tracing effects to their true causes, and causes to their true effects;-and the intervention of new causes which elude our observation, while they interfere with the natural tendencies of things, and defeat our attempts to produce certain results by bringing these into action. The scientific physician well knows the difficulty of ascertaining the true relations of those things which are the proper objects of his attention, and the uncertainty which attends all his efforts to produce particular results. A person, for example, affected with a disease recovers under the use of a particular remedy; a second is affected with the same disease, and uses this remedy without any benefit; while a third recovers under a very different remedy, or without any treatment at all. And even in those cases in which he has distinctly ascertained true relations, new causes intervene and disappoint his endeavors to produce results by means of these relations. He knows, for example, a disease which would certainly be relieved by the full operation of diuretics, and he knows various substances which have unquestionably diuretic virtues. But in a particular instance he may fail entirely in relieving the disease by the most assiduous use of these remedies, for the real and true tendencies of these bodies are interrupted by certain other causes in the constitution itself, which entirely elude his observation and are in no degree under his control.

It is unnecessary to point out the similarity of these facts to the uncertainty experienced by the statesman in his attempts to influence the interests, the propensities, and the actions of masses. of mankind; or to show how often measures which have been planned with every effort of human wisdom fail of the results

which they were intended to produce, or are followed by consequences remarkably different. Nothing indeed can show in a more striking manner the uncertainty which attaches to this science than the different aspects in which the same measure is often viewed by different men distinguished for political wisdom and talent. I abstain from alluding to particular examples, but those accustomed to attend to public affairs will find little difficulty in fixing upon remarkable instances in which measures have been recommended by wise and able men, as calculated to lead to important benefits, while others of no inferior name for talent and wisdom have, with equal confidence, predicted from them consequences altogether different. Such are the difficulties of tracing effects to their true causes, and causes to their true effects, when we have to deal, not with material substances simply, but with the powers of living bodies, or with the wills, the interests, and the propensities of human beings.

One other reflection arises out of the view which has been given of this important subject. The object of all science, whether it refer to matter or to mind, is simply to ascertain facts and to trace their relations to each other. The powers which regulate these relations are entirely hidden from us in our present imperfect state of being; and by grasping at principles which are beyond our reach, we leave that path of inquiry which alone is adapted to our limited faculties, and involve ourselves in error, perplexity, and darkness. It is humbling to the pride of human reason, but it is not the less true, that the highest acquirement ever made by the most exalted genius of man has been only to trace a part, and a very small part, of that order which the Deity has established in his works. When we endeavor to pry into the causes of this order, we perceive the operation of powers which lie far beyond the reach of our limited faculties. They who have made the highest advances in true science will be the first to confess how limited these faculties are and how small a part we can comprehend of the ways of the Almighty Creator. They will be the first to acknowledge that the highest acquirement of human wisdom is to advance to that line which is its legitimate boundary, and there, contemplating the wondrous field which lies beyond it, to bend in humble adoration before a wisdom which it cannot fathom and a power which it cannot comprehend.

Complete. From the essays on the "Intellectual Powers.»

MADAME ADAM

(MADAME EDMOND ADAM, nee JULIETTE LAMBER)

(1836-).

S THE founder of the Nouvelle Revue and an essayist on moral, political, and social topics, Madame Adam is perhaps the best representative France has given the world of the "New Woman." Since the death of her second husband in 1877, she has devoted a large share of her attention to politics, and her salon has been a rendezvous for the more advanced Republicans of Paris. She was born at Verberie, October 4th, 1836, and, by a number of works published under her maiden name of Juliette Lamber, gave promise of the masculine quality of intellect which appears in her later writings. Her first husband, M. La Messine, dying in the early years of their married life, she married a second husband, M. Edmond Adam, prefect of police in Paris, whom also she survives. Among her works are a "Life of Garibaldi,» «Studies of Contemporaneous Greek Poets," and a considerable number of essays and social studies, some of which were published in the Nouvelle Revue in a series said to be by various hands, but having the common signature, "Paul Vasili.»

Intellectually, Madame Adam is a product of the same moral forces which produced Baudelaire in France and Swinburne in England. She stands for the belief, peculiarly characteristic of the last quarter of the nineteenth century, that the old standards, whether Greek, Gothic, Hebrew, or Christian, have been superseded by the moral laws and artistic canons of a new cycle. The reaction towards the Scott school of Romantic fiction during the last five years seems to have distracted the public mind from problems with which Madame Adam and her generation were so largely concerned.

SURE

WOMAN IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

URELY at no other period have women had the same incentives as at present to reflect upon their position, their rights, and their duties, as wives and mothers in our modern world. The various formulas, customs, institutions, prejudices, which for centuries have hemmed them in are by degrees being either