to its incubation, but that the view and purpose is not at all its own. Before I can have any belief with respect to the course of nature, I must have a notion of what is called its course; and whenever that is before my mind, then a purpose or plan is laid open to me, and my belief rationally follows from this observation, without any instinct or any necessity for one.

That I am, naturally, predisposed to take up this view of a purpose in the arrangements of nature,— that it is one of the first observations which is made by every rational mind,—that it is made so rapidly, and the belief founded upon it so intermingled with it, that it is scarcely possible to distinguish this notion as the foundation of the belief,-I am quite willing to admit; and if the term instinct is to be applied to the belief, I may not much object to the expression, if it is admitted to be an instinct of reason, but I see no necessity for having recourse to the term instinct at all: It is simpler to suppose that the conception, of a plan or design in nature, is followed by an instantaneous belief that the plan will continue, which is very different from a belief of the continuance of any thing, which we do not suppose contemplated, under the aspect of an intentional

thing. At the same time, I do not wish to propose any view, which may have the air of paradox, and I am perfectly disposed to grant, with respect to human beings, what must be supposed with respect to the inferior animals, that the wisdom of Nature supplies their deficiencies of reason, by what may be called instincts, so long as they have these deficiencies. I do not mean to pretend to say, how long an infant may be, before it has any conception of a purpose or design, in the things that are going on around it, or what are the means in the hands of Nature, by which its incapacity for this observation may be remedied, so as to preserve it in existence. supposed that children imagine every thing around them to be animated; and if that is the case, they will, very early, have the notion of a purpose, in the movements of natural objects, in the same manner as they must have that notion of the actions of the living beings with whom they are conversant.*

If there is any period of the existence of children when they are to be looked upon as mere automatons, then during that period they are under the sole guardianship of Nature and of the people

See Note C.

around them, but whenever they have any movements of intelligence within them, then, and not till then, they are capable of belief, and their conduct is to a certain extent directed, not by instinct, but by rational observation of the plan and arrangements which are going on in nature. "Incipe, parve puer, risu cognoscere matrem." The first smile of an infant is an expression of intelligence, and from that moment it is not only its mother that it begins to acknowledge, but the great Universal Mother on whose bosom it is thrown. The instincts of man and of the lower animals are the leading-strings by which that provident mother guides the tottering steps of their inexperience or irrationality. What these are-what sort of feeling they have to the creatures themselves—it is not for us to explain; but it has been observed with respect to man, that, as his reason opens, his instincts are withdrawn,*-and surely, whenever he can form to himself the conception of a course of nature, he is no longer a creature of instinct, but of reason. Then, his experience of the past is a rational foundation for his belief of the future,-a foundation

* See Note D.

which, sooner or later, must be laid in his mind,-for although I represent it as a deduction of reason, yet it is one which the reason of every man who is of a sound mind must, of necessity, make: It is no more possible for intelligence not to take in the indications of order and purpose, than it is for the senses not to have the perceptions of colour or form. When these indications are entertained by the mind,—the belief which follows respecting their future recurrence is likewise as necessary, yet at the same time as rational as that with which a child reposes upon the care of its nurse or its mother, for the supply of its daily wants.

IV. The same train of thought leads, I apprehend, to a very satisfactory view of a similar difficulty in philosophy, respecting the relation of cause and effeCT, which has been equally discovered to have no foundation in reason, and has been explained on principles of the same kind with those which have been resorted to, to account for the belief which we entertain of the continuance of the order of nature. When one billiard-ball strikes another, the effect, which follows in the motion of

the last ball, is an event in reality quite separate

from the former, and there is no process of reasoning by which, a priori, we could deduce, from the impulse of the one ball, the protrusion of the other. Neither, after experience, has it been said, is there any such argument. The events still remain separate. One ball strikes, another moves forward. Where is the tie between these events which leads us to conclude, in future time, the communication of motion from impulse, and which, upon the appearance of the one event, immediately produces an expectation or belief of the second?

Philosophers have here again been divided in their explanations of this difficulty; some resolving the whole mystery into a mere habit of thought produced on the mind by custom,-while others have, as before, had recourse to instinctive and inexplicable belief.* Besides the objection above stated, that it is not easy to conceive in what manner a habit of thought respecting past events should lead to any belief respecting such as are future, it has been observed, that very often a single experiment is sufficient to establish in our minds the belief in question, before there has been any such frequency of

See Note E.