We know that active, igneous matter, other is incapable of union; that which applied to gunpowder, must necessarily is suitable to unite, forms combinations cause it to explode: whenever this effect more or less intimate, possessing more does not follow the combination of the or less durability: that is to say, with igneous matter with the gunpowder, more or less capacity to preserve their whenever our senses do not give us union and to resist dissolution. Those evidence of the fact, we are justified in bodies which are called solids, receive concluding, either that the powder is into their composition a great number damp, or that it is united with some of homogeneous, similar, and analogous other substance that counteracts its ex- particles, disposed to unite themselves; plosion. We know that all the actions with energies conspiring or tending to of man have a tendency to render him the same point. The primitive beings, happy: whenever, therefore, we see him or elements of bodies, have need of labouring to injure or destroy himself, support, of props, that is to say, it is just to infer that he is moved by presence of each other, for the purpose some cause opposed to his natural ten- of preserving themselves; of acquiring dency; that he is deceived by some consistence, or solidity; a truth which prejudice; that, for want of experience, applies with equal uniformity to what he is blind to consequences: that he is called physical, as to what is termed does not see whither his actions will moral. lead him.

If the motion excited in beings was always simple; if their actions did not blend and combine with each other, it would be easy to know the effect a cause would produce. I know that a stone, when descending, ought to describe a perpendicular: I also know, that if it encounters any other body which changes its course, it is obliged to take an oblique direction; but if its fall be interrupted by several contrary powers which act upon it alternately, I am no longer competent to determine what line it will describe. It may be a parabola, an ellipsis, spiral, circular, &c.; this will depend on the impulse it receives, and the powers by which it is impelled.

of the

It is upon this disposition in matter and bodies with relation to each other, that is founded those modes of action which natural philosophers designate by the terms attraction, repulsion, sympathy, antipathy, affinities, relations.* Moralists describe this disposition under the names of love, hatred, friendship, aversion. Man, like all the beings in nature, experiences the impulse of attraction and repulsion; the motion excited in him differing from that of other beings, only because it is more concealed, and frequently so hidden, that neither the causes which excite it, nor their mode of action are known.

Be this as it may, it is sufficient for us to know, that by an invariable law certain bodies are disposed to unite with more or less facility, whilst others

The most complex motion, however, is never more than the result of simple motion combined: therefore, as soon as we know the general laws of beings, *This system of attraction and repulsion is and their action, we have only to de- to develop it. That love, to which the ancients very ancient, although it required a Newton compose and to analyze them, in order attributed the unfolding or disentanglement of to discover those of which they are chaos, appears to have been nothing more than combined experience teaches us the a personification of the principle of attraction. effects we are to expect. Thus it is All their allegories and fables upon chaos, evidently indicate nothing more than the accord clear, the simplest motion causes that or union that exists between analogous and necessary junction of different matter homogeneous substances, from whence reof which all bodies are composed: that sulted the existence of the universe: while matter varied in its essence, in its pro-was the cause of dissolution, confusion, and discord or repulsion, which they called so, perties, in its combinations, has each disorder. There can scarcely remain a doubt its several modes of action, or motion, but this was the origin of the doctrine of the peculiar to itself: the whole motion of two principles. According to Diogenes Læera body is consequently the sum total of tius, the philosopher, Empedocles asserted, each particular motion that is combined. elements unite themselves; and a sort of dis"that there is a kind of affection, by which the Amongst the matter we behold, some cord, by which they separate or remove themis constantly disposed to unite, whilst selves."

cannot combine. Water combines itself | readily with salt, but will not blend with oil. Some combinations are very strong, cohering with great force, as metals; others are extremely feeble, their cohesion slight, and easily decomposed, as in fugitive colours. Some bodies, incapable of uniting by themselves, become susceptible of union by the agency of other bodies, which serve for common bonds or mediums. Thus, oil and water, naturally heterogeneous, combine and make soap, by the intervention of alkaline salt. From matter diversely combined, in proportions varied almost to infinity, result all physical and moral bodies; the properties and qualities of which are essentially different, with modes of action more or less complex: which are either understood with facility, or difficult of comprehension, according to the matter that has entered into their composition, and the various modifications this matter has undergone.

Of whatever nature may be the combination of beings, their motion has always one direction or tendency: without direction we could not have any idea of motion: this direction is regulated by the properties of each being: as soon as they have any given properties, they necessarily act in obedience to them; that is to say, they follow the law invariably determined by these same properties, which, of themselves, constitute the being such as he is found, and settle his mode of action, which is always the consequence of his manner of existence. But what is the general direction, or common tendency, we see in all beings? What is the visible and known end of all their motion? It is to preserve their actual existence-to strengthen their several bodies-to attract that which is favourable to them-to repel that which is injurious to them-to avoid that which can harm them, to resist impulsions contrary to their manner of existence and to their natural tendency.

To exist, is to experience the motion peculiar to a determinate essence: to preserve this existence, is to give and receive that motion from which results the maintenance of its existence :-it is to attract matter suitable to corroborate its being,-to avoid that by which it may be either endangered, or enfeebled. Thus, all beings of which we have any knowledge, have a tendency to preserve themselves each after its own peculiar manner: the stone, by the firm adhesion of its particles, opposes resistance to its destruction. Organized beings preserve themselves by more complicated means, but which are, nevertheless, calculated to maintain their existence against that by which it may be injured. Man, both in his physical and in his moral capacity, is a living, feeling, thinking, active being, who every instant of his duration strives equally to avoid that which may be injurious, and to procure that which is pleasing to him, or that which is suitable to his mode of existence.*

It is thus, from the reciprocity of their attraction, that the primitive, imperceptible particles of matter which constitute bodies, become perceptible, and form compound substances, aggregate masses, by the union of similar and analogous matter, whose essences fit them to cohere. The same bodies are dissolved, or their union broken, whenever they undergo the action of matter inimical to their junction. Thus by degrees are formed plants, metals, animals, men; each grows, expands, and increases, in its own system, or order; sustaining itself in its respective existence by the continual attraction of analogous matter, to which it becomes united, and by which it is preserved and strengthened. Thus, certain aliments become fit for the sustenance of man; whilst others destroy his existence: some are pleasant to him, strengthen his habit; others are repugnant to him, weaken his system: in short, never to separate physical from moral laws-it is thus that men, mutually attracted to each other by their reciprocal wants, form those unions Conservation, then, is the common which we designate by the terms mar-point to which all the energies, all the riage, families, societies, friendships, powers, all the faculties of being, seem connexions: it is thus that virtue strengthens and consolidates them; that vice relaxes, or totally dissolves them.

self-preservation in all beings, whether organ*St. Augustine admits this tendency for ized or not.-See his tractate De Civitate Dei, lib. xi. cap. 28.

continually directed. Natural philo- contains necessarily act each after its sophers call this direction, or tendency, individual essence: it is by motion self-gravitation. Newton calls it in- that the whole has relation with its ert force. Moralists denominate it, in parts, and these with the whole: it is man, self-love; which is nothing more thus that in the universe every thing than the tendency he has to preserve is connected; it is itself but an imhimself a desire of happiness-a love mense chain of causes and effects, of his own welfare-a wish for plea- which flow without ceasing one from sure-a promptitude in seizing on every the other. If we reflect a little, we thing that appears favourable to his shall be obliged to acknowledge, that conservation a marked aversion to all every thing we see is necessary; that that either disturbs his happiness, or it cannot be otherwise than it is; that menaces his existence-primitive sen- all the beings we behold, as well as timents common to all beings of the those which escape our sight, act by human species, which all their facul- certain and invariable laws. Accordties are continually striving to satisfy; ing to these laws heavy bodies fall, which all their passions, their wills, light bodies rise; analogous substances their actions, have eternally for their attract each other; beings tend to conobject and their end. This self-gravi-serve themselves; man cherishes himtation, then, is clearly a necessary disposition in man and in all other beings, which, by a variety of means, contributes to the preservation of the existence they have received as long as nothing deranges the order of their machine or its primitive tendency.

Cause alway's produces effect; there can be no effect without cause. Impulse is always followed by some motion more or less sensible, by some change more or less remarkable in the body which receives it. But motion, and its various modes of displaying itself, is, as has been already shown, determined by the nature, the essence, the properties, the combinations of the beings acting. It must then be concluded, that motion, or the modes by which beings act, arises from some cause; and as this cause is not able to move or act but in conformity with the manner of its being, or its essential properties, it must equally be concluded, that all the phenomena we perceive are necessary; that every being in nature, under the circumstances in which it is placed and with the given properties it possesses, cannot act otherwise

than it does.

Necessity is the constant and infallible connexion of causes with their effects. Fire, of necessity, consumes combustible matter placed within its sphere of action: man, of necessity, desires, either that which really is, or appears to be useful to his welfare. Nature, in all the phenomena she exhibits, necessarily acts after her own peculiar essence: all the beings she

self; loves that which he thinks advan tageous, detests that which he has an idea may prove unfavourable to him. In fine, we are obliged to admit that there can be no independent energyno isolated cause-no detached action, in a nature where all the beings are in a reciprocity of action-who without interruption mutually impel and resist each other-who is herself nothing more than an eternal circle of motion given and received according to necessary laws.

Two examples will serve to throw the principle here laid down, into light one shall be taken from physics, the other from morals.

In a whirlwind of dust, raised by the impetuous elements, confused as it appears to our eyes; in the most frightful tempest, excited by contrary winds, when the waves roll high as mountains; there is not a single particle of dust, or drop of water, that has been placed by chance; that has not a sufficient cause for occupying the place where it is found; that does not, in the most rigorous sense of the word, act after the manner in which it ought to act; that is, according to its own peculiar essence, and that of the beings from whom it receives impulse. A geometrician, who exactly knew the different energies acting in each case, with the properties of the particles moved, could demonstrate, that, after the causes given, each particle acted precisely as it ought to act, and that it could not have acted otherwise than it did.

In those terrible convulsions that broader light: it will be sufficient for sometimes agitate political societies, our present purpose to prove, generally, shake their foundations, and frequent- that every thing in nature is necessary, ly produce the overthrow of an empire that nothing to be found in it can act -there is not a single action, a single otherwise than it does. word, a single thought, a single will, a single passion in the agents, whether they act as destroyers or as victims, that is not the necessary result of the causes operating; that does not act as of necessity it must act from the peculiar situation these agents occupy in the moral whirlwind. This could be evidently proved by an understanding capacitated to seize and to rate all the actions and reactions of the minds and bodies of those who contributed to the Lrevolution.

a given mode; these are afterwards [ We shall see in the sequel, how
taken from them, to make them act much man's imagination has laboured
after a different manner. It is thus to form an idea of the energies of that
that nature makes them expand and nature he has personified and distin-
change, grow and decline, augment guished from herself: in short, we shall
and diminish, approximate and remove, examine some of the ridiculous and
forms them and destroys them, accord- pernicious inventions which for want
ing as she finds it requisite to maintain of understanding nature, have been
the whole, towards the conservation imagined to impede her course, to sus-
of which this nature is herself essen-pend her eternal laws, to place obsta-
tially necessitated to have a tendency. cles to the necessity of things.

This irresistible power, this universal necessity, this general energy, is, then, only a consequence of the nature of things, by virtue of which every

CHAPTER V.

Of Chance.

thing acts without intermission, after Of Order and Confusion-Of Intelligence—
constant and immutable laws; these
laws not varying more for the whole,
THE observation of the necessary,
than for the beings of which it is regular, and periodical motion in the
composed. Nature is an active, liv- universe, generated in the mind of man
ing whole, whose parts necessarily the idea of order. This term, in its
concur, and that without their own primitive signification, represents to
knowledge, to maintain activity, life, him nothing more than a mode of con-
and existence. Nature acts and ex-sidering, a facility of perceiving, to-
ists necessarily all that she contains
necessarily conspires to perpetuate her
active existence.*

:

This was the decided opinion of Plato,
who says,
"Matter and necessity are the
same thing; this necessity is the mother of
the world." In point of fact we cannot go
beyond this aphorism, Matter acts because it
exists, and exists to act. If it be inquired
how, or why, matter exists? We answer,
we know not: but reasoning by analogy of
what we do not know by that which we do,
we are of opinion it exists necessarily, or be

rea

gether and separately, the different re-
lations of a whole, in which is dis-
covered by its manner of existing and
acting, a certain affinity or conformity
with his own. Man, in extending this
idea to the universe, carried with him
those methods of considering things
which are peculiar to himself: he has
consequently supposed there really ex-
isted in nature affinities and relations,
which he classed under the name of
order; and others, which appeared to
him not to conform to those which he
has ranked under the term confusion.

cause it contains within itself a sufficient rea
son for its existence. In supposing it to be
created or produced by a being distinguished
from it, or less known than itself, we must idea of order and confusion can have
It is easy to comprehend that this
still admit that this being is necessary, and
includes a sufficient reason for his own exist- no absolute existence in nature, where
ence. We have not then removed any of the every thing is necessary; where the
difficulty, we have not thrown a clearer light whole follows constant and invariable
on the subject, we have not advanced a laws; and which oblige each being, in
single step; we have simply laid aside an
agent of which we know some of the proper- every moment of its duration, to sub-
ties, to have recourse to a power of which it mit to other laws which themselves
is utterly impossible we can form any distinct flow from its own peculiar mode of ex-
idea, and whose existence cannot be demon- istence. It is, therefore, in his imag-
strated. As therefore these must be at bestination alone man finds the model of
but speculative points of belief, which each in- that which he terms order, or confu-
dividual, by reason of its obscurity, may con-
template with different optics and under vari- sion, which, like all his abstract, meta-
ous aspects; they surely ought to be left free physical ideas, supposes nothing be-
for each to judge after his own fashion: the
Deist can have no just cause of enmity
against the Atheist for his want of faith; and
the numerous sects of each of the various
persuasions spread over the face of the earth
ought to make it a creed, to look with an eye
of complacency on the deviation of the other;
and rest upon that great moral axiom, which
No. II.-5

is strictly conformable to nature, which con-
tains the nucleus of man's happiness-" Do
not unto another, that which you do not wish
another should do unto you;" for it is evident,
according to their own doctrines, that out of
all their multifarious systems, one only can
be right.

but dilt. says the mind how no innate ideas. How them doche the idea order if I doesn't exist in nature either? It it be the mind can acquire ideas of which it has not

acquire