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    roughly represent the position occupied by the Rev . Baden Powell m this work . Not that we assert , or insinuate , that he is conscious of this hete-: rodox tendency . We have not tie slig htest reason to doubt his sincerity ; and there are too many examples of men holding contradictory views for us to make the contradiction an evidence of insincerity . All we say is that Mr . Powell , by office and conviction a clergyman , is by education and intellect a man of science ; and because he is a sincere man he sincerely upholds the . true doctrines of science , however they may clash with theological dicta . And there being an internecine war between Science and Church , he must be prepared to see his scientific boldness construed as heterodoxy . It is quite consistent for a man like him to say—" Theology rests on other foundations , and appeals to other faculties than the faculties appealed to by Science : its doctrines are matters of Faith , the doctrines of Science are matters of Ileason . I therefore , in treating of Science , isolate it from Theology , but I do not thereby impugn Theology . " Consistent and courageous ; but this consistency will not shield him from attack , although this courage deserves respect .

    We have thought it necessary to premise thus much , both to place the reader at once in the right position with regard to the work , and to call on him for its hearty support , as a work calculated to benefit the cause of free inquiry and of scientific emancipation ; and we have also done it to prepare him for the charge of heterodoxy , which cannot fail to be brought against the author . Having done this we will endeavour to indicate more precisely the scope of the Avork . It is composed of three Essays—three little treatise ? , having separate interest yet continuous connexion—one leading naturally to the other . The

    first is on the Inductive Philosophy ; the second applies the principles hud down in the first to the question " of a Plurality of Worlds ; the third is in some sense a review of the Vestiges . The style is clear , easy , unaffected 5 the temper admirable , never once swerving into the asperities and discourtesies of polemics ; the whole tone calm , candid , and philosophical . In going over so wide a field it cannot but . happen that he sometimes stumbles , sometimes gets on marshy ground believing it to be solid ; but those who travel with liTm will not be disposed to consider these minor details of importance , but will be grateful for the very pleasant and profitable excursion into which he has led them .

    In the first section of the First Essay he refutes the old doctrine still warmly maintained by Who well and others , that we have ideas antecedent to and independent of experience . As we will not pay the reader the poor compliment of supposing that he is on WheweU ' s side in this controversy , we may content ourselves with this brief intimation . The second section exhibits the unity of the Sciences , and is especially commendable for its rescue of Biology " from " final causes , " and its exposition of the identityof this science with the other sciences . Section Three treats of the uniformity of nature , in which is shown how the inductive philosopher holds fast to his principles undismayed by any exceptions . When Galileo , it is well said , opened the path of nil true astronomy by the simple maxim that the same laws of motion which hold good on the surface of the earth apply also to the heavens , he was guided by a conviction of the uniformity of nature , similar to that which guided Lyell when he , but a few years ago , maintained that

    the analogy of real existing causes ought to be extended from the present backwards into immeasurable periods of time , thus placing geology on a scientific basis ; and this luminous conviction was in such direct contradiction to the vulgar notions both of philosophers and the public , that in both cases it roused vehement opposition . So far , indeed , is this doctrine of the uniformity of nature ( which means that nature acts according to uniform and absolute laws , not according to caprice ) from being , as the school of Wh ^ ewell maintains , " natural and intuitive , " it is utterly beyond the attainment of many , even many philosophers ; and as Mr . Powell truly says , " in all the extent of its universality it is characteristic of the philosopher . It is clearly the result of philosophic cultivation and training , and by no means the spontaneous offspring of any primary principle naturally inherent in the mind . " Connected with this belief in the uniformity of nature there is a principle laid down by Air . Powell which deserves especial attention : —

    There is one grand maxim of pro-eminent value in philosophic inquiry generally , and which finds a peculiar application under such circumHtances as those just referred to , viz , that having once graspedJirmly a great principle , we should be satisfied to leave minor difficulties to await their solution , nssured that in time the progress of discovery will clear them up as certainly as it has now cleared up difficulties once quite as formidable and paradoxes quite as inexplicable . It has been byadhorenco to this rule that all great philosophical systems luivo made their way and finally triumphed over error . The Newtonian theory was beset by palpable contradictions in its results till many years after Newton ' s death ; yet all sound philosophers embraced it . The motion of the apsides of the moon ' s orbit was , with singular honesty , confessed by Newton to be in fact nearly twice as great as calculation from theory made it : and this contradiction remained an outstanding palpable objection , yet without occasioning any misgiving in the mind of sound philosophers , as to the general truth of gravitation , till the error was explained , and the calculation rectified by Clairault . Up to the present time , all the anomalies of the tides are by no means reduced under the dominion of theory : yet no sound philosopher jloubts the truth of tho

    principle that they aid due to the solar anil lunar attractions . Tho theory of gravitation , again , wus really defective up to tho present day : tho motions of the planet Uranus , as calculated by theory , were found to bo every year becoming more and more discordant with observation , and theory was completely at fault : until tho calculation of Adams and Lo Verrier showed that tho anomalies could be explained by tho supposition of tho disturbance occasioned by an exterior planet moving in n certain orbit ; and , at tho time , at a certain point in that orbit ; as was directly verified by the observations of ( jallo and other astronomers . Passing to tho fourth section we comu upon a very interesting discussion of that great question which incessantly occupies philosophers , the question of Causation . The vulgar , and with them a sehpol of philosophers , believe that there ia some mysterious power , by virtue of which a cause is efficient . Hum is , and tho majority of philosophers since Iluiwn , maintain that there is no evidence whatever of the existence of this power , and that invariable sequence is all that experience roveals in causation . Mr . Powell decides against tho supporters of the first view , but is not quite satisfied with the second , and ho proposes this modification , viz . : that the true theory of

    physical causation includes the simple idea of an invariable and unconditional sequence of facts , but it also implies a connexion , not in the events in the way of physical agency , but in the reason and logical dependence of the two ideas . The phenomenon or property assigned as to the cause of antecedent has undoubtedly a necessary connexion with the effect or consequent when it supplies the explanation of it : when the latter is a consequence in reason and theory from the former , —when ,- in a word , the cause is a more general and better understood class or genus of phenomena to which we can refer the effect , as a particular species . For example : friction is the cause of retardation of motion . There is a mere sequence of two phenomena . Yet there is also a necessary connexion between them , though not in the senss of efficient power ; for we conceive the notion of friction , and we then reason from it , that retardation will be a necessary consequence . But tfafere are many cases where this kind of connexion is less strong and instructive . Friction is the cause of heat ; but we do not know enough , of the nature of friction to be quite certain tAhy or how it produces heat , though we may conjecture it to a certain extent . Here then , the connexion is not so necessary Again , friction ( in certain bodies ) evolves electricity . Here we know still less of the connexion , and see only a sequence . In other words , physical causation admits of degrees .

    This appears to us decidedly one of those marshy spots , before alluded to , which Mr . Powell delusively selects as of good solid earth . It is an illustration of the old metaphysical will-o ' -wisp tendency to confound the objective with the subjective , to suppose that what is true of our perceptions must in like manner hold good of external objects . Our knowledge of causation certainly admits of degrees ; but to argue because our knowledge is thus graduated , therefore causation itself is graduated , we take to be altogether erroneous . Whether causation depend on " power" or on " unconditional sequence , " it is clear that every case of causation is absolute and . perfect . A cause does produce an effect , or it does not ; if it does not , the reason is the presence of some counteracting cause ; but to suppose that a cause sometimes produces an effect , and sometimes only two-thirds of an effect , is , however untenable , the conclusion we are forced to draw from Mr . Powell's position of graduated causation . If we have misunderstood him we shall be happy to rectify our mistake . m While , however , criticising the modification which the author thus brings

    forward , we must not overlook the excellence of this section on causation , and will conclude our notice of it with the following extract : — According to the theory of efficient causes , a species of active power is imagined to reside in natural agents , or to act through them , which constitutes the alleged necessary connexion of physical effects with their causes . This is always affirmed to be something of a nature not at all cognisable by our faculties , and dependent on conditions of an occult and mysterious kind . _ Hence it seems to be supposed that anomalous deviations occasionally arise , and the idea of efficient causes is specially favoured by those who are fond of imagining marvellous influences of a kind , distinct from , and even interrupting , the ordinary course of natural events . Such , we must suppose , are the catastrophes and convulsions of nature—failures in creation—random scatterings of matter , and other like notions which are sometimes resorted to as a consolation to the wearied theorist when matterof-fact inferences seem for a moment to have reached their limit .

    Such ideas , however , are not only delusive in themselves , but are radically opposed to the grand truth of the uniformity of nature , the unity of arrangement and design , and by consequence so far would tend to impugn the evidence of higher truths . Yet we hear the notion of " efficient causation" in nature upheld by some as of a peculiarly religious tendency ; while ( with strange inconsistency ) , in popular estimation the study of " secondary causes" is accused of being hostile to the belief in a " First Cause . " And ( from the same confusion of ideas ) the denial of efficient causes , and the assertion of a mere sequence of phenomena and laws , is charged with having the same dangerous tendency even in a higher degree . Thus Leibnitz brought against the Newtonian philosophy the strange accusation , " that it deserts mechanical causes , and ia built upon miracles , and recurs to occult ^ It ' seems to have been under the belief of this singular charge that Pope originally wrote the well-known lines which appear in the earlier editions of the " Dunciad , — " Philosophy that reached the heavens before ,

    Shrinks to her hiddeu cause , and is no more ; which had the fact been as supposed , would have conveyed as perfectly just a censure in the second line , as it does the characteristic of a true philosophy in the first , as leading to , not starting from , the belief in a Deity . .... . ... . , . ,, . , „ Whereas , when undeceived as to the fact , the lines which he substituted in the later editions , — " Philosophy that leaned on Heaven before , Shrinks to her second cause , and is no more , " embody the whole vulgar misconception and confusion of ideas respecting First and Second Causes , while they are , in any sense , as wholly inapplicable to the Newtonian philosophy , as the former . The last section of this essay is on Final Causes and Natural Theology , to which we commend the reader . Wo have only space for one extract .

    In accordance with tho narrow and unworthy notions formerly prevalent on theso subjects ( perhaps inseparable from an earlier stage of science ) , it would seem to have been held , that the appearances of the physical world , so far as they wore reducible to regular laws , wore to bo regarded as what was termed " Nature . When wo reached tho boundary of tho province thus subject to reason ( as we soon must do la any direction ) , and when phenomena seemed in any instance not so reducible to laws , then wo arrived at tho limits of « nature , " and were reluctantly compelled to resort to « Doity , a d « os nTro WXa ^ f , —a Supreme Being admitted on compulsion when the order of things could no further be traced without Him . Then , and not till then , wo might exclaim with the poet , " Krgo perfugium . " w ™ ' , HnhHm « Thus , to take an instance , minds incapable of m ™™\ " \ b ' N ™ ' ™*™ » $ ^* inference from the uniformity and order of the system which Ho had so ™™ U ™ Bly and happily disclosed , have dwelt upon his single expression J ' J J' ~ vf tho extent and fertility of his own principle in loading to he go , t law o ^ taMy ^ that at length tho increase of planetary perturbations would rcj . 11 ^ , a Hpoc ., a intervention for restoring the equilibrium . This wan WP 1 ™*™ 1 , ™ * °£% J" ™ ailment knowledgmont of a Supreme Power . Wo merely ask , IJ thu be the tnu , argument , what now becomes of the conclusion ? S ruii , rfou » writers at the present day A < a ^ 3 ^^^^^ ^^ ^^ Si £ ; = j ^ T ^ rsS ? S- « sr- = « *" apply , to assign an adequate cause ^ nui'i '"? " *** » •»

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    May 19 , 1855 . ] THE I , E A P E R . 473

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), May 19, 1855, page 473, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2091/page/17/