Lectures on Language As Particularly Connected with English Grammar.

LECTURE IX.

ON VERBS.

Neuter and in­tran­si­tive.--Agents.--Ob­jects.--No ac­tions as such can be known dis­tinct from the agent.--Imag­inary ac­tions.--Ac­tions known by their ef­fects.--Ex­am­ples.--Signs should guide to things sig­ni­fied.--Prin­ci­ples of ac­tion.--=Pow­er=.--An­imals.--Veg­eta­bles. --Min­er­als.--All things act.--Mag­net­ic nee­dle.--=Cause=.--Ex­plained. --First Cause.--=Means=.--Il­lus­trat­ed.--Sir I. New­ton's ex­am­ple.-- These prin­ci­ples must be known.--=Rel­ative= ac­tion.--Anec­dote of Gallileo.

We re­sume the con­sid­er­ation of verbs. We closed our last lec­ture with the ex­am­ina­tion of _neuter verbs_, as they have been called. It ap­pears to us that ev­idence strong enough to con­vince the most skep­ti­cal was ad­duced to prove that _sit_, _sleep_, _stand_ and _lie_, stand in the same re­la­tion to lan­guage as oth­er verbs, that they do not, in any case, ex­press neu­tral­ity, but fre­quent­ly ad­mit an ob­jec­tive word af­ter them. These are re­gard­ed as the most neu­tral of all the verbs ex­cept _to be_, which, by the way, ex­press­es the high­est de­gree of ac­tion, as we shall see when we come to in­quire in­to its mean­ing.

Gram­mar­ians have long ago dis­cov­ered the fal­si­ty of the books in the use of a large por­tion of verbs which have been called neuter. To ob­vi­ate the dif­fi­cul­ty, some of them have adopt­ed the dis­tinc­tion of _In­tran­si­tive_ verbs, which ex­press ac­tion, but ter­mi­nate on no ob­ject; oth­ers still use the term _neuter_, but teach their schol­ars that when the _ob­ject_ is _ex­pressed_, it is ac­tive. This dis­tinc­tion has on­ly tend­ed to per­plex learn­ers, while it af­ford­ed on­ly a tem­po­rary ex­pe­di­ent to teach­ers, by which to dodge the ques­tion at is­sue. So far as the ac­tion is con­cerned, which it is the busi­ness of the verb to ex­press, what is the dif­fer­ence whether “I _run_, or _run_ my­self?” “A man start­ed in haste. He _ran_ so fast that he _ran him­self_ to death.” I strike Thomas, Thomas _strikes David_, Thomas _strikes him­self_. Where is the dif­fer­ence in the ac­tion? What mat­ters it whether the ac­tion pass­es over to an­oth­er ob­ject, or is con­fined with­in it­self?

“But,” says the ob­jec­tor, “you mis­take. An in­tran­si­tive verb is one where the 'ef­fect is con­fined with­in the sub­ject, and does not pass over to any ob­ject.'”

Very well, I think I un­der­stand the ob­jec­tion. When Thomas strikes David the ef­fects of the blow _pass­es over_ to him. And when he strikes him­self, it “is con­fined with­in the sub­ject,” and hence the lat­ter is an _in­tran­si­tive_ verb.

“No, no; there is an ob­ject on which the ac­tion ter­mi­nates, in that case, and so we must call it a _tran­si­tive_ verb.”

Will you give me an ex­am­ple of an _in­tran­si­tive_ verb?

“I _run_, he _walks_, birds _fly_, it _rains_, the fire _burns_. No ob­jects are ex­pressed af­ter these words, so the ac­tion is con­fined with­in them­selves.”

I now get your mean­ing. When the ob­ject is _ex­pressed_ the verb is tran­si­tive, when it is not it is in­tran­si­tive. This dis­tinc­tion is gen­er­al­ly ob­served in teach­ing, how­ev­er wide­ly it may dif­fer from the in­ten­tion of the mak­ers of gram­mars. And hence chil­dren ac­quire the habit of lim­it­ing their in­quiries to what they see placed be­fore them by oth­ers, and do not think for them­selves. When the verb has an ob­jec­tive word af­ter it _ex­pressed_, they are taught to at­tach ac­tion to it; but tho the ac­tion may be even greater, if the ob­ject is not ex­pressed, they con­sid­er the ac­tion as wide­ly dif­fer­ent in its char­ac­ter, and adopt the false phi­los­ophy that a cause can ex­ist with­out an ef­fect re­sult­ing from it.

We as­sume this ground, and we shall la­bor to main­tain it, that ev­ery verb nec­es­sar­ily pre­sup­pos­es an _agent_ or _ac­tor_, an _ac­tion_, and an _ob­ject_ act­ed up­on, or af­fect­ed by the ac­tion.

No ac­tion, as such, can be known to ex­ist sep­arate from the thing that acts. We can con­ceive no idea of ac­tion, on­ly by keep­ing our minds fixed on the act­ing sub­stance, mark­ing its changes, move­ments, and ten­den­cies. “The book _moves_.” In this case the eye rests on the book, and ob­serves its po­si­tions and at­ti­tudes, al­ter­nat­ing one way and the oth­er. You can sep­arate no ac­tion from the book, nor con­ceive any idea of it, as a sep­arate en­ti­ty. Let the book be tak­en away. Where now is the ac­tion? What can you think or say of it? There is the same space just now oc­cu­pied by the book, but no ac­tion is per­ceiv­able.

The boy _rolls_ his mar­ble up­on the floor. All his ideas of the ac­tion per­formed by it are de­rived from an ob­ser­va­tion of the mar­ble. His eye fol­lows it as it moves along the floor. He sees it in that act­ing con­di­tion. When he speaks of the ac­tion as a whole, he thinks where it start­ed and where it stopped. It is of no im­por­tance, so far as the verb is con­cerned, whether the mar­ble re­ceived an im­pulse from his hand, or whether the floor was suf­fi­cient­ly in­clined to al­low it to roll by its own in­her­ent ten­den­cy. The ac­tion is, in this case, the ob­vi­ous change of the mar­ble.

Our whole knowl­edge of ac­tion de­pends on an ob­ser­vance of things in a state of mo­tion, or change, or ex­ert­ing a ten­den­cy to change, or to coun­ter­act an op­pos­ing sub­stance.

This will be ad­mit­ted so far as ma­te­ri­al things are con­cerned. The same prin­ci­ple holds good in ref­er­ence to ev­ery thing of which we form ideas, or con­cern­ing which we use lan­guage. In our def­ini­tion of nouns we spoke of im­ma­te­ri­al and imag­inary things to which we gave _names_ and which we con­sid­er as agen­cies ca­pa­ble of ex­ert­ing an in­flu­ence in the pro­duc­tion of ef­fects, or in re­sist­ing ac­tions. It is there­fore unim­por­tant whether the ac­tion be re­al or imag­inary. It is still in­sep­ara­bly con­nect­ed with the thing that acts; and we em­ploy it thus in the con­struc­tion of lan­guage to ex­press our thoughts. Thus, li­ons roar; birds sing; minds re­flect; fairies dance; knowl­edge in­creas­es; fan­cies err; imag­ina­tion wan­ders.

This fact should be borne in mind in all our at­tempts to un­der­stand or ex­plain lan­guage. The mind should re­main fixed to the act­ing sub­stance, to ob­serve its changes and re­la­tions at dif­fer­ent pe­ri­ods, and in dif­fer­ent cir­cum­stances. There is no oth­er pro­cess by which any knowl­edge can be gained of ac­tions. The mind con­tem­plates the act­ing thing in a con­di­tion of change and de­ter­mines the pre­cise ac­tion by the _al­tered con­di­tion_ of the thing, and thus learns to judge of ac­tions by their ef­fects. The on­ly method by which we can know whether a _veg­etable grows_ or not is by com­par­ing its form to-​day with what it was some days ago. We can not de­cide on the im­prove­ment of our chil­dren on­ly by ob­serv­ing the same rule.

“By their fruits ye shall know them,” will ap­ply in physics as well as in morals; for we judge of caus­es on­ly by their ef­fects. First prin­ci­ples can nev­er be known. We ob­serve things as they _are_, and re­mem­ber how they _have been_; and from hence de­duce our con­clu­sions in ref­er­ence to the _cause_ of things we do not ful­ly un­der­stand, or those con­se­quences which will fol­low a con­di­tion of things as now ex­ist­ing. It is the busi­ness of phi­los­ophy to mark these ef­fects, and trace them back to the caus­es which pro­duced them, by ob­serv­ing all the in­ter­me­di­ate changes, forms, at­ti­tudes, and con­di­tions, in which such things have, at dif­fer­ent times, been placed.

We say, “_trees grow_.” But sup­pose no change had ev­er been ob­served in trees, that they had al­ways been as they now are; in stature as lofty, in fo­liage as green and beau­ti­ful, in lo­ca­tion un­al­tered. Who would then say, “trees grow?”

In this sin­gle ex­pres­sion a whole train of facts are tak­en in­to the ac­count, tho not par­tic­ular­ly marked. As a sin­gle ex­pres­sion we im­ply that _trees in­crease their stature_. But this we all know could nev­er be ef­fect­ed with­out the in­flu­ence of oth­er caus­es. The soil where it stands must con­tain prop­er­ties suit­ed to the _growth_ of the tree. A due por­tion of mois­ture and heat are al­so req­ui­site. These facts all ex­ist, and are in­dis­pens­able to make good the ex­pres­sion that the “tree grows.” We might al­so trace the ca­pa­bil­ities of the tree it­self, its roots, bark, veins or pores, fi­bres or grains, its suc­cu­lent and ab­sorbent pow­ers. But, as in the case of the “man that killed the deer,” no­ticed in a for­mer lec­ture, the mind here con­ceives a sin­gle idea of a com­plete whole, which is sig­ni­fied by the sin­gle ex­pres­sion, “trees grow.”

Let the fol­low­ing ex­am­ple serve in fur­ther il­lus­tra­tion of this point. Take two bricks, the one heat­ed to a high tem­per­ature, the oth­er cold. Put them to­geth­er, and in a short time you will find them of equal tem­per­ature. One has grown warm, the oth­er cool. One has _im­part­ed_ heat and _re­ceived_ cold, the oth­er has _re­ceived_ heat and _im­part­ed_ cold. Yet all this would re­main for­ev­er un­known, but for the ef­fects which must ap­pear ob­vi­ous to all. From these ef­fects the caus­es are to be learned.

It must, I think, ap­pear plain to all who are will­ing to see, that ac­tion, as such, can nev­er ex­ist dis­tinct from the thing that acts; that all our no­tions of ac­tion are de­rived from an ob­ser­vance of _things_ in an act­ing con­di­tion; and hence that no words can be framed to ex­press our ideas of ac­tion on any oth­er prin­ci­ple.

I hope you will bear these prin­ci­ples in mind. They are vast­ly im­por­tant in the con­struc­tion of lan­guage, as will ap­pear when we come to speak of the _agents_ and _ob­jects_ of ac­tion. We still ad­here to the fact, that no rules of lan­guage can be suc­cess­ful­ly em­ployed, which de­vi­ate from the per­ma­nent laws which op­er­ate in the reg­ula­tion of mat­ter and mind; a fact which can not be too deeply im­pressed on your minds.

In the con­sid­er­ation of ac­tions as ex­pressed by verbs, we must ob­serve that _pow­er_, _cause_, _means_, _agen­cy_, and _ef­fects_, are in­dis­pens­able to their ex­is­tence. Such prin­ci­ples ex­ist _in fact_, and must be ob­served in ob­tain­ing a com­plete knowl­edge of lan­guage; for words, we have al­ready seen, are the ex­pres­sion of ideas, and ideas are the im­pres­sion of things.

In our at­tempts at im­prove­ment, we should strip away the cov­er­ing, and come at the re­al­ity. Words should be mea­sur­ably for­got­ten, while we search dili­gent­ly for the things ex­pressed by them. _Signs_ should al­ways con­duct to the things _sig­ni­fied_. The weary trav­eller, hun­gry and faint, would hard­ly sat­is­fy him­self with an ex­am­ina­tion of the _sign_ be­fore the inn, mark­ing its form, the pic­ture up­on it, the nice shades of col­or­ing in the paint­ing. He would go in, and search for the thing sig­ni­fied.

It has been the fault in teach­ing lan­guage, that learn­ers have been lim­it­ed to the mere _forms_ of words, while the im­por­tant du­ty of teach­ing them to look at the thing sig­ni­fied, has been en­tire­ly dis­re­gard­ed. Hence they have on­ly ob­tained book knowl­edge. They know what the gram­mars say; but how to _ap­ply_ what they say, or what is in re­al­ity meant by it, they have yet to learn. This ex­plains the rea­son why al­most ev­ery man who has stud­ied gram­mar will tell you that “he _used_ to un­der­stand it, but it has all gone from him, for he has not looked in­to a _book_ these many years.” Has he lost a knowl­edge of lan­guage? Oh, no, he learned that be­fore he saw a gram­mar, and will pre­serve it to the day of his death. What good did his two or three years study of gram­mar do him? None at all; he has for­got­ten all that he ev­er knew of it, and that is not much, for he on­ly learned what some au­thor said, and a few ar­bi­trary rules and tech­ni­cal ex­pres­sions which he could nev­er un­der­stand nor ap­ply in prac­tice, ex­cept in spe­cial cas­es. But I wan­der. I throw in this re­mark to show you the ne­ces­si­ty of bring­ing your minds to a close ob­ser­vance of things as they do in truth ex­ist; and from them you can draw the prin­ci­ples of speech, and be able to use lan­guage cor­rect­ly. For we still in­sist on our for­mer opin­ion, that all lan­guage de­pends on the per­ma­nent laws of na­ture, as ex­ert­ed in the reg­ula­tion of mat­ter and mind.

* * *

To re­turn. I have said that all ac­tion de­notes _pow­er_, _cause_, _means_, _agen­cy_, and _ef­fects_.

* * *

_Pow­er_ de­pends on _phys­ical en­er­gy_, or _men­tal skill_. I have hint­ed at this fact be­fore. Things act ac­cord­ing to the pow­er or en­er­gy they pos­sess. An­imals walk, birds fly, fish­es swim, min­er­als sink, poi­sons kill. Or, ac­cord­ing to the adopt­ed the­ories of nat­ural­ists:

Min­er­als _grow_.

Veg­eta­bles _grow_ and _live_.

An­imals _grow_, and _live_, and _feel_.

Ev­ery thing acts ac­cord­ing to the abil­ity it pos­sess­es. Man, pos­sessed of rea­son, de­vis­es means and pro­duces ends. Beasts change lo­ca­tions, de­vour veg­eta­bles, and some­times oth­er beasts. The low­est grade of an­imals nev­er change lo­ca­tion, but yet eat and live. Veg­eta­bles live and grow, but do not change lo­ca­tion. They have the pow­er to re­pro­duce their species, and some of them to kill off sur­round­ing ob­jects. “The _car­ragua­ta_ of the West In­dies, clings round,” says Gold­smith, “what­ev­er tree it hap­pens to ap­proach; there it quick­ly gains the as­cen­dant, and, load­ing the tree with a ver­dure not its own, keeps away that nour­ish­ment de­signed to feed the trunk, and at last en­tire­ly de­stroys its sup­port­er.” In our coun­try, many gar­dens and fields present con­vinc­ing proof of the abil­ity of weeds to kill out the veg­eta­bles de­signed to grow there­in. You all have heard of the _Upas_, which has a pow­er suf­fi­cient to de­stroy the lives of an­imals and veg­eta­bles for a large dis­tance around. Its very ex­ha­la­tions are death to what­ev­er ap­proach­es it. It serves in metaphor to il­lus­trate the nox­ious ef­fects of all vice, of slan­der and de­ceit, the ef­fects of which are to the moral con­sti­tu­tion, what the tree it­self is to nat­ural ob­jects, blight and mildew up­on what­ev­er comes with­in its reach.

Min­er­als are pos­sessed of _pow­er_ no less as­ton­ish­ing, which may be ob­served when­ev­er an op­por­tu­ni­ty is of­fered to call it forth. Ac­tive poi­sons, able to slay the most pow­er­ful men and beasts, lie hid with­in their bo­soms. They have strong at­trac­tive and re­pelling pow­ers. From the iron is made the strong ca­ble which _holds_ the ves­sel fast in her moor­ings, _en­abling_ it to out­ride the col­lect­ed force of the winds and waves which _threat­en_ its de­struc­tion. From it al­so are man­ufac­tured the man­acles which bind the strong man, or fas­ten the li­on in his cage. Gold _pos­sess­es_ a pow­er which _charms_ near­ly all men to sac­ri­fice their ease, and too many their moral prin­ci­ples, to pay their blind de­vo­tions at its shrine.

Who will con­tend that the pow­er of ac­tion is con­fined to the an­imal cre­ation alone, and that inan­imate mat­ter can not act? That there is a su­pe­ri­or pow­er pos­sessed by man, en­dowed with an im­ma­te­ri­al spir­it in a cor­po­re­al body, none will de­ny. By the agen­cy of the mind he can ac­com­plish won­ders, which mere phys­ical pow­er with­out the aid of such men­tal skill, could nev­er per­form. But with all his boast­ed su­pe­ri­or­ity, he is of­ten made the slave of inan­imate things. His lofty pow­ers of body and soul bend be­neath the weight of ac­cu­mu­lat­ed sor­rows, pro­duced by the se­cret _op­er­ations_ of con­ta­gious dis­ease, which _slays_ his wife, chil­dren, and friends, who fall like the ripened har­vest be­fore the gath­er­ers scythe. Nay, he of­ten sub­mits to the con­trol­ling pow­er of the vine, al­co­hol, or to­bac­co, which _gain_ a se­cret in­flu­ence over his no­bler pow­ers, and _fix_ on him the stamp of dis­grace, and _throw_ around him fet­ters from which he finds it no easy mat­ter to ex­tri­cate him­self. By the il­lu­sions of er­ror and vice he is of­ten be­trayed, and long en­dures dark­ness and suf­fer­ing, till he _re­gains_ his na­tive en­er­gies, and finds de­liv­er­ance in the en­joy­ment of truth and virtue.

What is that se­cret pow­er which lies con­cealed be­yond the reach of hu­man ken, and is trans­port­ed from land to land un­known, till ex­posed in con­di­tions suit­ed to its op­er­ation, will show its ac­tive and re­sist­less force in the de­struc­tion of life, and the dev­as­ta­tion of whole cities or na­tions? You may call it plague, or cholera, or small pox, mi­as­ma, con­ta­gion, par­ti­cles of mat­ter float­ing in the air sur­charged with dis­ease, or any thing else. It mat­ters not what you call it. It is suf­fi­cient to our present pur­pose to know that it has the abil­ity to put forth a prodi­gious pow­er in the pro­duc­tion of con­se­quences, which the high­est skill of man is yet un­able to pre­vent.

I might pur­sue this point to an in­def­inite length, and trace the se­cret pow­ers pos­sessed by all cre­at­ed things, as ex­hib­it­ed in the in­flu­ence they ex­ert in var­ious ways, both as re­gards them­selves and sur­round­ing ob­jects. But you will at once per­ceive my ob­ject, and the truth of the po­si­tions I as­sume. A com­mon pow­er per­vades all cre­ation, op­er­at­ing by pure and per­fect laws, reg­ulat­ed by the Great First Cause, the Mov­ing Prin­ci­ple, which guides, gov­erns, and con­trols the whole.[11]

De­grad­ing in­deed must be those sen­ti­ments which lim­it all ac­tion to the an­imal frame as an or­ga­nized body, moved by a liv­ing prin­ci­ple. Ours is a sub­limer du­ty; to trace the op­er­ations of the Di­vine Wis­dom which acts thro out all cre­ation, in the min­utest par­ti­cle of dust which _keeps_ its _po­si­tion_ se­cure, till moved by some su­pe­ri­or pow­er; or in the _nee­dle_ which points with unerring skill to its fixed point, and _guides_ the ves­sel, freight­ed with a hun­dred lives, safe thro the mid­night storm, to its des­tined haven; tho rocked by the waves and driv­en by the winds, it re­mains un­in­flu­enced, and trem­bling­ly alive to the im­por­tant du­ties en­trust­ed to its charge, con­tin­ues its faith­ful ser­vice, and is watched with the most im­plic­it con­fi­dence by all on board, as the on­ly guide to safe­ty. The same Wis­dom is dis­played thro out all cre­ation; in the beau­ty, or­der, and har­mo­ny of the uni­verse; in the plan­ets which float in the azure vault of heav­en; in the glow worm that glit­ters in the dust; in the fish which cuts the liq­uid el­ement; in the pearl which sparkles in the bot­tom of the ocean; in ev­ery thing that lives, moves, or has a be­ing; but more dis­tinct­ly in man, cre­at­ed in the moral im­age of his Mak­er, pos­sessed of a heart to feel, and a mind to un­der­stand--the third in the rank of in­tel­li­gent be­ings.

I can­not refuse to fa­vor you with a quo­ta­tion from that inim­itable po­em, Pope's Es­say on Man. It is rife with sen­ti­ment of the purest and most ex­alt­ed char­ac­ter. It is di­rect to our pur­pose. You may have heard it a thou­sand times; but I am con­fi­dent you will be pleased to hear it again.

Ask for what end the heav­en­ly bod­ies shine, Earth for whose use? Pride an­swers, “'Tis for mine: ”For me kind na­ture wakes her ge­nial pow'r, “Suck­les each herb, and spreads out ev­ery flow'r; ”An­nu­al for me, the grape, the rose re­new “The juice nectare­ous, and the balmy dew; ”For me, the mine a thou­sand trea­sures brings; “For me health gush­es from a thou­sand springs; ”Seas roll to waft me, suns to light me rise; “My foot­stool earth, my canopy the skies.”

But errs not na­ture from this gra­cious end, From burn­ing suns when livid deaths de­scend, When earth­quakes swal­low, or when tem­pests sweep Towns to one grave, whole na­tions to the deep? “_No_,” ('tis replied,) “_the first Almighty Cause Acts not by par­tial, but by gen­er­al laws; Th' ex­cep­tions few; some change since all be­gan: And what cre­at­ed per­fect?_” Why then man? If the great end be hu­man hap­pi­ness, Then na­ture de­vi­ates--and can man do less? As much that end a con­stant course re­quires Of show'rs and sun­shine, as of man's de­sires; As much eter­nal springs and cloud­less skies, As man for­ev­er temp'rate, calm, and wise. If plagues or earth­quakes break not heav­en's de­sign. Why then a Bor­gia, or a Cataline? Who knows but He whose hand the light­ning forms, Who heaves old ocean, and who wings the storms; Pours fierce am­bi­tion in a Cae­sar's mind; Or turns young Am­mon loose to scourge mankind? From pride, from pride our very reas'ning springs; Ac­count for moral as for nat'ral things: Why charge we heav­en in those, in these ac­quit? In both, to rea­son right, is to sub­mit.

Bet­ter for us, per­haps, it might ap­pear, Were there all har­mo­ny, all virtue here; That nev­er air or ocean felt the wind; That nev­er pas­sion dis­com­posed the mind. But =all= sub­sists by el­emen­tal strife; And pas­sions are the el­ements of life. The gen­er­al =or­der=, since the whole be­gan, Is kept in na­ture, and is kept in man.

* * * * *

Look round our world, be­hold the chain of love. Com­bin­ing all be­low and all above; See plas­tic na­ture work­ing to this end, The sin­gle atoms each to oth­er tend; At­tract, at­tract­ed to, the next in place Formed and im­pelled its neigh­bor to em­brace, See mat­ter next, with var­ious life en­dued, Press to one cen­ter still the gen'ral good. See dy­ing veg­eta­bles life sus­tain, See life dis­solv­ing, veg­etate again; All forms that per­ish, oth­er forms sup­ply, (By turns we catch the vi­tal breath, and die) Like bub­bles on the sea of mat­ter borne, They rise, they break, and to that sea re­turn, Noth­ing is for­eign--parts re­late to whole; One all-​ex­tend­ing, all-​pre­serv­ing soul Con­nects each be­ing great­est with the least; Made beast in aid of man, and man of beast; All served, all serv­ing; noth­ing stands alone; The chain holds on, and where it ends, un­known.

But _pow­er_ alone is not suf­fi­cient to pro­duce ac­tion. There must be a =cause= to call it forth, to set in op­er­ation and ex­hib­it its la­tent en­er­gies. It will re­main hid in its se­cret cham­bers till ef­fi­cient caus­es have set in op­er­ation the _means_ by which its ex­is­tence is to be dis­cov­ered in the pro­duc­tion of change, ef­fects, or re­sults. There is, it is said, in ev­ery cre­at­ed thing a pow­er suf­fi­cient to pro­duce its own de­struc­tion, as well as to pre­serve its be­ing. In the hu­man body, for in­stance, there is a con­stant ten­den­cy to de­cay, to waste; which a coun­ter­act­ing pow­er re­sists, and, with prop­er as­sis­tance, keeps alive.

The same may be said of veg­eta­bles which are con­stant­ly throw­ing off, or ex­hal­ing the waste, of­fen­sive, or use­less mat­ter, and yet a restor­ing pow­er, as­sist­ed by heat, mois­ture, and the nour­ish­ment of the earth, re­sists the ten­den­cy to de­cay and pre­serves it alive and grow­ing. The air, the earth, nay, the ocean it­self, philoso­phers as­sure us, con­tain pow­ers suf­fi­cient to self-​de­struc­tion. But I will not en­large here. Let the nec­es­sary _cause_ be ex­ert­ed which will give vent to this hid­den pow­er and ac­tions the most as­ton­ish­ing and de­struc­tive would be the ef­fect. These are of­ten wit­nessed in the tremen­dous earth­quakes which dev­as­tate whole cities, states, and em­pires; in the tor­na­dos which pass, like the ge­nius of evil, over the land, lev­el­ling what­ev­er is found in its course; or in the wa­ter­spouts and mael­stroms which prove the grave of all that comes with­in their grasp.

In the at­tempt­ed de­struc­tion of the roy­al fam­ily and par­lia­ment of Eng­land, by what is usu­al­ly called the “gun­pow­der plot,” the ar­range­ments were all made; two hogsheads and thir­ty-​six bar­rels of pow­der, suf­fi­cient to blow up the house of lords and the sur­round­ing build­ings, were se­cret­ed in a vault be­neath it, strown over with fag­gots. Guy Fawkes, a span­ish of­fi­cer, em­ployed for the pur­pose, lay at the door, on the 5th of Novem­ber, 1605, with the match­es, or _means_, in his pock­et, which should set in op­er­ation the prodi­gious dor­mant _pow­er_, which would hurl to de­struc­tion James I., the roy­al fam­ily, and the protes­tant par­lia­ment, give the as­cen­dan­cy to the Catholics, and change the whole po­lit­ical con­di­tion of the na­tion. The _project_ was dis­cov­ered, the _means_ were re­moved, the _cause_ tak­en away, and the threat­ened _ef­fects_ were pre­vent­ed.

The =cause= of ac­tion is the im­me­di­ate sub­ject which pre­cedes or tends to pro­duce the ac­tion, with­out which it would not take place. It may re­sult from vo­li­tion, in­her­ent ten­den­cy, or com­mu­ni­cat­ed im­pulse; and is known to ex­ist from the ef­fects pro­duced by it, in the al­tered or new con­di­tion of the thing on which it op­er­ates; which change would not have been ef­fect­ed with­out it.

Caus­es are to be sought for by trac­ing back thro the ef­fects which are pro­duced by them. The fac­to­ry is put in op­er­ation, and the cloth is man­ufac­tured. The care­less ob­serv­er would en­ter the build­ing and see the spin­dles, looms, and wheels op­er­at­ed by the hands, and go away sat­is­fied that he has seen enough, seen all. But the more care­ful will look far­ther. He will trace each band and wheel, each cog and shaft, down by the bal­ance pow­er, to the wa­ter race and floom; or thro the com­pli­cat­ed ma­chin­ery of the steam en­gine to the pis­ton, con­denser, wa­ter, wood, and fire; mark­ing a new, more se­cret, and yet more ef­fi­cient cause at each ad­vanc­ing step. But all this cu­ri­ous­ly wrought ma­chin­ery is not the prod­uct of chance, op­er­at­ed with­out care. A su­pe­ri­or cause must be sought in hu­man skill, in the deep and ac­tive in­ge­nu­ity of man. Ev­ery con­trivance pre­sup­pos­es a con­triv­er. Hence there must have been a pow­er and means suf­fi­cient to com­bine and reg­ulate the pow­er of the wa­ter, or gen­er­ate and di­rect the steam. That pow­er is vest­ed in man; and hence, man stands as the cause, in re­la­tion to the whole pro­cess op­er­at­ed by wheels, bands, spin­dles, and looms. Yet we may say, with pro­pri­ety, that the wa­ter, or the steam; the wa­ter-​wheel, or the pis­ton; the shafts, bands, cogs, pul­lies, spin­dles, springs, tred­dles, har­ness­es, reeds, shut­tles, an al­most end­less con­cate­na­tion of in­stru­ments, are alike the _caus­es_, which tend to pro­duce the fi­nal re­sult; for let one of these in­ter­me­di­ate caus­es be re­moved, and the whole pow­er will be di­vert­ed, and all will go wrong--the ef­fect will not be pro­duced.

There must be a =first cause= to set in op­er­ation all in­fe­ri­or ones in the pro­duc­tion of ac­tion; and to that _first_ cause all ac­tion, nay, the ex­is­tence of all oth­er caus­es, may be traced, di­rect­ly, or more dis­tant. The in­ter­ven­ing caus­es, in the con­sec­utive or­der of things, may be as di­ver­si­fied as the links in the chain of vari­ant be­ings. Yet all these caus­es are moved by the all-​suf­fi­cient and ev­er present agen­cy of the Almighty Fa­ther, the =Un­caused Cause= of all things and be­ings; who spoke in­to ex­is­tence the uni­verse with all its var­ious and com­pli­cat­ed parts and or­ders; who set the sun, moon, and stars in the fir­ma­ment, gave the earth a place, and fixed the sea a bed; throw­ing around them bar­ri­ers over which they can nev­er pass. From the height of his eter­nal throne, his eye per­vades all his works; from the tall archangel, that “adores and burns,” down to the very hairs of our heads, which are all num­bered, his wise, benev­olent, and pow­er­ful su­per­vi­sion may be traced in leg­ible lines, which may be seen and read of all men. And from ef­fects, the most diminu­tive in char­ac­ter, may be traced back, from cause to cause, up­ward in the as­cend­ing scale of be­ing, to the same un­ri­valled Source of all pow­er, splen­dor, and per­fec­tion, the pres­ence of Him, who spake, and it was done; who com­mand­ed, and it _stood still_; or, as the po­et has it:

“Look thro na­ture up to na­ture's God.”

The _means_ of ac­tion are those aids which are dis­played as the medi­um thro which ex­ist­ing caus­es are to ex­hib­it their hid­den pow­ers in pro­duc­ing changes or ef­fects. The match­es in the pock­et of Guy Fawkes were the di­rect means by which he in­tend­ed to set in op­er­ation a train of caus­es which should ter­mi­nate in the de­struc­tion of the house of lords and all its in­mates. Those match­es, set on fire, would con­vey a spark to the fag­gots, and thence to the pow­der, and means af­ter means, and cause af­ter cause, in the rapid suc­ces­sion of events, would en­sue, tend­ing to a fi­nal, in­evitable, and melan­choly re­sult.

A ball shot from a can­non, re­ceives its first im­pulse from the pow­der; but it is borne thro the air by the aid of a prin­ci­ple in­her­ent in it­self, which pow­er is fi­nal­ly over­come by the den­si­ty of the at­mo­sphere which im­pedes its progress, and the law of grav­ita­tion fi­nal­ly at­tracts it to the earth. These con­tend­ing prin­ci­ples may be known by ob­serv­ing the curved line in which the ball moves from the can­non's mouth to the spot where it rests. But if there is no pow­er in the ball, why does not the ball of cork dis­charged from the same gun with the same mo­men­tum, trav­el to the same dis­tance, at the same rate? The ac­tion com­mences in both cas­es with the same pro­jec­tile force, the same ex­te­ri­or _means_ are em­ployed, but the re­sults are wide­ly dif­fer­ent. The cause of this dif­fer­ence must be sought for in the com­par­ative pow­er of each sub­stance to _con­tin­ue its own move­ments_.

Ev­ery boy who has played at ball has ob­served these prin­ci­ples. He throws his ball, which, if not _coun­ter­act­ed_, will con­tin­ue in a straight line, _ad in­fini­tum_--with­out end. But the air im­pedes its progress, and grav­ita­tion brings it to the ground. When he throws it against a hard sub­stance, its ve­loc­ity is not on­ly over­come, but it is sent back with great force. But if he takes a ball of wax, of snow, or any strong ad­he­sive sub­stance, it will not bound. How shall we ac­count to him for this dif­fer­ence? He did the same with both balls. The im­pe­tus giv­en the one was as great as the oth­er, and the re­sis­tance of the in­ter­ven­ing sub­stance was as great in one case as the oth­er; and yet, one bounds and re­bounds, while the oth­er sticks fast as a friend, to the first ob­ject it meets. The cause of this dif­fer­ence is to be sought for in the dif­fer­ent ca­pa­bil­ities of the re­spec­tive balls. One pos­sess­es a strong elas­tic and re­pelling pow­er; in the oth­er, the at­trac­tion of co­he­sion is pre­dom­inant.

Take an­oth­er ex­am­ple. Let two sub­stances of equal size and form, the one made of lead, the oth­er of cork, be put up­on the sur­face of a cis­tern of wa­ter. The ex­ter­nal cir­cum­stances are the same, but the ef­fects are wide­ly dif­fer­ent--one sinks, the oth­er floats. We must look for the cause of this dif­fer­ence, not in the op­po­site qual­ities of sur­round­ing mat­ter, but in the things them­selves. If you add to the cork an­oth­er qual­ity pos­sessed by the lead, and give it the same form, size, and _weight_, it will as read­ily sink to the bot­tom. But this last prop­er­ty is pos­sessed in dif­fer­ent de­grees by the two bod­ies, and hence, while the one floats up­on the wa­ter, the oth­er dis­places its par­ti­cles and sinks to the bot­tom. You may take an­oth­er sub­stance; say the moun­tain ebony, which is heav­ier than wa­ter, but lighter than lead, and im­merse it in the wa­ter; it will not sink with the ra­pid­ity of lead, be­cause its in­her­ent _pow­er_ is not so strong.

Take still an­oth­er case. Let two balls, sus­pend­ed on strings, be equal­ly, or, to use the tech­ni­cal term, _pos­itive­ly_ elec­tri­fied. Bring them with­in a cer­tain dis­tance, and they will re­pel each oth­er. Let the elec­tric flu­id be ex­tract­ed from one, and the oth­er will at­tract it. Be­fore, they were as en­emies; now they em­brace as friends. The mag­net fur­nish­es the most strik­ing proof in fa­vor of the the­ory we are la­bor­ing to es­tab­lish. Let one of suf­fi­cient pow­er be let down with­in the prop­er dis­tance, it will over­come the pow­er of grav­ita­tion, and _at­tract_ the heavy steel to it­self. What is the cause of this won­der­ful fact? Who can ac­count for it? Who can trace out the hid­den cause; the “_pri­mum mo­bile_” of the Ptol­ma­ic phi­los­ophy--the se­cret spring of mo­tion? But who will dare de­ny that such ef­fects do ex­ist, and that they are pro­duced by an ef­fi­cient cause? Or who will de­scend in­to the still more dark and per­plex­ing mazes of neuter verb gram­mars, and de­ny that mat­ter has such a pow­er to act?

These in­stances will suf­fice to show you what we mean when we say, _ev­ery thing acts ac­cord­ing to the abil­ity God has giv­en it to act_. I might go in­to a more minute ex­am­ina­tion of the prop­er­ties of mat­ter, affin­ity, hard­ness, weight, size, col­or, form, mo­bil­ity, &c., which even old gram­mars will al­low it to _pos­sess_; but I shall leave that work for you to per­form at your leisure.

Who­ev­er has any doubts re­main­ing in ref­er­ence to the abil­ities of all things to _pro­duce_, _con­tin­ue_, or _pre­vent_ mo­tion, will do well to con­sult the prince of philoso­phers, Sir Isaac New­ton, who, af­ter Gallileo, has treat­ed large­ly up­on the laws of mo­tion. He as­serts as a fact, full in il­lus­tra­tion of the prin­ci­ples I am la­bor­ing to es­tab­lish, that in as­cend­ing a hill, the trace rope pulls the horse back as much as he draws that for­ward, on­ly the horse over­comes the re­sis­tance of the load, and moves it up the hill. On the old sys­tems, no pow­er would be req­ui­site to move the load, for it could op­pose no re­sis­tance to the horse; and the small child could move it with as much ease as the strong team.

Who has not an ac­quain­tance suf­fi­cient­ly ex­ten­sive to know these things? I can not be­lieve there is a per­son present, who does not ful­ly com­pre­hend my mean­ing, and dis­cov­er the cor­rect­ness of the ground I have as­sumed. And it should be borne in mind, that no col­lec­tion or ar­range­ment of words can be com­posed in­to a sen­tence, which do not ob­tain their mean­ing from a con­nec­tion of things as they ex­ist and op­er­ate in the ma­te­ri­al and in­tel­lec­tu­al world, and that it is not in the pow­er of man to frame a sen­tence, to think or speak, but in con­for­mi­ty with these gen­er­al and ex­cep­tion­less laws.

This im­por­tant con­sid­er­ation meets us at ev­ery ad­vanc­ing step, as if to ad­mon­ish us to aban­don the vain project of seek­ing a knowl­edge of lan­guage with­out an ac­quain­tance with the great prin­ci­ples on which it de­pends. To look for the lead­ing rules of speech in set forms of ex­pres­sion, or in the capri­cious cus­toms of any na­tion, how­ev­er learned, is as fu­tile as to at­tempt to gain a knowl­edge of the world by shut­ting our­selves up in a room, and look­ing at paint­ings and draw­ings which may be fur­nished by those who know as lit­tle of it as we do. How fal­la­cious would be the at­tempt, how much worse than time thrown away, for the par­ent to shut up his child in a lone­ly room, and un­der­take to im­press up­on its mind a knowl­edge of man, beasts, birds, fish, in­sects, rivers, moun­tains, fields, flow­ers, hous­es, cities, &c., with no oth­er aid than a few mis­er­able pic­tures, un­like the re­al­ity, and in many re­spects con­tra­dic­to­ry to each oth­er. And yet that would be adopt­ing a course very sim­ilar to the one long em­ployed as the on­ly means of ac­quir­ing a knowl­edge of lan­guage; lim­it­ed to a set of ar­bi­trary, false, and con­tra­dic­to­ry rules, which the bright­est ge­nius­es could nev­er un­der­stand, nor the most eru­dite em­ploy in the ex­pres­sion of ideas. The gram­mars, it was thought, must be stud­ied to ac­quire the use of lan­guage, and yet they were for­got­ten be­fore such knowl­edge was put in prac­tice.

* * * * *

A sim­ple re­mark on the prin­ci­ples of _rel­ative_ ac­tion, and we will pass to the con­sid­er­ation of _agents_ and _ob­jects_, or the more im­me­di­ate _caus­es_ and _ef­fects_ of ac­tion.

We go forth at the evening hour and look up­on the sun _sink­ing_ be­neath the hori­zon; we mark the vary­ing hues of light as they ap­pear, and change, and fade away. We see the shades of night _ap­proach­ing_, with a grad­ual pace, till the beau­ti­ful land­scape on which we had been gaz­ing, the hills and the mead­ows; the farm house and the cul­ti­vat­ed fields, the grove, the or­chard, and the gar­den; the tran­quil lake and the bab­bling brook; the dairy re­turn­ing home, and the lam­bkins gam­bolling be­side their dams; all _re­cede_ from our view, and _ap­pear_ to us no longer. All this is _rel­ative_ ac­tion. But so far as lan­guage and ideas are con­cerned, it mat­ters not whether the sun ac­tu­al­ly _sinks_ be­hind the hills, or the hills in­ter­pose be­tween it and us; whether the land­scape _re­cedes_ from our view, or the shades of night in­ter­cept so as to ob­scure our vi­sion. The habit of thought is the same, and the form of ex­pres­sion must agree with it. We say the sun _ris­es_ and _sets_, in ref­er­ence to the ob­vi­ous fact, with­out stop­ping to in­quire whether it re­al­ly moves or not. Nor is such an in­quiry at all nec­es­sary, as to mat­ter of fact, for all we mean by such ex­pres­sions, is, that by some pro­cess, im­ma­te­ri­al to the case in hand, the sun stands in a new re­la­tion to the earth, its al­ti­tude is el­evat­ed or de­pressed, and hence the ac­tion is strict­ly rel­ative. For we should re­mem­ber that _ris­ing_ and _set­ting_, _up_ and _down_, _above_ and _be­low_, in ref­er­ence to the earth, are on­ly rel­ative terms.

We speak and read of the _changes_ of the moon, and we cor­rect­ly un­der­stand each oth­er. But in truth the moon changes no more at one time than at an­oth­er. The ac­tion is pure­ly rel­ative. One day we ob­serve it _be­fore_ the sun, and the next _be­hind_ it, as we un­der­stand these terms. The pre­cise time of the change, when it will ap­pear to us in a dif­fer­ent re­la­tion to the sun, is com­put­ed by as­tronomers, and set down in our al­manacs; but it changes no more at that time than at any oth­er, for like ev­ery thing else, it is _al­ways chang­ing_.

In a case we men­tioned in a for­mer lec­ture, “John _looks_ like or _re­sem­bles_ his broth­er,” we have an ex­am­ple of rel­ative ac­tion. So in the case of two men trav­el­ling the same way, start­ing to­geth­er, but ad­vanc­ing at dif­fer­ent rates; one, we say, _falls_ be­hind the oth­er. In this man­ner of ex­pres­sion, we fol­low ex­act­ly the prin­ci­ples on which we start­ed, and suit our lan­guage to our ideas and habits of think­ing. By the law of op­tics things are re­flect­ed up­on the reti­na of the eye in­verse­ly, that is, up­side down; but they are al­ways seen in a prop­er re­la­tion to each oth­er, and if there is any thing wrong in the case, it is over­come by ear­ly habit; and so our lan­guage ac­cords with things as they are man­ifest­ed to our un­der­stand­ings.

These ex­am­ples will serve to il­lus­trate what we mean by rel­ative ac­tion, when ap­plied to nat­ural phi­los­ophy or the con­struc­tion of lan­guage.

I had in­tend­ed in this lec­ture to have treat­ed of the agents and ob­jects of verbs, to prove, in ac­cor­dance with the first and clos­est prin­ci­ples of phi­los­ophy, that ev­ery “_cause_ must have an _ef­fect_,” or, in oth­er words, that ev­ery ac­tion must ter­mi­nate on some ob­ject, ei­ther ex­pressed or nec­es­sar­ily un­der­stood; but I am ad­mon­ished that I have oc­cu­pied more than my usu­al quo­ta of time in this lec­ture al­ready, and hence I shall leave this work for our next.

I will con­clude by the re­la­tion of an anec­dote or two from the life of that won­der­ful man, Gallileo Gallilei, who was many years pro­fes­sor of math­emat­ics at Pad­ua. Pos­sessed of a strong, re­flect­ing mind, he had ear­ly giv­en his at­ten­tion to the ob­ser­va­tion of things, their mo­tions, ten­den­cies, and pow­er of re­sis­tance, from which he as­cend­ed, step by step, to the sub­lime sci­ence of as­tron­omy. Be­ing of an hon­est and frank, as well as benev­olent dis­po­si­tion, he shunned not to state and de­fend the­ories at war with the then re­ceived opin­ions. All learn­ing was, at that time, in the hands or un­der the su­per­vi­sion of the ec­cle­si­as­tics, who were con­tent to fol­low blind­ly the aris­totelian phi­los­ophy, which, in many re­spects, was not un­like that still em­braced in our _neuter verb sys­tems_ of gram­mar. There was a sworn hos­til­ity against all im­prove­ment, or in­no­va­tion as it was called, in sci­ence as well as in the­ol­ogy. The coper­ni­can sys­tem, to which Gallileo was in­clined, if it had not been for­mal­ly con­demned, had been vir­tu­al­ly de­nounced as false, and its ad­vo­cates hereti­cal. Hence Gallileo nev­er dared open­ly to de­fend it, but, piece by piece, un­der dif­fer­ent names, he brought it forth, which, car­ried out, would es­tab­lish the hereti­cal sys­tem. Dwelling as a light in the midst of sur­round­ing dark­ness, he cau­tious­ly dis­cov­ered the pre­cious truths re­vealed to his mind, lest the flood of light should dis­tract and de­stroy the men­tal vi­sion, break up the el­ements of so­ci­ety, let loose the re­sist­less pow­ers of ig­no­rance, prej­udice and big­otry, and en­ve­lope him­self and friends in a com­mon ru­in. At length hav­ing pre­pared in a very guard­ed man­ner his fa­mous “Di­alogues on the Ptol­ma­ic and Coper­ni­can Sys­tems,” he ob­tained per­mis­sion, and ven­tured to pub­lish it to the world, al­tho an edict had been pro­mul­gat­ed en­join­ing si­lence on the sub­ject, and he had been per­son­al­ly in­struct­ed “_not to be­lieve or teach the mo­tion of the earth in any man­ner_.”

By the false rep­re­sen­ta­tion of his en­emies, sus­pi­cions were aroused and busi­ly cir­cu­lat­ed prej­udi­cial to Gallileo. Pope Ur­ban him­self, his for­mer friend, be­came ex­as­per­at­ed to­wards him, and a sen­tence against him and his books was ful­mi­nat­ed by the Car­di­nals, pro­hibit­ing the “sale and vend­ing of the lat­ter, and con­demn­ing him to the for­mal prison of the Holy Of­fice for a pe­ri­od de­ter­mined at their plea­sure.” The sen­tence of the In­qui­si­tion was in part couched in these words--“We pro­nounce, judge, and de­clare, that you, the said Gallileo, by rea­son of these things, which have been de­tailed in the course of this in­ves­ti­ga­tion, and which, as above, you have con­fessed, have ren­dered your­self ve­he­ment­ly sus­pect­ed by this Holy Of­fice, of heresy; that is to say, that you be­lieve and hold the false doc­trine, and con­trary to the Holy and Di­vine Scrip­tures, name­ly, that the sun is the cen­ter of the world, and that it does not _move_ from east to west, and that the earth does _move_, and is not the cen­ter of the world; al­so, that an opin­ion _can be held_ and _sup­port­ed_ as _prob­able_, _af­ter it has been_ de­clared, and fi­nal­ly de­creed con­trary to the Holy Scrip­tures”--by the Holy See!! “From which,” they con­tin­ue, “it is _our_ plea­sure that you be ab­solved, pro­vid­ed that, first, with a _sin­cere_ heart, and _un­feigned faith_, in our pres­ence, you _ab­jure_, _curse_, and _de­test_ the said er­rors and here­sies, and ev­ery oth­er er­ror and heresy con­trary to the Catholic and Apos­tolic Church of Rome, in the form now shown to you.”

Af­ter suf­fer­ing un­der this anath­ema some time, Gallileo, by the ad­vice of his friends, con­sent­ed to make a pub­lic ab­ju­ra­tion of his for­mer here­sies on the laws of mo­tion. Kneel­ing be­fore the “Most Em­inent and Most Rev­erend Lords Car­di­nals, Gen­er­al In­quisi­tors of the uni­ver­sal Chris­tian re­pub­lic, against _hereti­cal de­prav­ity_, hav­ing be­fore his eyes the Holy Gospels,” he swears that he al­ways “_be­lieved_, and now _be­lieves_, and with the help of God, _will in fu­ture be­lieve_, ev­ery ar­ti­cle which the Holy Catholic Church of Rome holds, teach­es, and preach­es”--that he does al­to­geth­er “aban­don the false opin­ion which main­tains that the 'sun is the cen­ter of the world, and that the earth is _not_ the cen­ter and _mov­able_,' that with a sin­cere heart and un­feigned faith, he ab­jures, curs­es, and de­tests the said er­rors and here­sies, and ev­ery oth­er er­ror and sect con­trary to the said Holy Church, and that he will nev­er more in fu­ture, say or as­sert any thing ver­bal­ly, or in writ­ing, which may give rise to sim­ilar sus­pi­cion.” As he arose from his knees, it is said, he whis­pered to a friend stand­ing near him, “_E pur si muove_”--=it does move, tho=.

In our times we are not fat­ed to live un­der the ter­rors of the In­qui­si­tion; but prej­udice, if not as strong in pow­er to ex­ecute, has the abil­ity to blind as tru­ly as in oth­er ages, and keep us from the knowl­edge and adop­tion of prac­ti­cal im­prove­ments. And it is the same phi­los­ophy now, which _asks_ if _inan­imate mat­ter can act_, which _de­mand­ed_ of Gallileo if this pon­der­ous globe could fly a thou­sand miles in a minute, and no body feel the mo­tion; and with Dea­con Home­spun, in the di­alogue, “why, if this world turned up­side down, the wa­ter did not spill from the mill ponds, and all the peo­ple fall head­long to the bot­tom­less pit?”

If there are any such peri­patet­ics in these days of light and sci­ence, who still cling to the false and de­grad­ing sys­tems of neu­tral­ity, be­cause they are hon­or­able for age, or sus­tained by learned and good men, and who will op­pose all im­prove­ment, re­ject with­out ex­am­ina­tion, or, what is still worse, refuse to adopt, af­ter be­ing con­vinced of the truth of it, any sys­tem, be­cause it is nov­el, an in­no­va­tion up­on es­tab­lished forms, I can on­ly say of them, in the lan­guage of Mi­canzio, the Vene­tian friend of Gallileo--“The ef­forts of such en­emies to get these prin­ci­ples pro­hib­it­ed, will oc­ca­sion no loss ei­ther to your rep­uta­tion, or to the in­tel­li­gent part of the world. As to pos­ter­ity, this is just one of the surest ways to hand them down to them. But what a wretched set this must be, to whom ev­ery good thing, and _all that is found in na­ture_, nec­es­sar­ily ap­pears hos­tile and odi­ous.”