274 The Progress of Physical Discovery. [[MARCH, 



A benefit of another kind, too, may probably be reaped by the natu- 

 ralists of the western states of Europe, in their intercourse with those of 

 Germany. We mean, a more elevated and comprehensive method of 

 studying nature in general. Something is evidently wanted, both in 

 France, and in this country, to prevent the experimental system from 

 degenerating into materialism to fortify physical investigators against 

 a degrading scepticism, which has already fastened itself upon too many 

 of them. This scepticism has arisen from considering things exclusively 

 under one point of view, viz., that of variety, or of their difference from 

 each other, and losing sight of the universal harmony of all material 

 existences with the human soul, and with each other ; of the one idea 

 which pervades all -nature, reflecting itself constantly through every part 

 of it ; in a word, of the unity of the world. A perfect comprehension 

 of this unity is indeed far from being attainable by man ; but every 

 advance in science brings us nearer to it, inasmuch as it enables us to 

 compare each newly acquired fact with those already known, and to 

 consider it in relation with the rest of the members of nature. 



This philosophy, however, the Baron Cuvier, and other great natu- 

 ralists, will say, is nothing but the speculation of a poetical imagination, 

 and if intelligible at all, cannot possibly assist in the discovery of truth, 

 and is therefore vain. If truth is only found out by experience, how 

 can we be assured of the existence of what is called the principle of 

 unity ? The very essence of inductive philosophy is its rejection of all 

 dogmas assumed a priori ; and is not, it will be urged, this doctrine of 

 harmony as much an a priori assumption as any that is contained in the 

 Aristotelian System ? " Let us," they say, " stand fast in the liberty 

 wherewith Bacon has made us free, lest we be again entangled in 

 Aristotelian bondage." 



The fallacy, however, of this reasoning, consists in taking for granted, 

 that because our knowledge with respect to matter can only be founded 

 on the induction of particular facts by the aid of our senses, so neither 

 can any thing belonging to our internal consciousness be admitted to 

 exist unless evidence of the same kind can be produced for it. Now, 

 without intending to inveigle our readers into a metaphysical disquisition, 

 we cannot imagine how any one can deny the reality of the ideas in his 

 own mind, without at the same time doubting his own personal existence. 

 There is no man, who conceives of matter at all, who does not conceive 

 of it under the idea either of unity or of variety ; that is, every man re- 

 gards it either as a connected whole, or as unconnected substances. The 

 materialists, not having in their minds the idea of unity or infinity, are 

 possessed by the opposite idea, that of heterogeneousness or variety; and 

 hence arises their incapability of conceiving in another and nobler man- 

 ner, and their disbelief of the existence of a certain immaterial principle, 

 though they are themselves under the influence of a principle of an 

 opposite tendency, but still equally immaterial. 



We recommend those who are continually citing Lord Bacon as the 

 pilot by whose guidance all new discoveries are to be attained, to con- 

 sider well his explanation of that universal science, which he styles, Pki- 

 fosophia Prima, the highway from whence the other roads part and 

 divide themselves, as the branches f a tree from their common stem. 

 " It is," he says, " a receptacle for all such profitable observations and 

 axioms as fall not within the compass of any of the special parts of 



