124 Mr Glover on Forms of Induction. 



to be a forced conviction of the mind, and therefore allowable 

 in a philosophical sense also.* Dr Brown himself nearly ad- 

 mits at one time all that the most speculative transcendalist 

 could desire to have from him in favour of the legitimacy of 

 researches into the nature of ultimate principles ; for while la- 

 menting the defection of Newton from sound philosophical 

 views, with regard to the proper objects of physical inquiry in- 

 dicated by the query as to the cause of gravity, this circum- 

 stance is attributed by him to the influence of a " human infir- 

 mity," from which the greatest minds are not exempt.i" The 

 advocates for transcendental or speculative inquiry, when in- 

 ductive investigation is apparently pushed as far as possible, 

 merely maintain, that, from the very constitution of the human 

 mind, it is not possible for us to refrain from attempts to acquire 

 some notion of existencies in the being of which we are com- 

 pelled to believe, although they themselves be not before the 

 senses. Both Dr Brown and Mr Stewart 4 regard a conviction 

 of the existence of something to be explored, as the legitimate 

 and necessary precursor of scientific inquiry : hypothesis is the 

 stimulus to investigation which in the human race as a whole, 

 and in individuals, has ever been urged on by the'presumption 

 of success thus afforded. And if the existence of some princi- 

 ple beyond such a law as that of gravity were not supposed, 

 there could be no inducement to inquire after such an entity. 

 Now, the laws of chemical affinity are exactly correspondent 

 with that of gravity ; and Davy succeeded in determining the 

 dependence of chemical affinity upon the electric states of bodies. 

 Nay, of late, Mossotti has by abstract reasoning generalized all 

 the phenomena of attraction and repulsion, whether of a me- 

 chanical or chemical charactei", into actions of a common hypo- 

 thetical principle, which must coincide with the cause of gravity. 

 Physical inquiry may be regarded not improperly as a con- 

 stant struggle on the part of the mind, to acquire such a per- 

 fect knowledge of the phenomena and scheme of external na- 

 ture as it has of those ideas of relation generated within itself. 



* Traite des Systems, vol. i. pp. 240-2. 



t See Brown's Lectures, vol. i. sect. 8, p. 1 6?. 



X See Stewart's Lectures, vol. ii. c. 4, p. 403. 



