General Reflections on deal. $a 
yoisier as the philosopher who argued for the ascent of the 
gure, from a knowledge of the machinery that was worked 
behind the scenes, but which was entirely concealed from 
those who had attempted the same explanation before ne 
then we admit that it is a true mode of reasoning, a 
sure progress in science, to collect a number of individual 
phenomena into a. class and arrange them under @ common 
antecedent, we must allow great merit to Lavoisier for having 
discovered, that the absorption of oxygen was the antecedent 
of nearly all the known eases of combustion. If, however, 
we demand something more in. explanation of this class of 
phenomena than the discovery of their invariable antecedent, 
we may pronounce all chemical facts as still unexplained, 
and may rest assured that they will for ever remain so. 
Sometimes the immediate wechegralesi ee may be traced one, two, 
three, or four links back. but the chain will uniformly ter- 
8 
ut humble views of the power of man to 
the besle of Omnipotence, we may rest contented with the 
fast fact in the series, that we have ascertained, and instead 
of vainly attempting to penetrate into -secrets which were 
never designed for. us to know, we may now examine to see 
to what manifold purposes the knowledge of causes that we 
have already acquired, may be applied. “ Newton stopped 
short at the last-fact which he could Weare in the solar sys- 
tem; that ali bodies were deflected to all other bodies, 
( 1g to certain regulations of mice and quantity of 
matter. When told that he had done nothing in philosophy ; 
that he had discovered no cause, and that to merit any praise, 
he must show how this deflection was produced; he said, he 
knew no more than he had told them; that he saw nothing 
causing this deflection; and was contented with having de- 
scribed it so exactly, that a good matheinatician could now 
make tables of. the planetary motions, as accurate as he 
pleased, and with hoping, in a few years, to have every pur. 
pose of navigation and. philosophical curiosity com»letel 
answered.” (Life of Newton, Encyclopedia.) Thus th: 
most ignorant man knows as well as the greatest philosophex 
that light is essential to vision, and the la ter knows but one 
fact more jn the series ; all beyond isas incomprehensible tc 
him as to the other. This additional fact i is, that light ena: 
bles us to see external objects. by its power of undergoing re- 
fraction in passing through Jeases, so as to form au image of 
