92 DISCOURSE ON THE STUDY 



out into as many different and distinct enquiries as 

 there are simple or elementary phenomena into 

 which it may be analysed; and that, therefore, it 

 would greatly assist us in our study of nature, if we 

 could, by any means, ascertain what are the ulti- 

 mate phenomena into which all the composite ones 

 presented by it may be resolved. There is, how- 

 ever, clearly no way by which this can be ascertained 

 a priori. We must go to nature itself, and be 

 guided by the same kind of rule as the chemist in 

 his analysis, who accounts every ingredient an ele- 

 ment till it can be decompounded and resolved into 

 others. So, in natural philosophy, we must account 

 every phenomenon an elementary or simple one till 

 we can analyse it, and show that it is the result of 

 others, which in their turn become elementary. 

 Thus, in a modified and relative sense, we may 

 still continue to speak of causes, not intending 

 thereby those ultimate principles of action on whose 

 exertion the whole frame of nature depends, but 

 of those proximate links which connect pheno- 

 mena with others of a simpler, higher, and more 

 general or elementary kind. For example : we 

 may regard the vibration of a musical string as 

 the proximate cause of the sound it yields, receiving 

 it, so far, as an ultimate fact, and waving or de- 

 ferring enquiry into the cause of vibrations, which 

 is of a higher and more general nature. 



(84.) Moreover, as in chemistry we are some- 

 times compelled to acknowledge the existence of 

 elements different from those already identified and 

 known, though we cannot insulate them, and to 

 perceive that substances have the characters of 



