OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 35 



CHAP. III. 



OF THE NATURE AND OBJECTS, IMMEDIATE AND COL- 

 LATERAL, OF PHYSICAL SCIENCE, AS REGARDED IN 

 ITSELF, AND IN ITS APPLICATION TO THE PRACTICAL 

 PURPOSES OF LIFE, AND ITS INFLUENCE ON THE WELL- 

 BEING AND PROGRESS OF SOCIETY. 



(26.) THE first thing impressed on us from our 

 earliest infancy is, that events do not succeed one 

 another at random, but with a certain degree of order, 

 regularity, and connection ; some constantly, and, 

 as we are apt to think, immutably, as the alter- 

 nation of day and night, summer and winter, others 

 contingently, as the motion of a body from its place, 

 if pushed, or the burning of a stick if thrust into the 

 fire. The knowledge that the former class of events 

 has gone on, uninterruptedly, for ages beyond all 

 memory, impresses us with a strong expectation that 

 it will continue to do so in the same manner ; and 

 thus our notion of an order of nature is originated 

 and confirmed. If every thing were equally regular 

 and periodical, and the succession of events liable to 

 no change depending on our own will, it may be 

 doubted whether we should ever think of looking for 

 causes. No one regards the night as the cause of the 

 day, or the day of night. They are alternate effects 

 of a common cause, which their regular succession 

 alone gives us no sufficient clue for determining. It 

 D 2 



