

CHAP. XXII.] CONSTITUTION OF THE INTELLECT. 409 



adopted. Let it be granted that the laws of valid reasoning, 

 such as they are determined to be in this work, or, to speak more 

 generally, such as they would finally appear in the conclusions of 

 an exhaustive analysis, form but a part of the system of laws by 

 which the actual processes of reasoning, whether right or wrong, 

 are governed. Let it be granted that if that system were known 

 to us in its completeness, we should perceive that the whole in- 

 tellectual procedure was necessary, even as the movements of the 

 inorganic ' world are necessary. And let it finally, as a conse- 

 quence of this hypothesis, be granted that the phenomena of in- 

 correct reasoning or error, wheresoever presented, are due to the 

 interference of other laws with those laws of which right reason- 

 ing is the product. Still it would remain that there exist among 

 the intellectual laws a number marked out from the rest by this 

 special character, viz., that every movement of the intellectual 

 system which is accomplished solely under their direction is 

 right, that every interference therewith by other laws is not in- 

 terference only, but violation. It cannot but be felt that this 

 circumstance would give to the laws in question a character of 

 distinction and of predominance They would but the more 

 evidently seem to indicate a final purpose which is not always 

 fulfilled, to possess an authority inherent and just, but not 

 always commanding obedience. 



Now a little consideration will show that there is nothing 

 analogous to this in the government of the world by natural law. 

 The realm of inorganic Nature admits neither of preference nor 

 of distinctions. We cannot separate any portion of her laws 

 from the rest, and pronounce them alone worthy of obedience, 

 alone charged with the fulfilment of her highest purpose. On 

 the contrary, all her laws seem to stand co-ordinate, and the 

 larger our acquaintance with them, the more necessary does their 

 united action seem to the harmony and, so far as we can com- 

 prehend it, to the general design of the system. How often the 

 most signal departures from apparent order in the inorganic 

 world, such as the perturbations of the planetary system, the in- 

 terruption of the process of crystallization by the intrusion of a 

 foreign force, and others of a like nature, either merge into the 

 conception of some more exalted scheme of order, or lose to a 



