APPARENT ACCIDENT, WHAT? 25 



I must not, however, omit to tell you that, in my 

 deliberate judgment, it was only accident in appearance. 

 How many thousand persons before Newton had seen 

 an apple fall, with respect to whom the observation had 

 been altogether unproductive ? Besides the event of 

 the falling apple, there needed the simultaneous opera- 

 tion of various independent causes to render it an epoch 

 in the history of philosophy. It was necessary that it 

 should be observed by a man at leisure to pursue any 

 train of reflection that should thereby be suggested ; it 

 was necessary that it should be noticed by a man of 

 research, and that not as a lawyer, not as a theolo- 

 gian, not as an anatomist, a botanist, an entomologist, 

 or a chemist, but as a mathematical philosopher. It was 

 farther necessary that the observer should have a certain 

 fund of previous knowledge, and yet, that his mind 

 should not be pre-occupied. Had the falling apple been 

 observed by Newton when he was absorbed in his 

 admirable investigations concerning light and colours, 

 it might no more have led to the theory of universal 

 attraction and the perfection of physical astronomy, 

 than it would in the contemplation of the most illiterate 

 porter that paces our streets. Let us view these matters 

 aright. It is not chance, but previous design, that in 

 this and other similar instances, brings so many inde- 

 pendent circumstances into juxta-position ; just as in 

 the case of two travellers, one passing from London 

 northwards, the other from York southwards, meeting 

 on the way, the accident of their meeting is a necessary 

 consequence of the previous determinations of both 

 to start at a certain time, and to travel by the same 

 road. 



The practical inference we may draw from the whole, 



